RetailCraft - digital retail, ecommerce and brands - Retail Podcast

Three sides of the table: building a retail media business on a fashion platform
In conversation with Pedro Roche, Director, Strategy and Offering, Zalando Marketing Services

Positioning
This conversation is for brand and commerce leaders who sell through platforms and want to know how a retail media unit earns a seat with the CMO and CFO rather than staying inside the trade budget. Pedro Roche has worked on all three sides of the table: brand (L'Oreal), agency (L'Oreal's Website Factory programme, then AKQA) and now platform (Zalando). He explains how trust, a shared goal and measurement turn a media sales conversation into a growth partnership, where AI is making campaigns faster and more accessible, and what Zalando wants its partner brands to say about it by 2028.

Key themes
  • Three sides of the table. "Pedro started in marketing at L'Oréal in Germany, then led UK sales at Schwarzkopf Professional, where trust with salon partners had to be earned through technical expertise, not pitched. He then moved to the agency side, and now sits on the platform side. Each position shows him what the other two need.
  • Trust before pitch. He starts with the partner’s problem, not his own agenda. Next comes a common goal and a structured roadmap with a tangible outcome to work back from. His systemic coaching and mediation training is the toolkit to effectively lead through ambiguity and conflict. The ‘sell’ becomes a means to an end. 
  • Fashion retail media is inspiration-led. In supermarkets, he says, retail media starts with the shopping list. Zalando shoppers arrive with a purpose (a child's winter wardrobe, new runners, an anniversary outfit) but first need inspiration. That gives brands the opportunity to present themselves in a curated environment. 
  • From trade budgets to brand budgets. Trade terms typically fund lower-funnel sponsored ads and stay with trade teams. ZMS and the fashion store teams now sit down with CMOs, CFOs and trade together to orchestrate launches across the whole funnel, unlocking six- and seven-digit budgets for single campaigns.
  • Measurement is the precondition. On-site measurement is strong and ROAS steers campaigns, but incrementality is what Pedro calls the holy grail. Joining up on-site, creators, CTV and offsite requires data clean rooms and integrations that need procurement, legal, security and engineering sign-off. After five-plus years unlocking on-site, ZMS is now turning to offsite and to media and performance agencies.
  • AI as a second layer between tent-pole moments. Brands plan big seasonal campaigns about twice a year, so micro-trends and overstock go unserved. ZMS is launching AI-generated campaign assets that go live within six days as a managed service, launching  next year in the self-service space for immediate turnaround. Brands will upload their brand books to keep identity consistent and ultimately pay only for media, making smaller creative campaigns highly accessible and instrumental to better steer their assortment sellout.
  • Always on is the upside. Pedro sees the value in staying connected to relevant shoppers all year without additional budgets, and in reaching revenue and GMV targets with more confidence.
  • Agentic commerce looks different in fashion. An agent can handle a known pair of runners, but a wedding outfit still needs an inspiration layer. Agents depend on structured data, and Pedro points to Zalando's 18 years of shopping behaviour, its own AI assistant and partnerships with OpenAI and Google.
  • The 2028 test. Pedro wants partner brands to see ZMS as Europe's strongest growth platform for fashion and lifestyle. That means giving them levers (a max CPC, the ability to exclude the 20 percent of articles with the highest returns) and delivering proof. He says ZMS's goal is the brands' profitable growth, not its own revenue.

What you'll learn
  • Why a retail media pitch that starts with media space stalls, and what to open with instead
  • How the buying conversation shifts when brand marketing and finance join the trade team
  • Why fashion retail media depends on inspiration as much as intent
  • What stands between a platform and credible cross-channel incrementality
  • How AI is cutting the time and cost of campaign assets, and what that allows brands to do between big moments
  • Why fashion agentic commerce still needs an inspiration layer, and what agents need from retailers
  • The levers brands should expect a platform to hand them if profitable growth is the goal


Chapter structure

| Time | Chapter
| 00:00 | Welcome and framing: Zalando's scale and the Marketing Services unit
| 01:00 | Pedro's role and the numbers: 52 million annual customers, 7,000+ partner brands
| 02:37 | The route in: L'Oreal, Schwarzkopf, coaching, Hyper Island
| 04:32 | A digital layer on a physical business
| 06:25 | Brand, agency, platform: sitting on all three sides
| 12:51 | What brands need to hear: trust, listening, a common goal
| 15:49 | Why a fashion platform differs from a convenience marketplace
| 19:38 | The sceptical CFO: moving beyond trade budgets
| 25:31 | Measuring incrementality across on-site, creators, CTV and out of home
| 29:03 | What AI makes easier: micro-trend campaigns in days, then hours
| 33:44 | What gains value: always-on presence
| 35:50 | Agentic commerce and fashion
| 38:25 | Where ZMS wants to be by 2028
| 41:00 | Close

About the guest
Pedro Roche is Director, Strategy and Offering at Zalando Marketing Services. He has been at Zalando for almost five years and joined the retail media arm a little over a year ago. He studied business in Germany and France and spent about 15 years in consumer products, starting in marketing at L'Oreal and Schwarzkopf and moving into UK sales. He trained as a systemic coach and mediator, then took a second masters in digital management at Hyper Island in London. On the agency side, he led delivery of L'Oreal's Website Factory programme and later worked at AKQA Berlin (WPP).
Host: Ian Jindal is Founder and Editor-in-Chief of RetailX.

Quotes
"We do not see retail media as just the last click ROAS calculation." 
"I should never start with my own agenda. I should start by simply listening to what their challenge is." 
"I'm not trying to sell you media space, because that won't take me anywhere." 
"In supermarket stores, I think retail media starts with the shopping list." 
"It's the inspiration level that plays a foundational role for us." 
"We are no longer only talking trade budgets." 
"What is interesting long term is the view on incrementality. That's where we see the holy grail." 
"If I need to pick an outfit for a friend's wedding, the inspiration layer still needs to happen." 
"The agents will only be as good as the data that supports them." 
"Our goal cannot be our own revenue as a business at Zalando Marketing Services. Our goal needs to be profitable growth for the brands." 

--  Run time: 41 minutes
INFORMATION:
[ 🖥️ ]
Zalando Marketing Services: https://www.linkedin.com/company/zms-zalando/
[ 👨‍👧 ]
Pedro Roche: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pedroroche/ 
Ian Jindal: www.linkedin.com/in/ianjindal/ 
[ 📷 ]
(c) Ian Jindal / www.instagram.com/ianjindal
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Creators and Guests

Host
Ian Jindal
Founder of RetailX and CustomerX
Guest
Pedro Roche
Director of Strategy and Offering, Zalando Marketing Services

What is RetailCraft - digital retail, ecommerce and brands - Retail Podcast?

Multichannel retail, ecommerce and digital business - interviews, analysis and discussion with Ian Jindal and InternetRetailing