Retail media review: Why we buy

I have just been reading why we buy and felt the need to recommend it to the users of retail media. It is not intended to be a book about retail media and so some practitioners may not have come across it despite its age. The title suggests that it talks about why we buy, but in fact it talks about how to position media and product so as to be effective advertising.

On caveat is that the author does tend to conflate fact and opinion, so it is important to make sure to separate them out as the book progresses. If one takes his facts, uses them to produce actions and then measures their effects then it is possible to gain a lot from the book. If instead one takes the authpr's word for what the facts mean should be done, and does them in an uncontrolled manner then the result will be at least as bad as can be expected.

Another thing the author does is describe the way in which his company has set about measuring things within the retail environment. Some of it is so straightforward that is can be copied. Some of it is not. Providing care is taken to avoid the McNamara Fallacy then some useful gains can be made out of measuring the simple things and one might even do well employing experts to measure the more difficult things.

In summary this book, why we buy, the science of shopping is worth reading as a light read, as a source of interesting factoids and as an inspiration to do things with your retail media that might make a difference.

Rufus Evison