Mike built the *Walmart Smart Network,* the retail media network that lived on endcaps and eye-level screens across thousands of stores and delivered the reach of a Super Bowl a week. Walmart deinstalled it around 2015, and the reason had almost nothing to do with technology.
In-store retail media is the fastest-growing piece of every retail media network right now, and almost nobody knows this happened once already, nor do they understand the lessons history can teach us to avoid.
Ricardo Belmar and Casey Golden talk with Mike about the merchant and marketing fight that killed it, the ex-Microsoft team who built an in-store ad server before the term existed, the five A's he uses to design in-store retail media content, and why he's convinced the timing is finally right. Mike's new book is *Timing the Desert: A Front-Line Perspective on Retail Media, Readiness, and Scale,* with a foreword by *Andrew Lipsman.*
If you build, buy, or sell in-store retail media, or run a retail media network, this is the history nobody wrote down that you want to learn from!
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*Retail Razor Show S6:E11*
*Released on September 1, 2026*
*Guest info*
*Mike Hiatt.* https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikehiatt/
_Founder & President_ of *Dynamic Retailing.* https://dynamic-retailing.com
*Author.* Timing the Desert: A Front-Line Perspective on Retail Media, Readiness, and Scale._ https://a.co/d/07IJTQQS.
Mike Hiatt is the president of Dynamic Retailing. A retail media consultancy focused on helping technology solutions providers work more effectively with retailers and assisting retailers better execute retail media strategies inside their stores. He is on the advisory boards at Venvee and Blue Zoo; he recently authored the business book _Timing the Desert: A Front-Line perspective on Retail Media, Readiness, and Scale,_ which focuses on Hiatt’s experiences working at Walmart, Triad Retail Media, and Sam’s Club as well as key insights about where in-store retail media will land in the future of retail. Hiatt graduated from Brigham Young University with a degree in Advertising Management.
*Chapters*
0:00 The Rise and Fall of Early In-Store Networks
0:39 Retail Media: The Hottest Line Item Today
4:07 Meet the OG of Retail Media: Mike Hiatt
6:02 The Early Days of In-Store Screens
12:10 The Friction Between Merchants and Marketers
17:35 Timing the Desert: A Parable for Retail
29:00 Sales vs. Business Development: The Nuance
46:24 The Five A's of In-Store Media Content
#RetailMedia #InStoreRetailMedia #RetailMediaNetworks #DigitalSignage #Walmart #RetailTech #ShopperMarketing #CommerceMedia #RetailInnovation #RetailPodcast
#retail #RetailTech #RetailRazorShow #retailstrategy #RetailRazor #RicardoBelmar #CaseyGolden #MikeHiatt #RMN #instoremedia