From Storytelling To Selling: Creative Is Now Merchandising

In the rapidly evolving world of digital commerce, creative is taking the lead role in commercial performance.

For too long, creative has been static in the world of retail media and commerce. Native ads that evolved from search listings to sponsored ads, showing product images and lacking any form of real creativity.

That era is over.

The rise of retail media networks, dynamic marketplaces and now AI-driven shopping, has flipped the creative discipline on its head. Today, creative is no longer just a container for ideas. It is a commerce system, the mechanism that decides what product shows up for which shopper, with what story, and at what moment of buying intent.

In this new reality, creative is merchandising. Ads aren’t just ads anymore, they are the shelf, the product, and the sales person. In fact, according to Dell Research published in WARC, creative is twice as important as ad placement in driving the performance of display ads.

Consumer behavior is also changing, no longer flowing neatly from awareness to consideration to purchase. The funnel is collapsing into something more immediate: A shopper sees a short video, a product carousel in a feed, or an AI-generated recommendation and the decision is made right then and there.

This sentiment is echoed by many throughout our industry, including Digiday stating the “rise of retail media networks” has led advertisers to chase full-funnel strategies across programmatic, CTV and social; the shift is away from legacy funnel only into immediate commerce-enabled experiences. 

Every surface is shoppable. Every impression is a potential point of sale. And that means every creative must perform across all stages of the funnel in real time:

• Upper funnel creative must inspire and differentiate, while still enabling action.

• Mid-funnel creative must help shoppers compare and choose, without making them leave the content.

• Lower-funnel creative must reflect live price, stock, and availability, so it can actually close the sale.

If any of those layers are missing, shoppers drop off - something brands can no longer afford.

On-Site and Off-Site: Where Creative Sells

On a retailers website, creative now functions as the digital shelf. If the hero creative doesn’t grab attention or reflect the exact SKU a shopper will receive (right size, right finish, right price), opportunities are missed and conversion tanks. Most product choices are emotional, sparked by what people see, not what they think. So creative must be attention grabbing and truthful to what’s actually purchasable.

Off-site - across the open web, social platforms, search responses, and streaming TV environments -creative becomes the storefront. The job isn’t simply to interrupt attention but to escort the shopper into the purchase moment. Ads must adapt themselves to different environments and intent signals to turn attention in to action. 

The creative that wins now understands:

• who is shopping

• what they want

• what’s in local stock

• how to best persuade

• where to take them next

This is more than advertising, it’s digital merchandising. If brands want to win in a competitive commerce world, they must invest in creative that is built for the full funnel, grounded in real-time data, and capable of selling from the very first impression.

A closing thought: An article in The Media Leader states that retail media “doesn’t need more ads; it needs smarter creativity”.

Because creative doesn’t just tell a story anymore. It decides what gets sold.