DVJ Insights Wins MRS Media Research Award for Groundbreaking Retail Media Study

London, 4 December 2025 – DVJ Insights has won the MRS Award for best Media Research, recognising its pioneering work in redefining how retail media is understood and optimised. In partnership with Cyreen and Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, the study not only showed that in-store advertising drives sales but also revealed a powerful creative multiplier, showing that creative quality is the deciding factor in retail media effectiveness.

Retail media is one of the fastest-growing advertising channels in the world, yet uncertainty around how to best use the channel has long held brands back. DVJ’s award-winning research helped close this gap through an innovative combination of individual-level exposure tracking and large-scale creative effectiveness testing. Leveraging Cyreen’s innovative C.A.P. technology, where smart in-store screens detect nearby shopping carts and link delivered ads to anonymised receipt data, we were able to directly connect in-store exposure to actual sales. By evaluating creative quality across more than 50 campaigns, we revealed the true multiplier effect of strong creative in driving in-store impact.

The results were conclusive: exposure to digital in-store advertising increased sales by +8.1% on average, with significantly stronger effects for new products and well-known brands. But the most striking finding was the creative multiplier. Top-performing ads delivered a +265% higher sales uplift than weaker creatives, proving that creativity is the single biggest driver of return on retail media investment.

Jori van de Spijker, Global Head of Brand & Communication, comments, “Winning the MRS Media Research Award is a great recognition of the work we and our partners have done to bring real clarity to retail media. For years, advertisers have invested heavily in this channel without truly understanding what drives its impact. Our research shows, with real behavioural data, that retail media works and that creative quality is the biggest driver of success. I’m proud of the impact it is already creating for brands around the world.”

Marieke van Echtelt, Global Managing Director, adds: “This recognition reflects the strength of DVJ as a global organisation. We have built teams across markets who combine academic thinking, commercial understanding and an ambition to make research genuinely useful. Wins like this show what happens when those teams work together with a shared focus on quality and impact. I’m incredibly proud of how our people bring that mindset to clients every day, and of the culture that allows us to keep innovating while staying true to our values.”

DVJ’s work transforms retail media from a black box into a strategic, measurable, and creative powerhouse. The findings have already influenced major advertisers. Brands have shifted creative strategies and increased retail media investment based on the results, supported by clear guidelines on what drives attention, memory and purchase behaviour in store.

About the MRS Awards

The Market Research Society (MRS) is the world's leading authority for the research, insight, marketing science and data analytics sectors. The MRS Awards celebrate the most outstanding work in research, insight and analytics. The awards recognise projects that set new standards for quality, innovation and commercial impact, highlighting the organisations and teams that push the industry forward. Winning an MRS Award is considered one of the highest honours in the research community.