Luxury retail plays by different rules. When customer expectations are sky-high, brand integrity is sacred, and every click must feel premium, building a retail media business is complex. In this fireside chat, Karen Jophy, Marketing Leader for Luxury, Fashion & Beauty at Ounass, and Ned Samuelson, VP of MCM Business at Moloco, explored how Ounass launched a new onsite retail media platform designed for the luxury customer, powered by AI, driven by precision, and built to protect Ounass’ brand experience.
The Bottom Line
Luxury retail media demands precision and restraint. Ounass and Moloco showed how AI and automation can scale without sacrificing elegance, proving that personalisation, premium context, and data transparency enable retail media in the luxury category.
The Takeaways
Retail Media Can Be Premium If It’s Built for Context
Ounass didn’t set out to replicate mass retailers’ retail media model. Its mission was to build media that feels as premium as the brands it serves. For luxury partners, that meant protecting the customer journey from clutter and ensuring every ad felt like part of the brand experience.
“It was important that retail media still fit our luxury environment — that brands could show up without obstructing the customer journey.”
By combining contextual placement, brand-safe adjacencies, and a deep understanding of category nuances, Ounass demonstrates that retail media can add value without distraction, even in highly curated environments.
Personalisation Without Intrusion
For luxury shoppers, relevance is expected. Jophy called personalisation an absolute non-negotiable, describing it as the reason top-tier brands agreed to participate in retail media at all.
“We wouldn’t have launched retail media if we weren’t able to personalise the experience. Luxury customers want to feel seen and heard.”
Powered by Moloco’s ML-driven engine, Ounass ensures ads reflect customer intent and brand tone, not just transactional logic. The result is retail media that enhances, rather than interrupts, the luxury experience.
Data That Strengthens Relationships
In luxury, trust between retailer, brand, and shopper is paramount. Jophy shared how the program’s greatest success wasn’t just high ROAS — though Ounass achieved around 450% — but giving partner brands visibility and insight they’d never had before.
“For the first time, our luxury brand partners are getting market insights — understanding incrementality and customer behaviour.”
With AI handling the complexity, teams are freed to focus on what matters: storytelling, service, and sustained brand connection. As Jophy put it, AI doesn’t replace the human touch — it enables it.
A QUOTE TO REMEMBER
“If you let machine learning do your business-as-usual tasks, it frees your team to focus on what really matters: building brand awareness, relationships, and trust. Those are things AI can never replace.” — Karen Jophy, Ounass
