Retail/advertising: SEJ, Dentsu, CyberAgent to form JV

Research evidence excerpt

Retail/advertising: SEJ, Dentsu, CyberAgent to form JV

12 June 2026

Calls from major retailers for Dentsu to add retail media to the Cross Media Planner

tool it offers advertisers have been increasing by the day, and we believe such multi-

directional currents helped turn into reality what once seemed unthinkable—Dentsu and

CA partnering in advertising to meet client needs and expand the market. We view this

as an extraordinary move and expect no further developments for the time being. At the

same time, the view that "whoever controls retail media controls the advertising market"

remains unchanged, and we thus expect Dentsu and CA to remain the market leaders.

Additionally, while a 10% stake in a venture targeting sales of just over ¥20b may at first

glance appear to offer little fruit, the announcement also calls for external sales of the

ad delivery system. We see potential benefits from capturing the industry standard as

well as possible earnings contributions from future work outsourced by Seven-Eleven Ad

Connect, specifically planning work to Dentsu and creative production and ad distribution

to CA.

Reference reports:

10 October 2025: Conference report: Retail Media Summit 2025 (2): Reconfirmed trend

of cutting TV ad spend to boost retail budgets

9 October 2025: Conference report: Retail Media Summit 2025: Entering long-term

growth phase, market to grow to ¥1t by 2035

15 July 2025: Big Data Conference 2025: budget shift to retail media: New era as Unerry

enables precise data analysis

10 October 2024: Conference report: Retail Media Summit 2024: Inaugural conference

connects managers from retail, manufacturing, advertising

24 April 2024: Retail/ad industry: growth time for domestic retail media: Restraints on

retail media will also restrain digital advertising