Published July 8
Even while sipping rosé at Cannes Lions, it was hard to miss the latest splash in retail media connected TV advertising. On June 23, Walmart announced it is acquiring Vibe.co, a self-serve CTV ad platform, for $1.2 billion, according to The Wall Street Journal. (It reportedly paid another $180 million to retain top Vibe.co execs for another four years. Woe is them.)
The deal is a massive statement of intent. Of course, it is depending on regulatory approval, but Walmart anticipates the deal to close by the end of fiscal year 2027.
If anyone still thinks Walmart is just a place to buy laundry detergent and patio furniture, it is time to wake up. Walmart is building an ad tech empire, and it just bought another missing piece of the puzzle, a year and a half after it completed its acquisition of Vizio.
The ultimate retail stack
How is this good for Walmart? Think back to 2024 when Walmart dropped $2.3 billion to buy Vizio. That gave it the hardware, the operating system and a mountain of automatic content recognition data. Buying Vibe.co gives them the activation layer. Vibe.co has been referred to as the “Google Ads of streaming” because it allows advertisers, even smaller ones, to set up campaigns, invoke automated bidding and get live on premium TV in minutes.
By plugging Vibe.co directly into its commerce media platform, Walmart Connect, Walmart could solve its biggest scaling problem: the long tail. Walmart’s third-party marketplace sellers are eager to grow, but traditional CTV buying requires massive minimum spend commitments that price smaller brands out. This acquisition democratizes streaming television, turning premium video into a self-service, performance-driven sandbox for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs).
A frictionless play for buyers
For SMBs, the barrier to entry for CTV is lowered; the bet is that they’ll now be able to run streaming TV campaigns with the same ease they may expect to find elsewhere.
More importantly, it unites Walmart’s deterministic shopper data with Vibe’s cross-device identity graph. Buyers can now target actual shoppers based on real-time purchase behavior and immediately measure closed-loop retail outcomes on television screens. It bridges the gap between upper-funnel brand awareness and real-time checkouts.
If you don’t believe me, take it from Walmart itself: “By combining Vibe.co’s self-serve CTV platform with Walmart’s commerce audiences, closed-loop measurement and growing media ecosystem, including VIZIO, Walmart Connect aims to help more advertisers launch CTV campaigns and better measure their business impact.”
The walled gardens square off
Competitively, this appears to be a direct shot across Amazon’s bow. Amazon has long dominated retail media CTV by pairing Prime Video inventory with shopper data, including for the tens of thousands of SMBs selling products on Amazon. Walmart just created a frictionless alternative that competes head-to-head.
For independent DSPs and publishers, the walls of the retail gardens are growing higher and thicker.
The great land grab
This deal is part of a frantic, industry-wide jockeying for control over the future of television, as the streaming and retail media landscapes merge at breakneck speed.
SVOD platforms like Disney+ and Netflix are aggressively scaling their ad tiers, and the former has already tried integrating shopping into the streaming experience, while Amazon has swept across the ecosystem. Media companies and tech vendors are consolidating: Fox Corporation recently bought Roku for $22 billion, marrying content with a massive CTV footprint and distribution arm. Mediaocean snapped up Innovid; Pinterest acquired tvScientific; and Viant bought TVision Insights. The Trade Desk is building its own smart TV operating system, Ventura.
Everyone is trying to do the exact same thing: Own the infrastructure, secure first-party identity data and make television look, feel and convert like digital performance media. Walmart’s move signals that the next phase of advertising is about owning the entire pipeline end to end.
This op-ed represents the views and opinions of the author and not of The Current, a division of The Trade Desk, or The Trade Desk. The appearance of the op-ed on The Current does not constitute an endorsement by The Current or The Trade Desk.
June 23Vanessa Otero
