Retail Media vs Big Tech: Who Really Wins in 2025?
What happens when a Zomato hustler-turned-retail media leader decides to take on Asia Pacific’s ad tech game?
On this episode of Trillion Dollar Ads, I sit down with Prashant Kala, who started his career in the early days of Zomato and now runs the ads business for Agoda across Asia Pacific. From building teams at ShopBack to shaping how travel brands, marketplaces and even non-endemic players think about retail media, Prashant has seen it all. We talk about his journey, the shifts in ad tech since 2011, and why Southeast Asia is now hitting its retail media hockey stick moment.
If you’re curious about retail media growth, AI-driven ads, and the future of ad tech in Asia, this one’s for you.
Table of Contents
Discussion Topics: Retail Media vs Big Tech
- Zomato to Agoda: Retail media’s wild journey
- Is Southeast Asia the next retail media boom?
- Why e-commerce ads don’t always kill user experience
- The hockey-stick moment for retail media growth
- Three moves shaping ad tech’s future right now
- Offsite advertising: The hottest play in digital marketing
- DSP dilemma: Build in-house or partner smart?
- Four secrets to scaling ad businesses successfully
- Can single-country retail media reach massive scale?
- Retail media vs Google, Meta, TikTok: Who wins?
- Clean rooms: Why conversions aren’t adding up
- Attribution trap: Why CMOs still struggle with measurement
- Non-endemic brands cracking travel advertising campaigns
- What keeps retail media leaders awake at night
- AI precision ads: The future of digital marketing
- Why the next two years decide retail media
Our Guest: Prashant Kala
Commercial leader with 15+ years of experience scaling e-commerce, retail media and digital platforms across APAC. Currently leading Agoda’s media solutions, driving growth through innovative advertising strategies globally. Passionate about the intersection of technology, travel, advertising and building high-performing teams that thrive in multicultural environments.