One path leads toward a world where commerce signals inform all forms of advertising. The other keeps it as a distinct vertical defined by first-party data, proximity to consumer experiences, and owned surfaces to monetize against. The fork in the road is do we go towards more of this everything-becomes-commerce-driven media, or is it really just this special vertical within the advertising ecosystem?” Collin Colburn, vp of Commerce and Retail Media at IAB, told Beet. ” What’s less fine, in Colburn’s view, is the fragmentation that has accumulated as the ecosystem expanded in every direction at once. Creators and retail media fill each other’s gaps The convergence of creator marketing and retail media is one of the more structurally interesting developments Colburn sees emerging from IAB’s Playfronts week.