Walmart Connect’s full-funnel ambitions come into focus, with Amazon in its sights

Walmart Connect doesn’t seem to want to just be seen by the market as the best retail media network anymore, but a top overall ad business.

There are already indicators of this new posturing: Walmart has been aggressively pulling its ads business upstream with more off-site ad opportunities and conversational AI agents — à la Amazon Ads. Walmart’s latest earnings call proves its efforts are working.

Walmart Connect, its ads business, grew 41% in the U.S. as reported in Walmart’s Q4 2025 earnings on Feb 19. That figure is up from its reported 33% growth in Q3.

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Media Buying Briefing: Dentsu’s new CEO on how he’s going to grow the business again

While the world of marketing and media keeps a close eye on the Big Three holding companies — can Publicis keep up its impressive winning streak? How else can Omnicom wring value out of the IPG acquisition? Can Cindy Rose successfully reverse WPP’s downward trajectory? — something just went down in Japan that is expected to have a considerable effect on Dentsu’s fortunes.

Two weeks ago when Japanese-owned Dentsu announced its 2025 full-year earnings, global CEO Hiro Igarashi announced he was stepping down, to be replaced by Takeshi Sano at the end of March. Sano, who’s been with the holdco since 1992, most recently was CEO of Dentsu Japan (the holding company’s most successful division by far) and deputy global COO, which means he’s familiar with the current operations outside of Japan — and what’s not been going right.

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