Sam’s Club’s Harvey Ma on Transforming Retail Media into Retail Experiences

Omni Talk’s Chris Walton and Anne Mezzenga caught up with Harvey Ma, VP and GM of Retail Media at Sam’s Club MAP, at Groceryshop 2025 in the VusionGroup’s podcast studio. Harvey shared how Sam’s Club MAP is revolutionizing the retail media landscape by shifting focus from traditional advertising metrics to immersive, measurable experiences.

From Digital Vendor Marketing to Retail Experience Networks

With 15 years in the retail media space, Harvey has witnessed the evolution from what was once called “digital vendor marketing” to today’s sophisticated retail media networks. His journey spans Target, Nielsen IQ, Albertsons Media Collective, and now Sam’s Club MAP, where he’s pioneering something entirely new: the industry’s first retail experience network (RXN).

The shift from retail media network to retail experience network isn’t just a rebrand. It represents a fundamental change in how Sam’s Club MAP approaches advertising and member engagement. Harvey explains that club members shop differently than mass retail shoppers, driven by the treasure hunt mentality and desire for surprise and delight. Rather than focusing solely on impressions, clicks, and return on ad spend, Sam’s Club MAP is betting on creating memorable experiences that can be measured and attributed over time.

🔑 Key Innovations Driving the Strategy

Meeting Members Where They Are

Harvey shared a compelling example of this approach: Sam’s Club MAP purchased a race car to drive market penetration in Nashville ahead of their Lebanon club opening. Starting at the Wilson County Fair, they offered free race tickets (equivalent to two years of basic membership) to new sign-ups. The activation included race simulators, a country music concert in the Sam’s Club parking lot, live vacuum cleaner demos, and the opportunity to pump up actual Indy car tires. Every touchpoint was measured, resulting in significant new member acquisition and non-member engagement.

Personalization at the Membership Level

Sam’s Club MAP has developed a tool called Omni Impact that operates at the individual membership level, combining multi-touch attribution (not just last-touch) with moment-of-engagement tracking. This enables the team to understand which channels resonate most effectively with each member, recognizing that younger demographics gravitate toward Scan and Go for speed, while other members value the personal connection with cashiers.

Revolutionary App Platform

The recently launched app platform represents what Harvey calls “a dream come true” for retail media. It enables interactive display units with sound and motion, endless scroll dynamic units, and the ability to serve relevant ad units during curbside pickup—including prompting members to add one more item to their basket. The platform also unlocks one-to-one personalized conversations with members across their entire journey.

Real Experiences, Real Results

Sam’s Club MAP transformed Sam’s Club’s physical spaces to support this experience-driven model. By removing traditional check lanes, they freed up floor space for members to actually engage with products—throwing footballs, riding bikes, playing pianos, and trying on jewelry. These aren’t just displays; they’re measured experiences that tap into what makes shopping at Sam’s Club fun and memorable.

Looking Three to Five Years Ahead

Harvey outlined three strategic pillars for the future of retail media at Sam’s Club MAP:

1. Measurement: Developing new ways to measure engagement from innovative experiences like the race car activation, creating measurement frameworks no one else has attempted
2. Experiences Over Metrics: Moving beyond clicks, ad units, search, and display to focus on what truly engages members
3. AI and Automation: Leveraging AI for consistency and quality in campaign execution, reducing human error while augmenting human capabilities, and preparing for agent-to-agent transactions

Harvey emphasized that AI will ensure campaign quality remains consistent regardless of campaign manager tenure—like ensuring a Frappuccino tastes the same in Bentonville as it does in Vegas. Beyond consistency, AI will make teams smarter and enable deeper thinking, ultimately paving the way for fully automated agent-to-agent transactions.

The Bottom Line

Sam’s Club MAP redefining what retail media means. By prioritizing measurable experiences over traditional ad metrics and leveraging their unique membership model to track behaviors over time, they’re creating a blueprint for how retail media should evolve. As Harvey noted, at Sam’s Club MAP, “everything is on the road map”—and more importantly, they actually execute on it.

🎧 Want to hear the full conversation? You can also listen via your favorite podcasting platform:

Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music

Be careful out there,

– Chris, Anne, and the Omni Talk team

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