Engagement Brief: Competitive Pursuit for a Retail Media Platform

Company context (who you are, what’s at stake)

You are a Strategy & Analytics Lead at Orion Growth Partners (OGP), a 1,200-person digital transformation and data consultancy with a strong reputation in cloud data platforms and marketing analytics. OGP has historically won large deals in CPG analytics and customer data platforms (CDPs), but has been trying to expand into retail media networks (RMNs)—a fast-growing category where retailers monetize on-site and off-site ad inventory using first-party shopper data.

OGP is in a final-round competitive pursuit for a multi-year engagement with NorthBridge Retail Group (NRG), a US-based omnichannel retailer with:

• $18.4B annual revenue (FY2025)
• 1,050 stores across 34 states
• $5.2B e-commerce GMV (28% of total)
• ~22M loyalty members, with ~9.5M monthly active authenticated shoppers
• A growing advertising business called NorthBridge Media currently generating $110M/year (mostly on-site sponsored products via a basic vendor)

NRG’s CEO has mandated that NorthBridge Media reach $300M/year within 24 months to offset margin pressure in core retail. The CMO believes the fastest path is to modernize the RMN stack (ad serving, measurement, audience, and self-serve buying) and to expand off-site (social, CTV, programmatic) using first-party audiences.

This is a high-stakes deal for OGP:

• Deal size: $22M–$30M over 3 years (services + managed operations)
• Strategic value: a flagship RMN reference client that could unlock $100M+ pipeline in the next 18 months
• Competitive risk: losing would reinforce the narrative that OGP is “strong in analytics, weak in media platforms.”

Strategic situation (why now)

NRG has issued an RFP for a partner to design and implement a Retail Media Platform and operating model. The RFP is driven by four pressures:

1. Cookie deprecation and rising CPMs have increased brand demand for first-party retail audiences.
2. NRG’s current vendor can serve sponsored product ads on-site but lacks robust incrementality measurement, self-serve tooling, and off-site activation.
3. Brands are consolidating spend with RMNs that provide closed-loop measurement and standardized reporting.
4. NRG’s merchandising teams worry that aggressive ad monetization could degrade customer experience and conversion.

NRG has shortlisted three finalists:

• OGP (you): strong data/measurement + cloud modernization; weaker perceived ad-tech depth.
• AdTech incumbent A (“SkyBid”): leading sponsored ads platform with many retail clients; expensive; rigid roadmap.
• Global SI B (“TitanWorks”): large delivery capacity; strong procurement relationships; tends to win on “safe hands.”

NRG will select a winner in 3 weeks. A board update is scheduled in 5 weeks, and the CEO wants a signed SOW before that meeting.

What NRG is buying (scope)

NRG’s RFP asks for:

• Platform build: audience segmentation, identity resolution, ad decisioning, reporting, and APIs
• Measurement: ROAS, new-to-brand, incrementality testing, and in-store attribution
• Self-serve portal for brands and agencies
• Off-site activation using first-party audiences (walled gardens + open web)
• Operating model: sales enablement, campaign ops, governance, and privacy controls

NRG prefers a partner that can deliver a Minimum Viable Network (MVN) in 6 months and scale to full capability in 18 months.

Data points provided (use these in your analysis)

1) Current NorthBridge Media performance

2) Advertiser demand signals (NRG survey of 120 brands)

3) Economics and constraints

• NRG target: $300M media revenue in 24 months
• NRG capex budget for platform: $8M (year 1)
• OGP internal constraint: must maintain 35% gross margin on services
• NRG security requirement: SOC 2 Type II for any hosted components; data must remain in NRG’s cloud tenancy
• Legal constraint: must comply with CCPA/CPRA and state privacy laws; explicit opt-out enforcement within 7 days

4) Competitive intel (from your BD team)

• SkyBid is proposing a mostly “out-of-the-box” stack with a 9-month timeline; they are pricing at $12M year 1 plus rev-share.
• TitanWorks is proposing a 6-month MVN but with heavy staffing (120+ FTE peak) and a broad transformation narrative.
• NRG’s CTO is skeptical of vendor lock-in and wants modular architecture.

Your role

You are asked to lead the final-round pursuit strategy and prepare the partner pitch. You will have 45 minutes in the interview to walk through your approach.

Candidate deliverables (what you must do)

1. Market sizing & growth math: Size the realistic revenue opportunity for NorthBridge Media over 24 months and identify the key growth levers (pricing, inventory, advertiser count, off-site mix). Show the math and assumptions.
2. Competitive analysis: Compare OGP vs SkyBid vs TitanWorks. Use at least one structured framework (e.g., Porter’s Five Forces, SWOT, or “where-to-play/how-to-win”).
3. Pursuit strategy: Propose a concrete strategy to win the pursuit—positioning, differentiators, proof points, and how you would de-risk NRG’s concerns (timeline, lock-in, measurement credibility).
4. Offer design: Outline what you would put in the SOW (phases, deliverables, staffing model) and how you would price it to meet OGP margin constraints while staying competitive.
5. Executive narrative: Draft the 6-slide storyline you would present to NRG’s CEO/CMO/CTO to secure the win.

Constraints

• Decision in 3 weeks; you cannot propose a 3-month discovery before committing to a plan.
• You have access to 20 engineers, 6 data scientists, 4 ad-ops specialists, and 2 solution architects for the first 6 months (you can request more later, but NRG will evaluate feasibility based on this initial team).
• NRG will not accept a solution that requires moving customer PII outside their cloud.
• Any rev-share component must be clearly tied to incremental outcomes; NRG procurement is skeptical of “black box” fees.

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Interview note

This is a strategy case framed as a competitive pursuit. You are being evaluated on structured thinking, quantitative reasoning, and your ability to craft a winning, credible go-to-market and delivery plan under real constraints.