New Flywheel Report Shows How Brands Can Turn Fragmentation into a Competitive Advantage
The Big Shift outlines how a Total Commerce approach can connect media, retail, trade and consumer engagement as shopping journeys become increasingly complex.
BALTIMORE, July 14, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Flywheel, a leader in commerce and technology solutions and part of the Omnicom (NYSE:OMC) Integrated Media offering, today released The Big Shift: From Managing to Mastering Fragmentation, a new white paper examining how AI-powered search, social commerce, retail media and organizational silos are reshaping the way brands drive growth.
While 80% of consumers (OM Research, Connected Commerce 2024) now take a non-linear path to purchase, many brands still manage media, retail, trade, and shopper marketing through separate teams, budgets, and performance metrics. According to Flywheel, that disconnect leads to wasted media investment, missed sales opportunities, unmeasured promotional impact, and reduced organizational agility.
The report argues that brands must adopt a Total Commerce approach, a business model that unifies consumer discovery, retail activation, media investment, trade planning, and measurement into one operating system focused on business outcomes rather than channel performance.
"The way consumers discover and buy products has fundamentally changed," said Mike Feldman, SVP Commerce at Flywheel. "A shopper might discover a product through a creator, research it through an AI assistant, purchase it through a retailer marketplace and pick it up in-store, all within a few hours. The brands winning today are not treating those moments as separate channels. They are organizing around one connected consumer journey."
The report notes that TikTok generated $33.1 billion in gross merchandise volume in Q1 2026, surpassing eBay and demonstrating how quickly discovery and purchase are converging on a single platform.
The report identifies three forces accelerating the fragmentation challenge:
- Consumer discovery has fundamentally changed. Social platforms have become primary discovery engines, with 73% of Gen Z and 67% of Millennials (Salsify, 2025) citing social media as their main source for learning about new products. Nearly half of social media users have also used influencers in their purchase journey.
- AI is becoming a new discovery channel. Thirty-six percent of consumers, including 45% of Gen Z and 51% of Millennials (OM Research - GEO Update April 2026) say they have shifted most of their searches from traditional search engines to generative AI platforms.
- Retailers have become media companies. Retailers now operate advertising businesses, premium content platforms and closed-loop measurement capabilities that increasingly connect media exposure to purchase behavior.
The report arrives as marketers grapple with many of the same trends that dominated conversations at this year's Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity, including creator commerce, retail media, and AI-powered discovery. Against that backdrop, The Big Shift emphasizes the continued importance of physical retail, arguing that while discovery increasingly happens across creators, AI, retail media and connected TV, the shelf remains one of the most critical moments in the consumer journey.
"The physical shelf is still one of the most important moments in commerce, but it is no longer where the consumer journey begins," said Phil Camarota, Chief Creative Officer at Flywheel and President of the Cannes Lions Creative Commerce Jury. "By the time a shopper reaches a store or product page, they have already been influenced by creators, retail media, reviews, AI recommendations and countless other touchpoints. The brands that succeed are creating one connected experience, across all those moments."
The report also highlights Flywheel client Danone's "Become a Home'Rista" campaign as an example of Total Commerce in action. Built around the insight that many consumers believed barista-quality coffee required professional expertise, the program connected influencer content, retail media, digital shelf activation and in-store experiences across multiple retailers. The campaign generated 641 million impressions and multi-brand halo sales across Danone's portfolio.
Ariel Dalton, Head of Strategic Insights, Planning & Connected Commerce at Danone shared: "We uncovered what we call the 'barista gap' and built a campaign that inspires consumers to recreate and elevate the coffeehouse experience at home. The success of this campaign demonstrated the power of pairing a compelling consumer insight with the strength of Danone's portfolio, to deliver a daily ritual that feels both elevated and unique to the consumer. What began as a pilot in 2025 has evolved into one of our flagship programs, scaling across multiple retail activation nationwide.
"Fragmentation leaves brands with a simple choice: manage it or master it," Feldman said. "Brands that own consumer journeys across channels, orchestrate with retailers around shared outcomes and align internally around one set of goals will create competitive advantage. The brands that master fragmentation will define the next era of commerce."
About Flywheel:
Flywheel, a leader in commerce and technology solutions and part of the Omnicom (NYSE:OMC) Integrated Media offering, provides best-in-class service that combines tailored expertise with advanced software solutions to help clients drive incremental sales, market share, profitability, and measurable commerce growth.
A leader across major marketplace platforms, Flywheel combines global scale and influence with a customized, client-centric approach designed to deliver impactful business outcomes. Client success remains at the center of the company's mission.
With operations across the Americas, Europe, APAC, and China, Flywheel is widely recognized for the scale of its retail media capabilities, while delivering value across the entire commerce ecosystem. The company helps brands navigate the evolving commerce landscape through integrated solutions built to accelerate growth and performance.
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SOURCE Flywheel Digital