Innovation Summit 2025

THE BRIEF

Co-sponsors Hitachi, Informatica, Mirakl and Sierra wanted to engage with key retail decision-makers working in technology, digital and innovation roles at the UK’s leading retailers.  

They were eager to showcase their thought leadership and position their company as an industry authority, engaging the summit’s full delegation to build brand credibility and generate high-quality leads. 

They also wanted to benefit from face-to-face networking with retailers from target companies, to develop new connections and strengthen existing customer relationships. 

THE SOLUTION

Returning for 2025 was Retail Week’s Innovation Summit, a full-day conference bringing together stakeholders from across the retail ecosystem to share best practice, workshop challenges, and build connections – helping to map out their business transformation plans for the year ahead.  

The summit opened with a keynote speech from Holland & Barrett chair Alex Gourlay, who shared insight into the innovation-driven growth strategy of the retailer.  

Eight content sessions, four dynamic roundtable discussions and five networking breaks engaged audiences and offered a prime opportunity for partners to get in front of key retail decision makers, giving fresh takes on themes including:  

• What’s worth the investment when it comes to visionary retail stores.

• How smart retail can unlock peak performance.

• 2025 friction-busters – how data can drive seamless customer engagement.

• How to future-proof ecommerce businesses through marketplace strategies.

• Retail media: maximising insight and unlocking new revenue streams.

• The Budget overview: Retail Week’s perspective. 

• Capturing the value of innovation-led cultures.

• How to reimagine brand reach through innovation.

Over 50 retail decision makers joined the summit on the day, including senior names from Allaints, B&Q, Currys, Iceland, John Lewis, Kingfisher, Sainsbury’s, Sky, Tesco, The Very Group and more.  

Campaign marketing included:  

• A comprehensive email marketing campaign.  

• A dedicated event portal with partner branding.  

• Social content across Twitter (94k+ followers) and LinkedIn (76k followers).

• Native advertising on retail-week.com.

• A 12-week marketing campaign to our database of retail professionals.

Co-sponsors benefited from an intimate closed-door networking opportunity, valuable lead generation, thought leadership on stage to the full delegation, and brand awareness via the successful multichannel marketing campaign.