Retail media’s next frontier? Peter Zavecz and Ed Couche target $17bn ag spend with new venture

Retail media might be booming, but according to industry veterans Peter Zavecz and Edward Couche, the most valuable audiences are still being overlooked.

The pair have launched Works Media Group, a specialist retail media business targeting agriculture and trade sectors, in a deliberate move away from what they see as an increasingly saturated consumer market.

Both bring deep retail media experience. Couche founded Shopper Media, later acquired by Woolworths (Cartology), while Zavecz previously led News Corp (Victoria/Tasmania) and Pacific Magazines. 

That experience has shaped a clear view of where the category is heading - and where it isn’t.

“The world doesn’t need another retail media network in the shopping centre world,” Couche told Marketing-Interactive. “That space is already being done - and done very well - by some major retailers.”

Instead, Works Media Group is taking an audience-first approach, focusing on segments that are harder to reach, transact frequently and carry significant commercial value.

That thinking has shaped its launch partnership with Elders, with a national digital out-of-home network now rolling out across more than 250 rural supply stores.

The initial focus is on Australian farmers, a group Couche describes as both high-spending and underrepresented by metropolitan media thinking.

“There’s around half a million ag workers in Australia,” he said. “They’re running family businesses, and on average spending around a million dollars a year on their farms. That’s a lot of purchase decisions and a lot of big-ticket items.”

Beyond core farm supplies, the opportunity extends into automotive, financial services, insurance and a growing wave of ag-tech, including cloud-based management tools, drones and robotics. Zavecz said the sector is undergoing a fundamental shift.

“Sensors, robotics... it’s a brand new environment. There's an industrial revolution taking place with the farming sector,” he said.

Despite that, both founders argue these audiences remain poorly served by traditional media.

Retail media networks have largely been built around shopping centres and mass consumer environments, while regional media infrastructure has thinned out over time, creating a gap in how these audiences are reached.

“There’s not much competition out there,” Couche said. “When you look at it through that lens - hard to reach, high value, frequent transactions - it just makes sense.”

The second pillar of the business, Tradeworks Media, will target tradespeople through wholesale environments such as electrical, plumbing and building suppliers, spaces where professionals transact multiple times a day, but are largely invisible to mainstream retail media.

“Everyone talks about Bunnings, but that’s not where the trade is doing most of its work,” Couche said. “These guys are in wholesalers, workwear stores, trade counters - that’s where the real activity is.”

For brands, the appeal is not just reach, but context. Unlike traditional retail environments, both ag and trade settings are highly trusted, advice-driven spaces, where purchase decisions are often shaped in real time.

“Farmers are sceptical,” Couche said. “But they’re also in environments where they’re actively seeking information, talking to peers, getting advice. That’s a very different context for messaging.”

That opens the door to more tailored and dynamic content, from commodity pricing and weather alerts to localised messaging tied to events such as floods or fire warnings, an area the company sees as a future opportunity.

The business has spent the past year in development, working through proof-of-concept rollouts and securing commercial partners before coming to market.

It launches with a team drawn from Shopper Media, News Corp and regional media, and plans to scale rapidly, targeting 20 staff by the end of the year.

Couche said the ambition is not to replicate existing retail media models, but to redefine where and how they operate.

“Retail media networks are tipped to hit $3 billion by 2027,” he said. “But we didn’t build this to be another player in that space. We built it to reach communities where business actually happens.”

Works Media Group launch partners including Ford, RB Sellars, McGregor, IMAR Insurance, NuFarm, Bayer and Pioneer Seeds.