Ace Hardware's RedVest Media: Notes From My Interview With Molly Hjelm
Ace is "wonderfully late" to retail media—but that's by design. She's watched everyone else make mistakes, and now she's ready to pounce.
I first met Molly Hjelm at RMN Ascendant in Silicon Valley, where she joined me and Austin Leonard from Dollar General on a panel about career paths in retail media. What struck me immediately was her approachability and candor, which was also combined with a killer instinct for data and timing.
She's said in other interviews that Ace is "wonderfully late" to retail media—but that's by design. She's watched everyone else make mistakes, and now she's ready to pounce.
Here are some highlights from our conversation that didn't make it into my full profile in my column for The Drum (which you can read here ).
Retail Media Should Boost The Merchant's P&L
Most retail media networks talk about not being a "tax" to advertisers. Molly's talking about something different—she's making the case internally that retail media should be a tool that helps merchants hit their KPIs.
Instead of merchants seeing retail media as competing for vendor dollars, they see it as marketing that solves problems price promotions can't fix:
- New product sitting on shelf not hitting trial targets? Media drives awareness to the right customer segments
- Facing tough year-over-year comps? A coordinated media burst shores up those numbers
- Need category growth, not just share shifting? National media drives incremental foot traffic
The key is showing it works. Molly's built reporting that shows merchants both macro impact (total sales driven by retail media year-to-date for their department) and micro wins (individual campaign results). When merchants can see incremental sales showing up in their numbers, the conversation shifts from "you're cluttering my site" to "here's a challenge we can solve together."
Why Ace Went All-In With Epsilon (And Isn't Hiding It)
While most retailers treat their tech stack like classified information, Molly is openly sharing that Ace partnered with Epsilon for their entire platform (onsite, offsite, and in-store).
Her reasoning: "I think advertisers are tired at this point and are leery of retailers building technology, building UI/UX, and building highly customized measurement within their walls."
The promise: brands get a mature, seamless portfolio that fits into existing workflows. No learning a proprietary portal. No retailer grading its own homework. Real-time, third-party measurement benefiting from decades of programmatic best practices.
This isn't a one-size-fits-all prescription. Molly acknowledges retailers who've already invested in data science teams, CDPs, and publisher relationships need different approaches. But for Ace, starting with a blank slate, the all-in-one solution made sense.
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In-Store Media: Starting With Print
Despite all the hype around digital screens and programmatic in-store, RedVest Media is launching with printed shelf signage.
"Everything old is new again," Molly said. "We're not breaking any molds here."
Ace Hardware has a unique co-op structure: thousands of independent store operators are already testing audio systems and screens on their own. "It's almost like there are all these microcosms of testing happening," Molly explained. "We can hear firsthand what their experiences are, what their pain points are."
This matters because:
- Consolidated retailers face enormous capex to install screens across their fleet at once
- Ace can learn from what's working in individual stores and scale selectively
The Toxic Dynamic Of Unrealistic Growth Projections
Molly shared how unrealistic projections has created toxic environments at other retailers.
"You can be growing a healthy business, doing the right thing by partners, and have an executive team or merchant team looking at it like it's a failing business because it's not hitting expectations that weren't realistic to begin with."
When she evaluated the Ace opportunity, her number one question was: what are the company's expectations for year one? The response: "You come in and you tell us."
That breathing room changes everything. It's the difference between:
- Building partnerships that drive advertiser growth vs. quarterly fire sales
- Consulting with clients vs. pushing products you've been told to sell
- Growing a healthy business vs. chasing unrealistic targets
Why Hardware Requires Extra Brand Education
Many brands selling through Ace don't realize they have budget buckets beyond traditional trade marketing.
"My stakeholders right now think they have one bucket of money," Molly explained. "They're not accustomed to advocating for national dollars or e-commerce dollars. Sometimes, unbeknownst to them, those budgets exist within their organization."
This creates a different challenge than grocery, where CPG sophistication around retail media is high. Molly's having to educate both internally (helping merchants understand how media works) and externally (helping brands access budget pools they didn't know existed).
Wrapping Up
Molly kept coming back to this: retail media should be a precision tool to solve business pain points using data. Not a tax. Not a revenue extraction machine. A tool that shows up in the merchant's P&L because it drives incremental sales.
"Advertisers can feel if there's a lot of pressure internally to grow at all costs versus the breathing room to grow at a good pace and do the right thing by your partners."
Further Reading
From my other retail media leader profiles:
- Brian Monahan's 'Bloody Obvious' Bets Are Shaking Up Albertsons Media Collective - How a former agency founder is pushing grocery retail media beyond sponsored product ads
- Inside Austin Leonard's Plan For Dollar General Media Network - Why rural America's 90 million shoppers represent retail media's next frontier
- Best Buy Wants To Become An Ad Platform, Not Just Another RMN - How category specialists can become infrastructure for the entire industry
