Degree

Master of Business Administration Executive

Faculty / School

School of Business Studies (SBS)

Year of Award

2026

Advisor/Supervisor

Dr. Adnan Ahmed, Scholar in Residence, Department of Marketing

Project Type

MBA Executive Research Project

Access Type

Restricted Access

Keywords

Retail media, Attribution governance, Project Pegasus, Lower-funnel marketing, Pakistan E-Commerce

Executive Summary

This report analyzes attribution loss in Pakistan’s expanding digital retail media ecosystem, with a focus on WPP Media Pakistan. As brands allocate more budget to closed platforms like marketplaces and quick-commerce apps, agencies and advertisers lose access to transaction data, attribution logic, and actual sales impact. This study assesses how attribution opacity affects WPP Media Pakistan’s budget control, client advisory capabilities, and lower-funnel media effectiveness. It introduces Project Pegasus, a privacy-safe attribution governance framework aimed at improving measurement confidence and decision-making. The methodology involved secondary research, theoretical analysis, five semi-structured expert interviews, and pilot testing in skincare and haircare categories during April–May 2026. The analysis applied Platform Theory, Attribution Theory, and Economic Theory to examine platform control, biased attribution, and information asymmetry. Findings indicate that retail media is gaining prominence in Pakistan, but platform reporting remains incomplete. Key gaps include limited visibility into attribution rules, SKU-level sales, assisted conversions, cross-channel impact, and incrementality. Interviews confirmed that weak attribution can distort budget allocation by over-crediting lower-funnel platforms and undervaluing upper-funnel demand creation. The Project Pegasus pilot showed positive results. On a normalized PKR 1.5 million budget, Pegasus generated approximately PKR 2.81 million in implied sales and achieved a blended ROAS of around 1.87, compared with benchmark ROAS of approximately 0.78. This sharper result indicates stronger sales efficiency and better lower-funnel performance. The report recommends that WPP Media Pakistan reposition itself as a full-funnel commerce intelligence and attribution governance partner rather than solely a media execution partner. Scale Project Pegasus through platform bifurcation, add-to-cart visibility, aggregated conversion reporting, benchmarking, and incrementality testing. In conclusion, Project Pegasus can help WPP Media Pakistan enhance attribution confidence, strengthen client trust, support better budget decisions, and gain a competitive advantage in Pakistan’s evolving retail media market.

Pages

x, 82

Download

Available for download on Monday, January 01, 2029

The full text of this document is only accessible to authorized users.

Share

COinS