Deichmann moves media planning in-house with AI platform All Eyes On Screens

Deichmann, the German footwear chain that operates more than 4,600 stores across Europe, is restructuring its media planning and shifting operational control in house. The company has signed with All Eyes On Screens (AEOS), a German AI media technology firm, to deploy its AEOS OS (AI media operating system) as the technical backbone of a new internal media unit. According to Horizont, which first reported the agency implications of the move, the arrangement suggests a shift in planning responsibility away from Mediaplus, the agency that has long held the Deichmann account. The precise scope of Mediaplus’s remaining mandate has not been disclosed by either party.

The trigger was a pilot campaign. Deichmann used AEOS OS to plan and execute a television campaign for Graceland, one of its own brand labels. According to both companies, the campaign delivered results they describe as above relevant benchmarks. That outcome was enough to formalize the arrangement. Deichmann’s internal media unit now operates AEOS OS as a managed service.

Why the agency model no longer fits Deichmann’s needs

The structural argument behind the move is data latency. A retailer operating at Deichmann’s volume, with more than 4,600 stores and footwear categories running on short promotional cycles, generates media signals faster than a traditional agency planning cadence can process. Thomas Wrobel, Senior Vice President at Deichmann, described the new agreement as a response to media decisions that need to move at “the same speed” as the content operation. That is a specific complaint about how agencies are built, not a general endorsement of AI tools.

AEOS OS addresses the latency problem with Vodafone viewing data drawn from more than one million German households, covering both linear television and streaming. Rather than separating planning from optimization, the system is designed to run both in a single environment. When linear television reach falls short of a defined threshold, the platform is designed to redirect budget to other channels to compensate, a function AEOS calls geobalancing. Campaigns can be measured against business outcomes defined by the advertiser: return on investment (ROI), revenue growth, customer acquisition cost.

What Mediaplus loses and what it keeps

According to Horizont, the move has direct consequences for Mediaplus’s position on the account. AEOS CEO Marin Curkovic is explicit that the company does not function as a media agency. The platform is positioned as an operating model for advertisers that want direct control over budget decisions, with agencies retaining buying and execution roles where an advertiser still chooses to use them. How much of the Mediaplus relationship survives in execution is not confirmed by either source.

A template other large retailers will read carefully

The trend toward bringing media planning in house is not new, but the AEOS OS deployment clarifies what it looks like at the level of a large European physical retailer with a fragmented video environment. Linear television share is declining everywhere in Europe; streaming adds reach but complicates measurement; retail media and performance channels compound the planning surface.

Deichmann’s argument is that no external agency can optimize across that combination fast enough, because the data required to do so in real time sits inside the advertiser, not the agency.

That framing has precedent in the consumer packaged goods sector, where brands including Procter & Gamble and Unilever rebuilt programmatic and data capabilities in house from around 2017 onward. Deichmann’s move follows the same logic applied to a European specialty retail context, which also covers sports shoes. The company spent recent years building internal competency in content and social media, and is now extending that model to paid media.