In-Store Media – Some Thoughts On How It Works

Gwen Morrison, CEO, The Americas and Australasia, The Store
Presented to the CARF Workshop - Effectiveness of High-Tech In-Store Media – May 21, 2008

Traditional advertising media have become fragmented to the point where it is difficult, if not impossible, for a brand to generate awareness and brand preference. At the same time, owner consolidation in the retail industry has reduced the number of retailers – but not the retail outlets – and in-store media has gone through a major evolution. With the advent of digital technology, in-store media has become better, cheaper, more compelling and more pervasive while traditional shelf talkers and product signage have all but disappeared at the point of purchase. In-store media now reaches customers in numbers that compare to broadcast media, and retail has become the new media frontier.

Gwen Morrison says that over the past few years thousands of digital screens have been deployed in stores all over the world allowing brands to reach a captive audience right where most purchase decisions are made – in-store. However, retailers and media owners have not yet learned to maximize the sales potential of these in-store media. Morrison contends that there is a difference between consumers, which can be defined along demographic or psychographic lines, and shoppers who are in buying mode when they enter a store. She suggests that the owners and buyers of in-store media need more experience to help them learn to utilize these media in ways that benefit the shopper, not the consumer.

Morrison says that The Store, a WPP company, has identified several areas where in-store media owners and media buyers can benefit by recognizing several basic concepts:

• Remember there is a difference between a consumer and a shopper. You may have time to influence a consumer, but you have only a few seconds to influence a shopper.

• Put the right message in the right place. The ultimate benefit of in-store media is that you can target shoppers in specific departments, at the point of purchase decision. Too many media operators run advertisements in a loop where the shopper may see ads for products that are not within view of the screen, or promotional ads may run at the check-out counter long after the shopper has passed the corresponding product display. More flexibility in delivering messages to specific screens will be required to use in-store media efficiently.

• Deliver the right message at the right time. One of the great advantages of in-store digital media is its ability to customize promotional offers to the types of shoppers in the store at any given time. For example, a brand using electronic shelf talkers can dispense one type of coupon to price-sensitive seniors who may be shopping on a Tuesday morning but offer a different coupon from 4 to 6 PM to hurried shoppers more focused on meals and convenience than on price alone.

• Inspire the shopper. In addition to the time and place where in-store media are effective, advertisers need to recognize the context in which shoppers are involved. Shoppers who browse brands in the electronics or the wine section of a store are looking for solutions, ideas and value and will respond to media that is inspirational, not just informational.

• Plan in-store communications around the shopper. Much experimentation is happening to develop the best formulas for the 10-second spot in a retail setting. While guidelines for creative approaches in a retail environment are being developed, the media user must focus on the role of the media. Is the digital media being used to entertain and thus immediately engage the shopper, or is it being used for purchase activation? Is it being used to lift brand awareness or to lift brand sales?

To help quantify some of the observations on how in-store media work, The Store is one of many contributors to an initiative called PRISM – Pioneering Research for an In-Store Metric – that is being lead by the In-Store Marketing Institute (www.instoremarketer.org). For some details on recent PRISM data and how it can be used see www.instoremarketinginstitute.org/article/analyzing-PRISM-data
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