Marketeers take a walk down the shopping aisles

In the current economic crisis, marketeers are reinstating their faith in the shopping aisles of supermarkets and shopping malls.

As clients question the effectiveness of advertising in conventional mediums, indoor advertising in supermarkets is gaining support and popularity.

This was supported in a recent study carried out by Booz and Company.

"Everybody has to shop so you are reaching out to people who are shoppers. They are there for a purpose," said Karim Sabbagh, a partner at Booz and Company.

Marketers, retailers and media companies have attempted to make in-store advertising a bigger part of the marketing mix with more sophisticated vehicles than traditional cardboard displays or coupons.

Today, video adverts in outlets are more targeted, with programming aimed at particular shoppers, on the basis of where they are in the shops, the promotions on nearby displays and the time of day.

In support of the finding, Bejoy Thomas, head of marketing and advertising at Abu Dhabi Co-operative said: "In-store advertising has always been a very affective means to reach out to targeted audience. In fact, we are often overbooked for space and keenly accommodating as many requests from our suppliers as they are well aware of its reach and effectiveness."

Shops over the years have in fact evolved the in-store advertising potential and have gone beyond simple danglers and "bus-stop" posters that are placed next to the products offering special deals.

"We even introduced a dedicated publication for our readers called Capital Talk, in English and Arabic and that offers extended advertising opportunity for reaching out to our customers," said Thomas.

"In addition, Adcoops, which is the largest market share holder in the capital has also introduced AV screens and live gondolas that are luring our shoppers with live activities. This is a step beyond the conventional promotional girls that give out products and leaflets," added Thomas.

Spinney's too had a dedicated publication called Living in the Gulf for their customers and after more than five years in circulation has now been developed into a new publication called Food – luring a different set of potential advertisers.

Some shops have intelligent shopping carts that direct customers to specific products, based on what they scan into their cart; while next-generation in-store advertising will allow shoppers to request information via their mobile phones or kiosks that provide product advice, help consumers make choices, and make it easier for people to find what they're looking for.

Most of these in-store experiences currently only exist in prototypes.

To become ubiquitous, the media and marketing ecosystem – marketeers, agencies, media companies, and technology companies – must address three important challenges. Marketeers and retailers must find the right mix of creative content and technology to reach consumers in a meaningful way. Second, the metrics that measure in-store advertising effectiveness need to reach the same level of sophistication and standardisation that exist with more established media. Finally, marketeers must integrate in-store advertising programmes with other promotions and campaigns.

"As these are addressed, in-store advertising will transform the retail environment and the advertising industry, and will reconfigure marketers' advertising budgets, their overall approach, and some of their strategic assumptions about reaching consumers," said Gabriel Chahine, a partner at Booz and Company.

Advertising spend in traditional media grew by less than two per cent annually during 2006/2007, while online advertising spends grew by more than 20 per cent annually.

The web takes more advertising dollars than cable TV or radio, demonstrating marketers' desire for greater targeting, interaction with consumers and measurability.

A similar trend is the move from so-called measured media, such as advertising, to "below-the-line" marketing categories, which already tops spending for most product categories in the US, and is growing more than three times as quickly, with six percent annual growth.

In-store advertising promises to attract substantial marketing investment as it transforms the way brands interact with consumers. Since people make most purchase decisions at the shelf, in-store advertising will reach them just before the "moment of truth".

"In-store advertising can increase the effectiveness of a marketing campaign by "activating" promotions and sponsorships by making them click in consumers' minds," said Sabbagh.

Today, marketeers can advertise on in-store video networks spanning thousands of screens that reach more consumers than major broadcast networks.

These ads can increasingly be targeted to a specific aisle or a specific time of day, while targeting by geographic market will allow more granular delivery of marketing messages, reaching specific sets of consumers with the greatest likelihood of buying the product, based on income and demographics.

In-store advertising's growth will come from marketeers seeking to develop integrated campaigns in terms of overall "video spend".

For other marketeers, "alternative out-of-home spending" will continue to increase as media in outlets such as health clubs or transportation hubs become more prominent, and more digitally enhanced.

Shopper marketing budgets that tap into promotional spending to drive consumer behavior in the store will increasingly in¬clude video ad networks as a component.

"In-store advertising often signifies an expansion in the overall marketing mix, with most spend to date coming from below-the-line budgets, rather than taking from above-the-line media spend¬ing," said Chahine.

Some media companies are already benefiting from the rise of in-store advertising by supplying content, and in-store media can become an important component of the editorial portfolio. National cable and magazine players in some categories can extend their brands and deepen their position across multiple media platforms, while creating richer opportunities to develop integrated campaigns with leading advertisers. They can offer advertisers ways to reach consumers across a variety of digital touch points at once: at home, shop and on the go.

In-store video advertising offers advantages over TV ads. With just one channel – it's less likely the consumer will be multitasking across media platforms and is likely to pay more attention to the messages, while shopping, than when watching TV or surfing online.

"It can also help stop consumers being confused in complex categories eg digital cameras, when many walk away without making a purchase," said Chahine.

The transition needed for the new advertising environment is yet to happen, and still follows traditional practices of mass-market television such as producing video segments that are too long.

Networks and their partners will need to invest in creative work that is fully customised. Other forms of in-store advertising could become as targeted and relevant as the ads that appear next to internet results.

MediaCart has designed shopping carts that take in consumer data when shoppers scan their loyalty cards into handheld scanners in Wakefern's ShopRite stores. Previous online shopping lists linked to their loyalty card will help consumers find listed items more easily, and will inform them when items they bought in the past are on sale.

"Interactive systems will link promotional displays and kiosks to consumers' mobile phones, and people interested in learning more about a product could text for additional information," said Sabbagh.

Information on a product might show up on the phone when a consumer moves past a "smart" display.

Accountability. Initial trials on the impact and effectiveness of in-store video advertising suggest it can significantly increase sales.

Until recently there were no standard metrics for audience delivery that could help negotiate ad sales contracts or optimise the performance of campaigns. Traffic data is available only at store level, not shelf or aisle level, and existing research efforts do not provide the systematic, standard sets of metrics available for established media. A consortium of CPG manufacturers and retailers banded together in 2007 through the In-Store Marketing Institute to create a new joint initiative called Pioneering Research for an In-Store Metric (Prism), selecting Nielsen as the partner.

Prism is ready for commercial rollout as a syndicated data service from Nielsen's in-store media unit.

Prism provides reach and frequency metrics for brand messages across a set of retail media touch-points including endcaps (displays at the end of each aisle), pallet displays and display packaging among others.

Brand advertising messages on TV can be tracked by time of day (daypart), media type, and geographic market; similarly, Prism enables tracking of in-store media at the brand level by "store part," media type, daypart, and region.

Prism enables the comparison of in-store media with other media and links in-store media back to POS results. There is significant potential for CPG manufacturers to integrate brands more effectively into the store.

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