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A major change is happening in advertising - retail is rapidly becoming a media and forward-thinking companies position themselves to acquire their share of future budgets from advertisers. Amazon was one of the first to focus on retail media, and other large players such as Walmart and Kroger are implementing their competitive strategies. Experts predict that retail advertising will form several specialty media markets across various sectors; all of which provide efficient and specialised audiences for advertisers to reach.
What’s inciting this disruption, and why is now the right time?
The steep growth of e-commerce, combined with the global effects of Covid-19, has led retailers on a mission to uncover new revenue sources to improve their overall margins. Marketing data collection and usage will change as 3rd party conglomerates such as Google and Apple are revamping their online cookie privacy policies. These sudden shifts force retailers to re-examine their business strategies.
Fortunately for retailers, they are sitting on a gold mine. The ownership of first-party data and key insights of their customers provide a massive opportunity ripe for monetisation. The ability to measure the effects of advertising with actual on-site sales forms a closed loop that is unrivaled in the media industry.
In-store advertising is at the heart of the transformation
“The last mile” of the customer’s journey has been a focus of retailers for years now and they’ve invested billions of dollars into developing the point-of-purchase experience. Discovering new ways to utilise these existing assets is a strategic issue for all retailers in the age of digitalisation. As retailers already have the customers in their stores, they can monetise these audiences without additional investments in customer acquisition and with a fraction of the usual media cost.
In-store advertising can be delivered to target audiences on any existing digital screen (or loudspeaker, in case of audio), not just on dedicated digital signage screens in stores. And using audience insight allows advertisers to target precise audiences at the right time in the preferred location and with customised messaging. This “unfair advantage” of the closed-loop data empowers retailers to target campaigns and measure the impact of advertising with precision and on large scale.
The multi-faceted business model for in-store advertising
To begin, retailers can target the advertising of their brands and services with precision. Secondly, by offering self-service tools to their trade partners, retail can start earning substantial revenue with audience inventory. And by opening this audience inventory to all advertisers through direct sales or with a media sales partner, retail can build new media to support the core business. To complete the cycle, utilising programmatic sales channels allow optimization of inventory to secure maximum yield.
At the heart of these business models is the valuable audience insight which is owned by the retailer. By continuously developing the data collection and analysis process, you’re able to ensure efficient ROI for advertising and maximise audience-based media strategies.
Doohlabs is an in-store advertising automation platform. We enable all the above business models that allow retail to start earning new revenue right away. Advertise your brand, digitalize trade marketing, open your inventory with a media sales partner, or do all the above - we got you covered.
