The In-Store Digital Media Opportunity for Retailers and Marketers

Laura Davis-Taylor of Retail Media Consulting recently spoke with eMarketer about innovative ways retailers and CPG marketers can tap into digital media to improve communication (and branding) with customers in stores. I find this fascinating at multiple levels — as a consumer and marketer.

We’ve already seen some digital advances with consumers at the mobile level. Aside from the increasing use of mobile coupons, the most publicized in-store innovation was the iPhone app Red Laser. Davis-Taylor looks beyond that:

People are starting to test mobile screens using symbology codes. That’s where consumers can take a picture of a code and information comes up on the screen for the product with that code. The information on the screen is whatever the marketer wants to place there.

If you download an application on your phone, you simply take a picture of a product with your phone and it brings up whatever the marketer wants to bring up. You can show a video, a quiz, offer a sweepstakes, a price or product comparison. It gives people an easy way to follow up on something. Wireless carriers are working on a product to aggregate applications for all the different types of symbology readers.

You can go anywhere you want and be anywhere, whether it’s a store, an event or looking at a billboard in Times Square, take a picture and get what you want. It’s referred to as call-to-action technology.

Another interesting possibility for retailers: A digital touchscreen or reader on the shopping cart.

Ms. Davis-Taylor: When you walk into the store, you would slide your Safeway or Kroger card into a scanner/reader device attached to the shopping cart. Then the retailer knows who you are and the screen greets you and a personalized shopping list comes up because you’ve already entered it at home on the computer or maybe you’ve entered it via an application to your mobile device.

As you walk through the store, the screen is directing you to the aisles that offer the items on your list. It also suggests additional items and sale items. The coupons you’ve downloaded from the PC to your shopper loyalty card and/or phone also show up. The screen on the shopping cart is important real estate.

That particular technology is in experimentation mode right now. I don’t think that’s really fleshed out. There are some issues with it. For example, how does the retailer deal with shopping carts left out in the rain? There is a price to outfit each cart with a screen. I’ve heard media cart talk but I’ve never seen anybody saying, “Hey, we’ve done it, we believe in it and we’re going to roll this out.

eMarketer: How does the marketer figure in?

Ms. Davis-Taylor: CPG marketers pay for the media opportunities in the store. I can’t tell you where it’s going to net out, but what I can tell you is that right now, almost everything they’re doing, whether it’s a one-way digital screen or an interactive kiosk, the marketers are almost always paying based on a CPM basis. There’s also been conversation among marketers about a pay-per-exposure model that is akin to search.

The retail chains are all looking at themselves in a new light. Chains such as Wal-Mart and Simon Malls are looking inside their stores and at every single opportunity for a CPG brand to market to their customer as a media opportunity. It’s like the store is a media kit and I did an inventory and then I charged according to the level of potential impact for sales.

The full version of this interview is available here, to eMarketer Total Access subscribers only.

What other ways are you using digital media to strengthen point-of-sale marketing programs? Please leave a comment and let us know.

Update: Speaking of “QR Codes” and Symbology in brand advertising, I just noticed this post about a recent Pepsi campaign which allowed customers to snap mobile photos of a Pepsi can marked with a QR code in order to receive interesting mobile content and promotions. Worth a look.