The future of advertising and retail digital signage

Adrian Cotterhill, editor of the Digital Out of Home Advertising Networks (DOOHAN) directory (published in the UK by The Screen, an industry body devoted to digital signage in Europe), posted a PowerPoint presentation on his blog, the Daily DOOH, focused on the status of retail digital signage in the UK, and where it might be headed.

The first few slides are pretty parochial and are obviously geared towards people as industry-savvy as the average reader of this blog might be, but the rest of the content is quite good. In particular I was pleased with his requirements for success (including such remarkably elusive things as clear strategy and vision and good content), and several pages of slides trying to convince the audience that digital signage really isn't like television. I wish people would get that.

On the heels of that presentation comes another, this time from IBM. Titled "the end of advertising as we know it (PDF link)", the 28-page report looks at the current state of the advertising industry and predicts that there will be more disruption to advertising in the next 5 years than there have been in the past 50.

The IBM report looks at a number of trends, like electronic inventory management, user-generated content and of course the rise of out-of-home advertising. In general, it's an excellent summary of where a big company sees the industry headed. They're not actually involved in the advertising industry, mind you, but with their fingers in so many pies and so much of advertising going towards high-tech these days, I found more than a few insights while reading it over.

If you have a few minutes today, do yourselves a favor and download these two reports.

Tags: digital signage, out-of-home advertising, OOH

Three trends in product packaging: make 'em easy, smart and green

A few months ago I wrote about a Wall Street Journal article highlighting some of the dramatic changes going on in the product packaging industry. Media fragmentation, changes in viewing audiences, measurement conundrums and everything but the kitchen sink are being held up by ad execs as excuses for why media budgets continue to spiral upwards while ad effectiveness declines. But when push comes to shove, eventually people have to buy stuff. And when they do, they're going to come face to face with product packages.

Realizing this, CPG companies have started packaging strategies to guarantee that their wares will practically jump off the shelves thanks to eye-catching package designs that communicate their product's benefits and stand out from the competition. Even AdAge, who's not exactly the most friendly group when it comes to below-the-line advertising practices, featured a couple of articles about packaging and product sampling, illustrating how important the First Moment of Truth (FMOT) has become for product manufacturers. For example, in a recent (really good) article on the subject, Allen Adamson of branding consultancy Landor Associates notes that:

If you don't have luck connecting with the audience you want as they sit in front of TVs or laptops, sooner or later they're going to show up in front of a retail shelf. That's a great segue to the second dynamic driving rekindled interest in packaging as a branding tool: the increasingly difficult time brands are having differentiating themselves in a sea of shelf clutter. Any brand research worth its salt will tell you that differentiation, together with relevance, is the most critical factor in brand success.

His advice? First, use strong design cues to both draw attention to the product, and tell a story about it. Some of his favorite examples include Apple's products and Evian water, which all use the package to illustrate qualities inherent to the product (simplicity and elegance for Apple, purity for Evian). More interesting examples include those where the package is an actual part of the product, and thus needs to market itself reflexively (for example, Campbell's Microwavable Soups or Nabisco's 100-calorie packs). Second, follow the key trends going on in the packaging world right now. That means that:

1. Green is good: Be environmentally friendly -- or at least less unfriendly -- and you can tout it as a feature!

2. Smart is good: Engineer packages that help consumers use your product (like Hellman's mayo in a squeeze bottle).

and

3. Easy is good: If I have to open one more damned razor-sharp plastic clamshell package, I'm going to quit your brand for good.

Manufacturers are already picking up on lots of these trends, but examples of packages that meet all three are still few and far between right now. As product packaging grabs more attention I expect this to change, especially when you consider that it's one of the more affordable ways to make a really significant marketing impact at the point of sale these days. For now, though, those companies that had the foresight to start paying attention to the above trends and redesign their packaging accordingly are enjoying benefits on the shelf that will be hard to match with additional spending on above-the-line ads.

Tags: out-of-home advertising, marketing at retail, product packaging

'Regis & Kelly' join Walgreens for in-store promotion

Advertising Age has reported that daytime television sensation "Live with Regis and Kelly" is teaming up with Walgreens to promote their Halloween special.

According to the article, "The stars of "Live With Regis and Kelly" always dress up for its annual big Halloween show, but this year, the Oct. 31 episode will be broadcast in 3-D. Viewers will be able to enjoy the special effect if they pick up the required 3-D glasses at the photo department of a local Walgreens store as part of an advertising and promotional deal."

Older, retirement-aged audiences are the bread and butter of this promotion. They are the folks that spend a little more time in stores like Walgreens as they develop pictures of their grandchildren and search for bargains on bar soap and detergent. That same group also makes up a healthy (and growing) portion of the 'Regis' audience. By promoting the 3-D special on the show, the network can drive traffic to Walgreens (a current 'Regis' advertiser), with a specific call to action (who knows, it could be the deciding factor between a trip to Walgreens vs. CVS for some consumers). On the flip-side, Walgreens shoppers that don't normally watch the show might notice the 3-D glasses and associated POP and decide to check the episode out, completing the circle.

In addition, this is yet another example of how the entertainment industry is moving towards less-conventional out-of-home advertising techniques. It's becoming obvious that ad execs are paying more attention to OOH advertising in a serious way as they populate stores like CVS, Duane Reade and Walgreens with ads and feature billboards buses and all sorts of other things as part of integrated campaigns promoting the new fall network TV shows. Take a walk through the heart of Manhattan and you don't need to be a TV exec to know what shows are debuting and when... you just have to look around.

And while 'Regis and Kelly' is already an early morning staple with tons of brand equity, this move does help with brand reinforcement, and offers a longtime advertiser the chance to maybe gain even more of the audience's mindshare. If it works, and people respond positively, expect other similar promotions to pop up. After all, if an admittedly un-exciting store like Walgreens can successfully pull off something like this, then practically any store can.

Tags: out-of-home advertising, OOH advertising, Walgreens

Deloitte study: in-store marketing growing faster than Internet

Deloitte Consulting just released the summary of a report conducted for the Grocery Manufacturer's Association with a truly remarkable finding. As neatly summarized in this Ad Age article, they claim that in-store advertising is growing at a faster rate than internet advertising.

The report finds that "shopper marketing has grown from 3% of the overall marketing budgets of the 19 package-goods manufacturers surveyed in 2004 to 6% this year. The manufacturers expect it to reach 8% of marketing budgets by 2010. That puts the compound annual growth rate for their shopper-marketing spending at 21%, faster even than spending on Internet advertising (rising 15% annually) and far faster than the 2% growth projected for spending on such traditional media as TV, print and radio."

This is obviously great news for the industry. But once again, the problem of measuring the effectiveness of in-store marketing is a concern, as Ad Age writes "Shopper marketing also has been hampered by lack of audience-reach measurements comparable to other media, which in turn makes it hard for marketers or agencies to make spending decisions or do post-campaign effectiveness analysis on shopper marketing the same way as for traditional media."

Of course, this may change significantly due to today's announcent from Nielsen about establishing a global ratings metric for in-store marketing. But more on that later.

The fact that in-store marketing is growing so fast without conventional ways to measure effectiveness like television, print or even the internet says a lot about the potential of this industry. Advertisers are obviously acting on a certain amount of faith by starting to push more and more in-store marketing techniques. They obviously see a great future in it and want to be among those to stake the biggest claim on the market whether they have all of the numbers to back it up or not.

The statistics from the Deloitte study also further the idea that a serious splintering of media habits is occurring in America. There is a kind of free-fall nature to the way advertisers are reacting to this, which has turned out to be a good thing for us, as it means that newer techniques of reaching audiences are being given more attention (and more money).

It's impossible to say which media platform is going to be the "big winner" several years out, but playing in the advertising market is not a zero-sum game. While our piece of the pie might be growing at a fast rate, the whole pie itself is growing too. The money for at-retail projects is still probably coming out of some other budget (whether tv, print, or Internet), but with practically every budget growing, there are few losers, just smaller winners.

Tags: marketing at retail, out-of-home advertising

CBS takes to grocery stores with a plan to brand deli meat

It's been a while since an article in Advertising Age has cracked me up, but how can you not laugh at a title like "Hey Deli Man, Can I Get a Pound of Ham, and Jimmy Smits?" What does it have to do with retail, you ask? Well, interestingly it looks like CBS has started a new campaign that will be featured, among other places, on packaging and containers at supermarkets across the country. Following up on a successful in-store campaign that involved laser-etching messages onto thousands of individual eggs, CBS will be slapping ads for their shows onto labels, stickers, boxes and bags for supermarket deli products, ensuring that the roughly 70% of supermarket shoppers that visit the deli, meat or seafood counters will have a chance to see their promotions. Even more cleverly, as the article points out, those who do take home a package emblazoned with the catchphrase for Two and a Half Men (or whatever) will be re-exposed to that message every time they open the fridge. And if you're like me and frequently forget about things you've put in there, it could be a while before that package of cold cuts finally disappears.

Apparently aside from trying to reach a different audience, CBS's nontraditional tactics have another advantage: they're cheap, especially when compared to the cost of producing and carrying TV commercials (which is kind of ironic considering that they own a major network). Given all the news of CBS's intent to purchase in-store TV company SignStorey, we can see that CBS is clearly concerned by increasing media fragmentation and the new challenges associated with reaching an audience.

While grocery stores have huge footfall and have a very broad appeal demographically speaking, I for one am still not quite sure I'd be more likely to tune in to CSI after glancing at a label while rummaging around for a snack. But there are probably plenty of people who will, and that's what CBS is counting on.

Tags: marketing at retail, out-of-home advertising, CBS

Retailers remember: if we look good, you look good

Sara Cantor, the Curious Shopper herself, has once again reminded me that I'll never really understand the way girls think. Specifically, it was this article that did it. Don't get me wrong -- with all of her usual flare for storytelling, Sara delivers some great shopping-related insights that have real, practical implications. But darn it, as much as I try, try, try to understand what people do in store, there are tidbits like this that I would just never think of:

If you want girls to buy your prom dresses, don't make them try them on in their white gym socks. Give them heels, for god's sake. They will look ten times better, and will be more likely to buy the dress. Who knows - they might even buy the shoes too.

What a nice cross-sell opportunity, and it apparently solves a problem that I never even knew existed. Granted the body of Sara's argument, namely that people will spend more when they look/feel better, is a much more well recognized and understood concept nowadays. In fact, retail anthropologist Paco Underhill has written entire chapters on how bad most dressing rooms are, and how many more sales would be completed if retailers would just spend a little money to make them look better (and by extension, make their customers look better, too).

But still, I'm apparently not spending enough time in stores really watching how other people shop. Case in point? Sara's own anecdote about buying glasses. This should be something I can relate to, I just bought a pair myself recently. And in fact, I went to three different places (long story, not too interesting though), and observed no fewer than a dozen other people shopping for specs too. Yes, everyone was looking in mirrors, and most tried on a number of pairs before settling on the right ones. But I didn't observe the ritual Sara describes. Apparently either that was too time-consuming for my audience, or maybe we just didn't have the same dedication to the task.

Or, after reading through my notes once again, maybe there's another reason: the dozen folks I saw shopping for glasses? As it turns out, they were all guys.

Tags: retail marketing, out-of-home advertising

Customers want the "in-store experience" to continue online

Lots of people have spent an unhealthy amount of time writing about the importance of the retail experience -- the environment, the products, the thrill of the hunt -- whatever it is that turns an average shopping outing into something a bit more unique, personalized and fun. In fact, shopping is increasingly become a pass time for many who will spend hours going from store to store even when they have no plans to purchase anything (so I'm told -- the concept is pretty foreign to me personally). But I was pretty surprised to find that online shoppers are starting to expect the same kind of "shoppers high" on the web as they do in brick-and-mortar stores. And as this article from the Retail Bulletin notes, with fickle shoppers easily able to bounce from one virtual store to the next, that's causing a lot of sleepless nights for the e-commerce gurus working behind the scenes at many of the most famous retail chains:

Customers demand an experience that is functional and easy to use. Tickbox.co.uk recently found that 90 per cent of users would happily switch to a competitor if a site fails to load. However, they also want to feel genuinely welcomed and see strong continuation of the brand they know and love. A visit to your web site should only further encourage the loyalty that your customers feel for you. As such, it should be remembered that online storefronts are now an integral part of the business for any retailer, and need to present themselves as much more than just an online catalogue of products. Every website needs to reflect the same brand values and aesthetics as your other customer touch-points, be it in store, via email or through your call centre.

With evidently such little brand loyalty, many retailers are turning to multi-channel programs that mix online loyalty features with calls to the brick-and-mortar stores where it's easier to stand apart from competition (and the competition is literally harder to get to than online). The article recommends using a web-based presence not just as a product catalog, but instead as a sales tool designed to provide a personalized brand experience, thus moving the traditional in-store experience into the shopper's home. The web can also be used to drive traffic to slower moving lines that might fit particularly well with the shopper's tastes depending on information collected as part of the aforementioned loyalty program. In the end, the article states, retail stores are still the best place to follow the 80/20 rule of sales (where 80% of sales are generated on the top 20% of products), but with the web there's now a cost-effective way to tap the "long tail" effect by connecting customers with ideal, though harder to find, products.


Tags: out-of-home advertising, retail marketing

Advertising Age offers advice for targeting college-age consumers

It's back-to-school time, and as practically any retailer will tell you, B2S is quickly becoming another critical season (maybe even second to Christmas). While college-age shoppers are notorious for being fickle and hard to target, this article from Advertising Age notes that their fondness for cable TV and web surfing is giving marketers much better control over how and when they show their ads:

When it comes to advertising, for example, students are just as much about viral marketing as they are about keeping it verbal. Two-thirds of students said they learn about new brands, products and services they would like to purchase from friends, with 61% citing word-of-mouth as their preferred method of communication. That's up considerably from 2004, when 48% said they prefer word-of-mouth advertising. Of the brands most important for students to share with their friends, movies and electronics are the two key categories, with 60% citing movies and 48% citing electronics, respectively.

"Word-of-mouth is possibly seeing more strength in the advertising category [because] it's not perceived by most college students to be an advertising platform or a marketing tactic," Ms. Skey said. "It's just an information source or a social media of sorts."

As a result, social-networking patterns have changed in the last three years as well among the college demo. Ms. Skey said students are maintaining fewer personal profiles across the many
social-networking options (down from an average of 17 in 2004 to 7 in 2007), but keeping more friends on average in less places. Essentially, they've already gone to the trouble of aggregating their potential audience reach for marketers hoping to reach them on MySpace and Facebook.

Both of these trends seem to indicate that it's going to be harder to optimize in-store media for this demographic as media choices continue to expand and (consequently) target specificity continues to improve. However, one thing that we do have going in our favor is that because our medium is place-based, it already has an extra degree of specificity that broadcast TV and even cable lack. Can we use the fact that our screens are in stores to better connect with this key demographic during this very important time of year (in the retail calendar, anyway... down here in Florida I'm personally waiting for the beginning of "yay, I can go outside again" season, which usually starts in late October).

I think the answer is yes, provided that the advertisers running content on the screens are willing to do a little more integration work. Many of these companies are already using social networking and word-of-mouth campaigns to build buzz and gain mindshare with 18-24 year olds need to extend these projects into the store on their POP displays, and of course their in-store media. The latter could prove especially beneficial, since they can be updated frequently to reflect the dozens or hundreds of minute changes that often take place in below-the-line efforts like organized word-of-mouth.

I've still yet to see advertisers jump on board with a truly integrated in-store advertising campaign, but as they continue to work harder to reach ever more elusive and media savvy demographics, it seems like it will only be a matter of time before this becomes commonplace.

Getting the store ready for pre-shoppers

Just a few months ago I did a blog on pre-shopping, citing a study that suggested around 2/3 of shoppers do some research online before making a purchase in-store. While 66% is certainly nothing to sniff at, compared to the amazing 89% that this Yahoo! study estimates (brought to my attention by this article at Retail Design Diva), it seems like a drop in the bucket. From the study:

• 
  Consumers exposed to online advertising are more engaged:
  Consumers exposed to display and/or search advertising viewed an
  average of six more pages during the period in which they were
  researching compared to those not exposed to advertising.

• 
  Almost 90 percent of the incremental sales generated by online
  advertising take place in-store: Consumers exposed to online
  advertising spent an incremental six dollars in-store for every one
  dollar spent online.

• 
  Integrated search and display campaigns have maximum impact:
  Combined search and display ad campaigns resulted in deeper engagement
  for consumers exposed to those ads, leading to increased sales.
  

In my own blog article on pre-shoppers, I focused on the importance of using in-store displays to better tune the brick-and-mortar shopping experience for pre-shoppers. For example, POP displays and digital signs can encourage a purchase or improve the perception of suitability of a product/brand by using an information-driven approach to allow shoppers to tick off items on their mental checklist. Likewise, making signage that can communicate a message in less than the 3 seconds that P&G estimates is available for a "First Moment of Truth" is essential to entice shoppers who already know most of the brand's promises from their research.

It's pretty hard to simultaneously optimize in-store POP for shoppers who know nothing about a product and shoppers who have done some research, but 90% of incremental sales generated by online ads take place in store, so we know that shoppers are getting armed not only with information, but also brand and product preferences long before they reach the store. One thing's for sure: staying on message for those last few feet and last few seconds before a customer makes a selection in-store will become increasingly more important.

Tags: out-of-home advertising, retail advertising, merchandising

Immersive Display Solutions and ZmmConnect present the Ad.mersion system

Maybe I'm starting to get old, but the more I see gimmicky advertising solutions like interactive floors, 3D holographic displays and immersive systems, the more quickly I immediately think "this will never catch on at-retail." Aside from some extremely cool-looking demonstrations, I just haven't seen many practical applications that use these kinds of things to do something unique, innovative, and genuinely useful.

Of course, every once in a while somebody like Reactrix - makers of some of the aforementioned interactive floors - will go and do something amazing like raise $45 million to place their wares into malls in hopes to sell advertising and sponsorship deals, but to me even that kind of seems like having more dollars than sense. Perhaps it's because I'm not the right target audience, and maybe getting kids to jump up and down and run after a spinning Nike logo on the floor really will help to build a connection between brand and budding consumer. But I'm going to need to see some data before buying into that.

Now on the other hand, I do think that these kinds of immersive technology may have a place in experiential shopping venues - those who put the brand and the experience front and center instead of focusing exclusively on selling products (and after doing a bit of research, it seems that David Polinchock from the Brand Experience Lab would agree).

Where's this going? Well, I started giving this area some thought after reading that a company called Immersive Display Solutions announced that a great use of their immersive graphical "bubbles" (for lack of a better word) is retail advertising. I'll be the first to say that IDS's immersive screens are extremely cool. They create a feeling of depth and motion that just can't be matched by a much smaller flat screen. However, it seems like this is a solution in search of a problem, and I'd be surprised if the Ad.mersion system, as it's called, can gain traction in the increasingly competitive out-of-home advertising market. Do the displays have the ability to attract a crowd? Yup. Will it be enough to offset the expense of the system and its ability to only address a relatively small number of people at once? Right now, I don't think so.

Granted, advertisers have a long history of latching on to the latest novelty in hopes that it will catch enough attention with its uniqueness to make it worthwhile. But like my feelings towards Reactrix, it's going to be a challenge to show that these systems are practical for more than brand promotion and producing a more interesting in-store experience.

Tags: Ad.mersion, marketing at retail, out-of-home advertising

Cinema ads induce emotional buying effect

Hot on the heels of the news that cinema advertising company National CineMedia successfully completed its IPO comes this report from the Wise Marketer suggesting that the very type of ads the firm sells have been found to induce the emotional buying effect and create strong viewer involvement. The survey, conducted by ad research firm Ipsos ASI on behalf of cinema advertising firm Screenvision, was conducted in France and Spain to try and determine the power of emotions in cinema ad campaigns. The article notes:

It shows that the viewers are emotionally touched by the screen campaigns, which generate significant public involvement and strong positive emotions.

In association with TV campaigns, screen advertising increases the quality and the impact of ad messages, reinforcing the viewers' will to purchase. The survey results show the relationship between emotions generated by screen advertising and the quality of the response to the advertisement.....

The survey was conducted among a representative population sample aged 15-60. It compared the responses of heavy cinema viewers who have watched a specific ad on screen in a cinema during the previous seven days with the responses of those who had seen the ad on TV only.

In both countries, heavy cinemagoers who had seen the cinema ad expressed fewer negative and passive feelings about the ad than those who had only seen it only on TV. In France, heavy cinemagoers felt 20% fewer negative and passive emotions than TV-only viewers. Positive and active emotions were 39% higher for heavy cinemagoers than for than for less frequent cinemagoers.

While Screenvision supplies both on-screen and off-screen advertising media for movie theaters, it sounds like this study primarily focused on the digital signage-like element where full-motion video (perhaps simply television commercials) are displayed on-screen before the movie begins. Using the same content would have allowed Ipsos ASI to determine what kind of effect the media had in the cinema versus only on TV.

Tags: Screenvision, National CineMedia, digital signage, out-of-home advertising

Xanadu mega-mall redefines retail sponsorships

The Xanadu Meadowlands mega-mall, when it finally opens some time in 2008, will be unique for several reasons. For one, it will be one of the biggest malls in the country (and certainly the biggest in the area). For another, it will be located along the extremely high-traffic segment of I95 in NewJersey close to the New York metro area. It will house the country's first indoor ski slope. And it will be built for branding from the ground-up.

According to this article in Advertising Age, the mall's owners, Colony Capital have maximized the number of marketing-related revenue streams from the project, from providing advertising opportunities on one of a dozen large-format outdoor electronic displays to making deals with up to five "presentation partners," who will be allowed to lend their name to a specific zone within the mall (imagine the "Cosmo GIRL! retail accessories wing", or maybe the "Coca-Cola Food Court"). While the idea seems to be just bizarre enough to be plausible, as Dave Yacullo, Director of Omnicom Group's Outdoor Media Group in New York notes, "it's really going to come down to how they can parlay those sponsorships into meaningful opportunities that would build the brand and move product."

Tags: Xanadu, Meadowlands, electronic billboards, out-of-home advertising, branding, naming

Flogging your brand at security checkpoints

I'm not sure what to think of this. On the one hand, you've got to give these people credit for thinking of a clever way to turn bland, unsold space into a profit center. But on the other hand, as a consumer (and frequent traveler), I don't know if I'm going to have positive associations with any brands advertised during the agony of going through an airport security checkpoint.

The company's website claims that their products improve the checkpoint experience, according to ongoing trials that they've been running at Los Angeles' LAX, certainly one of my least-favorite airports, and the system has been approved for use by the TSA (whatever that entails).

Tags: out-of-home advertising, airport advertising, branding

Could Google bring user-created content into retail stores?

A few months ago I speculated that Google and YouTube could team up to deliver low-cost content to the thousands of digital sign networks out there that can't afford full-time custom content creation. Just yesterday there was an interesting article about automatic video tagging that I blogged about at Digital Signage News, in fact, that added to this speculation.

Today, it seems, would be a good day to add even more fuel to the fire, in the form of two ads about real companies utilizing low-budget content, and another about Google's foray into radio advertising. First is this article from AdvertisingAge about Dove solicing ads from consumers. AdAge notes:

In an e-mail today to members of its online relationship-marketing program, Dove began seeking entries for a 30-second ad to promote a new product, Dove Cream Oil Body Wash.

The e-mail directs people to DoveCreamOil.com, a site hosted on Time Warner's AOL, which provides online tools, artwork, photos and music for creating ads, and also allows consumers to upload their own files. "You don't need any special skills or experience," the e-mail says.

The second article is from arch-rival AdWeek, and focuses on Southwest Airlines, who is also asking for user-generated content to incorporate into its TV advertising campaign. Southwest is actually partnering with YouTube to collect 20 user-submitted embarrasing situations to include in its "Wanna Get Away" campaign. And in fact AdWeek notes a few other examples where name-brand CPGs have experimented with user-generated content:

Doritos is currently running a contest with Yahoo that will air a user-submitted video during the Super Bowl. Chevrolet, Sony and Converse are also experimenting with the concept.

A Chevy Tahoe promotion that let consumers create their own executions pointed to the risks of the tactic. Environmentally minded users created several ads lambasting the SUV for its effect on the environment.

And how would a hypothetical GooTube or Tooble get all of this great content from the Internet to a bunch of in-store displays without a lot of administrator intervention? Well, that's where this last article from ClickZ comes in. Google is finally putting its acquisition of dMarc to good use, and allowing a current pool of 700 radio stations to subscribe to its AdWords-like service for radio. The article states:

Google Audio Ads are sold on a CPM basis through the AdWords platform, and advertisers can target on factors like geographical market and time of day. Reporting functions disclose which stations ran ads and when, and real-time air checks are available, a bit of a novelty for interactive marketers who have grown used to not seeing their non-search executions.

The retail media market is still to immature for Google to put a lot of effort behind it, but it's certainly coming, and with brands getting on board behind user-created content (and the ongoing march of progress over at Google), I'm willing to bet that within a few years there will be little distinction between how Google and others supply Internet, radio, TV and retail media spots and fill out inventory.

One last (and quick) update: No sooner had I published this post than I came across David Polinchock's post about Martin Sorrell's take on Google (he calls them the "frienemy"). Great article, go check it out, and read the other article that he references about Google and ad agencies.

Tags: Google, YouTube, dMarc, digital signage, retail media, out-of-home advertising

Making an emotional appeal with in-store media

Note: I've cross-posted this to the Digital Signage News blog, since the subscriberships seem to be somewhat different (and unrelated).

Institutions spend too much time focusing on the science of shopping, rather than the art of shopping. So says The Integer Group's Meg Kinney in her article "The Art of Shopping," featured in the November/December issue of HUB Magazine. While that sentence might not appear to make a lot of sense on the surface (since when is shopping an art or a science, anyhow?), Kinney looks at the growing number of retailers who are focusing on ways to enhance the in-store experience, and comes to some interesting conclusions about what needs to be done to bring in-store media up to snuff in today's experiential retail environment.... Read the full article: Making an emotional appeal with in-store media

Tags: in-store media, at-retail media, digital signage, out-of-home advertising,