“It’s an end-to-end solution, from the media players themselves all the way up to the ad server and the content management system,” Nickell said. “Our platform is just really well set up for [all of Hy-Vee’s touch points] in a way that isn’t as common in the market right now.”
Preserving the customer experience
The key to running in-store digital ads, though, is ensuring that it doesn’t annoy customers, Nickell said.
“We just want to make sure that philosophically we’re aligned [that] this needs to be good for the customer experience,” he said. “Because if it’s not, this isn’t going to work.”
For Grocery TV that means keeping the sound off so shoppers aren’t hearing ads from in-store screens shout at them, and ensuring that screens never get in the way of shoppers.
“If you have a screen that actually blocks them from doing the thing they want to do, then that’s going to tick people off and it’s just going to create a bad experience,” Nickell said.
The screens also have to continue working—an issue that’s plagued other attempts at in-store digital ad companies like Cooler Screens. To ensure their screens don’t meet a similar fate, Grocery TV has a national retail operations team with regional staff to address issues as they arise. And because of the way that the devices are plugged into the broader Grocery TV network, the tech team can monitor the health of each screen with the goal of preventing tech issues before they cause frustration for consumers or merchandising teams.
Driving sales with in-store ads
Sales attribution is major challenge for in-store, as it’s hard to measure who saw an ad and what happened afterward without running into privacy issues. Advertisers are able to track clicks online, but it’s not as easy to tell who glanced at a digital screen and then picked up a box of cereal or snacks.
Companies like in-store audio firm Vibenomics work with retailers to look at loyalty program and sales data within the window of time that a campaign ran to gain an understanding of ad effectiveness.
Grocery TV is primarily relying on gathering data through two different stores with similar shopper profiles. Grocery TV runs the campaign in one store and not the other and then compares the two to understand the campaign’s sales lift.
One media buyer who spoke to ADWEEK on the condition of anonymity said that what is missing from in-store advertising is more specific sales attribution data.
“As soon as they can figure out sales attribution, they are on to something,” they said.
