Attention Walmart (WMT) -), shoppers: there are ads in the checkout lanes.
Yes, just when you thought companies couldn't cram any more commercials into your cranium, the world's biggest retailer is getting you on the way out--among other places.
Shoppers will soon see more third-party ads on screens in Walmart self-checkout lanes and TV aisles; hear spots over the store’s radio; and be able to sample items at demo stations, CNBC reports.
“When you think about our store, our store footprint and the the percentage of Americans that we reach through our stores, we can deliver Super Bowl-sized audiences every week,” said Ryan Mayward, senior vice president of retail media sales for Walmart Connect, the retailer’s advertising business.
No question, Walmart has the big numbers.
The company has nearly 4,700 stores across the U.S., with roughly 90% of Americans living within 10 miles of a Walmart store. In the U.S., about 139 million customers visit Walmart stores and its website or app each week.
Ramping Up In-Store Ads
Walmart has tried out the new in-house approach of selling sampling stations in Dallas-Fort Worth and plans to offer the option in over 1,000 stores across the country by end of January.
The company plans to ramp up in-store ads using its roughly 170,000 digital screens across its locations as well as 30-second radio spots that will be available to suppliers later this year and can target a specific store or region.
Walmart intends to sell the sampling stations to advertisers and bundle them with other ad formats that can run at the same time to make for a fuller campaign. QR codes at the demo tables will pull up online shopping options, meal ideas or seasonal information.
Obviously, retailers plan their marketing efforts on bringing people into their stores. In-store advertising focuses on the people who are already there.
That may not sound impressive, but retail surveys have found that as many as 80% of shoppers make their purchase decisions while they're in the store.
And with today's technology--such as video walls and interactive kiosks--in-store advertising is light years beyond the static signs of yesteryear.
In-store retail media offers massive audiences that are an average of 70% larger than digital audiences for leading brick-and-mortar retailers, according to data from Placer.ai and Comscore Media Metrix Multi-Platform.
Rise of Retail Media
And retail media is on track to be a $45 billion industry this year, up 20% from the prior year, according to Insider Intelligence.
Other retailers have been going the in-store advertising route.
Kroger (KR) -) struck a deal to bring digital smart screens to cooler aisles in hundreds of its stores, and Target (TGT) -) began testing in-store demos and giveaways, including a recent “Barbie” branded event with Mattel (MAT) -) that took place at about 200 stores.
Of course, not all in-store advertising arrangements work out.
Cooler Screens, a provider of digital in-store retail media and merchandising, filed a $200 million lawsuit against Walgreens (WBA) -) claiming the drug chain backed out of an agreement to roll out its Smart Doors technology to some 2,500 stores, Winsight Grocery Business reported in June.
Walgreens denied the suit’s charges and claims it was Cooler Screens that didn’t live up to the contract.
Some shoppers had reportedly complained on TikTok and Twitter that the doors made it hard to find the items they wanted.
But in May, Cooler Screens said it would bring smart screens into 500 Kroger stores across the U.S. following a three-year pilot program.
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