At Retail Media Expo

I was the anchor presentation for the At Retail Media Expo that POPAI presented at the NY Hilton this week. There was a lot of conversation about in-store digital media and the exhibit area was filled with digital signage companies.

I think that the real challenge for the future of at retail media is creating engaging content that people actually want to see. There was an article in Advertising Age about the Wal-Mart network and it wasn't all that complimentary. In fact, most people interviewed (none of whom would go on the record) said they only advertised on the network did so because it was better then pissing off Wal-Mart. The brand people were almost all quoted as saying that they didn't think anyone was watching the network and there were many times that they saw the network turned off in stores they visited.

Yet, someone at the conference (I did not attend the session) said that Wal-Mart is saying that people watch the network for seven minutes! I mean, come on, does anyone really think that people stand in a Wal-Mart and watch ads for 7 minutes?

I did hear the presentation from Bill Collins at WBC Narrowcasting Group and one thing he said was really at the core of the problem. While discussing in-cinema advertising (one of my hot buttons, as you know!), he talked about their need to generate revenue through advertising. This, of course, is due to the decline in revenue from actual ticket sales to attend movies.

But, that's the real problem here. Way too much of this push into digital media at retail is about generating revenue for the company, not generating value for the customers. And they know that we're doing it for our benefit and not theirs. Here's the ending to a recent piece we've written, It's time to Captivate, not capture, your audience:

And you can also very accurately look at what will happen if we don't make a change. People in captivity always revolt -- you can take that to the bank. If we don't start looking for ways to captivate rather then capture, then we need to start fortifying the barricades. For the revolt will come. And sadly, many people in this biz will be yelling, "Let them watch commercials" as they're led to the guillotine.

Feel free to download a copy of the presentation that I gave or check out the links to POPAI and the ARM Expo. Clearly, digital media is here to stay, but we should be doing a better job at getting people to see the value in it. If it's just for our benefit, they will never really be that interested.

Download arm_final.pdf

Link: At-Retail Media Expo - ARM Expo.

Link: MediaPost Publications - Real Media Riffs - Monday, Oct 3, 2005 - MEDIUM ON THE EDGE OF FOREVER.

Comments

[Rufus]

I could be wrong, but the seven minute figure for watching the digital signage in walmart ties in nicely with something I heard about amoune of time (total) within a shop that the signage is within the noticable vision window of a customer. That is they are looking in the right direction 9usually upwards) for about that amount of time and so can actually see all of the screen for about that long in a shop. That is not the same as a contiguous seven minutes.

Just my two cents worth, but it is something I had heard and have no source to cite for.