Ben Shepherd, in his newsletter Signal, looks at a large expansion of Sainsburys' store retail media network in the UK.
What’s new: Sainsburys in the UK is adding 820 new screens to its physical retail media network, which is a collaboration with out of home business Clear Channel. Stores will be outfitted with 75-inch screens that give Sainsbury’s and brand advertisers increased flexibility to push out campaigns tailored by location, weather, events, competitions and other contextually relevant factors.
Why it matters: Retail media in Australia has so far (with some exceptions such as Cartology and Mixin) focused predominantly on website based retail media advertising or sponsored listings. For supermarkets, 95% of transaction volume is at the physical outlet, so the most valuable advertising assets are not the web. For non-grocery, around 16-20% occurs online, which again suggests that the physical store is where the highest value is to be had. Sainsburys clearly see this, and are demonstrating the appetite to invest in capital to tap into this source. They also have a partner – Clear Channel – who specialise in out-of-home. To date this hasn’t been the pursued model in Australia but Ooh!Media Ltd has demonstrated it wants to play in this space (with no real announcement of how or with who).
Client implication: There’s two dimensions here. For a consumer product or CPG marketer, ultimately you want more advertising presence at the place where the bulk of transactions are happening. So ideally you want the AU specific retail media networks to start to hurry up in this space. The Clear Channel and Sainsburys tie up also sparks thinking around which domestic retailers or retail groups could benefit from a partnership. I’m thinking a handful who would be most meaningful as they have a wide portfolio, a large chunk of their sales are name brand, and they’re yet to really show much development in the area to date. The ones to watch – Accent Group, Super Retail Group, JB Hi Fi, Bunnings and 7-Eleven.
Read Ben Shepherd's full Signal newsletter HERE.
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