Major media in the shopping isle

No single TV show, newspaper, or Web site offers widespread access to consumers today. The last bastion of prime-time mass marketing may well be the retail shopping environment, an advertising vehicle that many people would not even consider a communication medium.

During the last few years, marketers, retailers, and media companies have intensified efforts to increase the impact of in-store advertising and make it a bigger part of the marketing mix. They are moving beyond traditional vehicles such as cardboard displays, printed ads, coupons at checkout, and video screens that run the same ad throughout the store. Video ads in stores are more targeted than they have ever been. They are powered by networks that offer programming aimed at particular shoppers, on the basis of where they are stand­ing in the store, the promotions on nearby displays, and the time of day. Consumers in some stores can find shopping carts that help them navigate the aisles; if they pick up a bag of charcoal, the cart suggests barbecue recipes and guides them to the ingredients — mentioning, perhaps, which brands are on sale.
If consumers swipe the charcoal with a handheld scanner, the scanner generates a coupon for it and for complemen­tary barbecue items such as chips or soda.

The next generation of in-store advertising, in the not-too-distant future, will transform the retail environment. It will allow shoppers to request information via their mobile phones or kiosks that provide product advice, help consumers make choices, and make it eas­ier for people to find what they’re looking for.
It will also transform the advertising industry, reconfiguring marketers’ advertising budgets, their overall approach, and some of their strategic assumptions about reaching consumers.
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