• by Erik Sass , Staff Writer @eriksass1, March 4, 2009

Premiere Retail Networks is expanding the scope of its business, taking on ad sales responsibilities for in-store video networks that aren't part of its own national network reaching over 6,400 retail locations. In addition to opening up new possibilities for PRN, the move may signal a trend towards more deals for cross-property ad sales in the digital out-of-home space in general.

PRN's first such deal, announced last week, makes the company the exclusive ad sales rep for Retail Entertainment Design, known as R-E-D, which operates video networks in two regional supermarket chains -- Fred Meyer, in Washington and Oregon, and Fry's Marketplace, in Arizona -- both owned by Kroger's. R-E-D delivers custom-created entertainment marketing content and advertising to "TV walls," the towering masses of TV sets in the stores' home electronics and music departments.

Combined ad sales are increasingly popular in the digital out-of-home video world, with services like SeeSaw and AdCentricity aggregating dozens of smaller networks to offer advertisers multiple buys through a single point of contact. Meanwhile, behind closed doors, many newly launched digital out-of-home networks have privately turned to larger, established DO players to handle their ad sales; execs from the latter say the newcomers often lack the sales forces and relationships with advertisers needed to move inventory.