A Sense Of Place: Thomson Muscles Into Retail Media, Acquires PRN

Another major player in the place-based media business is being gobbled up, just as so-called "shopper media" is expected by many to take off. PRN Corp., operator of the Premiere Retail Network, is being acquired by Thomson, a consumer electronics company that markets products under the RCA and other brands. Among the products Thomson markets are digital video recorders, which are believed to be one of the factors driving the importance of place-based media. As new digital electronics equipment gives consumers greater control over TV, radio, and online content inside their homes, many on Madison Avenue believe out-of-home media, and especially place-based media will emerge as the ideal places to capture captive audiences.

In fact, that was part of the logic that drove newspaper giant Gannett to acquire the Captivate Network last year. Captivate operates a place-based television network located in the elevators the high-rise office buildings in major markets.

Thomson's acquisition of PRN is interesting for several reasons, not the least of which is the notion that a big consumer electronic manufacturer may have some special insights about where in-home consumer media technologies are going, and how that might affect the vitality of place-based media. Aside from that, PRN represents new outlets for Thomson's electronic equipment, including some of the most prized real estate in the world.

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Among the retail networks developed by PRN are store-branded channels in Wal-Mart, Sam's Club, Costco, Albertsons, Best Buy and Circuit City. All told, PRN operates in-store TV channels in more than 6,000 locations in the U.S. and reaches an estimated 200 million viewers each month. Most importantly, it reaches them at the point of sale for many products and services.

A variety of research has shown that a majority of purchase decisions - as much as 90 percent for certain products - are made at retail locations.

To capitalize on the growing interest in retail media from big marketers and agencies, Point of Purchase Advertising International, the trade association commonly known as POPAI, has initiated an ambitious research initiative to develop data and metrics that would make the measurement of place-based media more comparable to the biggest national media.

The project, known as MARI, for the Marking at Retail Initiative, is designed to make "P-O-P on a measured medium on par with print and broadcast," according to a recent POPAI briefing. P-O-P stands for point-of-purchase media, which historically has meant low-tech advertising like placards, hang-tags and posters in retail locations, but increasingly represents dynamic digital and sometimes interactive media. More importantly, the new electronic formats are allowing marketers to run the same kind of high-quality commercials they run on TV outlets, but with a greater assurance that consumers are actually seeing them.

At least that's what the MARI initiative is setting out to prove. To date, the initiative has invested more than $1 million developing research on advertising in three major "channels:" grocery, convenience and drug store locations.

In addition to MARI, major marketers have been pushing the development of better research about retail media, especially the world's largest, Procter & Gamble. P&G, which has been pushing its agencies to think out of the box about communications channels, and which has been challenging them to move beyond a TV planning and buying framework, held two big roundtables to explore retail media earlier this year.

Those P&G meetings concluded that the retail media industry needs to make "real progress" in audience measurement to gain the confidence of major marketers, and it needs to focus on three separate agendas:

* The measurement of in-store GRPs, or gross rating points - the metric used to compare audience impressions in TV and radio.

* ROI, or return on investment research on the effectiveness of retail advertising buys.

* And better research on so-called "message effectiveness," or how and what types of ads communicate best in retail locations.

The POPAI's MARI initiative, not surprisingly, has created three task force teams focusing on each of those subjects and is expected to begin executing research in those three areas in the next several months with results by the end of 2006, or early 2007.

Upon announcing its acquisition of PRN, Thomson noted that place-based media networks are one of the fastest growing segments of the advertising marketplace, and estimated it would grow at annual rates of more than 25 percent.

"The growth of this market segment has been accelerated by advertisers' demand for alternative media reaching more engaged audiences compared to traditional TV advertising," stated Thomson. "In addition, this segment has benefited by the improving quality of data measuring the effectiveness of such out-of-home networks, and by the falling prices of networking infrastructure and flat-panel displays.

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