• Ad Age, Friday, September 1, 2006 1:45 PM

Shopping-cart advertising is about to take a giant leap into the 21st century. A team of researchers and engineers have developed a new shopping-cart ad system that runs digital ads and promotions on high-resolution video monitors equipped with on-screen store navigation systems. Mediacart can deliver point-of-decision advertising, and is about to be tested in the Northeast. "We started from a shopper perspective, because if you don't provide a tool the shopper will want or demand, then you don't have a technology tool anyone will want," says Jon Kramer, CMO of Mediacart. The company's research revealed that 87 percent of the shoppers surveyed say they would choose a retailer equipped with Mediacart over one without the carts. Why? It got them out of the store more quickly. On-screen navigation tools enable them to find the aisles where such items as anchovies, ketchup or razors were stocked. The video screens on each cart are embedded with an RFID chip that interacts with chips installed on store shelves--about every two feet--allowing a shopper strolling in the soda aisle to get a point-of-decision offer for Pepsi. This capability could radically upend conventional in-store marketing practices.

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