• by Erik Sass  @eriksass1, March 6, 2007

If you show it, they may buy. Seventeen percent of female mall shoppers say they made a purchase during their current mall visit based on a "smartscreen" video ad display in the mall, according to a new proprietary intercept study from AdSpace Networks. The study found that 10% of men did the same. What's more, about 70% of all shoppers noticed the screens, and 50% recalled looking at the video content, according to the report.

AdSpace Mall Network runs a video program at its network of malls called "Today's Top 10," based on mall managers' selections of the best deals at each mall. The network runs a 12-second video spot for each featured product, and 150 retailers contribute content.

The responses can prove lucrative. According to the In-Store Marketing Institute, in-store media garnered a total $18.6 billion of spending in 2005.

Even AdSpace was surprised by the high numbers, says Bill Ketcham, the company's executive vice president and CMO, who added: "The most important implication is that people look at them." Ketcham recalled that "we often get questions from potential advertisers" that are skeptical about the actual reach and frequency of in-store video. The proprietary study, along with a battery of studies by Nielsen, Scarborough and Arbitron, is intended to assuage these doubts.

Ketcham added that it's important for in-store media providers to deliver improved metrics to advertisers, on a par with TV and the Internet. AdSpace is a founding member of the newly formed Out-of-Home Video Advertising Bureau, which aims to coordinate this effort.

In fact, various media-measurement firms are rushing to get a stake in place-based video ratings. In late February, TNS acquired Sorensen Associates to bolster its in-store media-measurement capabilities. TNS is positioning itself as a major competitor to Nielsen In-Store--a newly formed division of another new Nielsen service called NielsenConnect, recently launched to give clients a holistic, global view of different types of media effectiveness. At the same time, major media agencies are setting up their own in-store services. For example, Mediaedge:cia acquired Retail Media Link and relaunched it as MEC Retail in March 2006.