• TV Seattle Business Journal via MSNBC, Wednesday, April 25, 2007 11:30 AM

Digital screens running ads at local supermarkets or gas pumps are becoming ever more ubiquitous as advertisers try to reach their targets at the very moment they are making purchases. A new company named DS-IQ Inc. wants to see if they are paying attention. The Bellevue, Washington, firm makes software designed to measure the effectiveness of such ads, and is already in Supervalu stores and some other retail centers.

By telling advertisers when and where their in-store ads generated the most sales, it hopes to help them produce better campaigns. "They get to see very specifically how their ads are working and how shoppers are responding to those ads," says DS-IQ chief executive Thomas Opdycke. The medium of in-store digital signs are of growing interest to advertisers as traditional media used for mass-market efforts weakens, due to DVRs and plummeting newspaper circulations.

In-store digital ads are still a part of the business, but "growing in interest and dollars," says Lisa Bradner, a senior analyst with Forrester Research. "You are talking to someone who is standing at the shelf on the brink of a purchase," and advertisers and retailers are seeing if "digital media can affect the outcome."

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