• by Bill Gerba , August 2, 2007

Wal-Mart doesn't approach retail media lightly. So when Grupo Televisa, the largest producer of Spanish-language content in the world, proposed to install and maintain a digital signage network for the company's Mexican stores, there was much debate over how to measure its effectiveness. Further complicating matters, Wal-Mart was not only concerned with lifting sales, but also keeping costs low and ensuring that its stores remained attractive, clean and easy to navigate.

After more than six months of operation, Televisa revealed some of its results at the Digital Signage Expo in Chicago in May. (My company, WireSpring, provides the software that powers the Wal-Mart Mexico network.)

The firms agreed that recall - the ability for an individual to remember a brand or campaign slogan - was a salient metric that would be useful to measure. For simplicity's sake, Televisa focused on three types of content: special promotions, how-to segments and regular product advertisements. After running hundreds of spots in these three categories for several months, they asked a third-party research firm to analyze the effectiveness of the content (again, by measuring recall).

The results here were somewhat surprising: product promotions, often a powerful sales booster when delivered in print format (such as coupons), fared the worst, with less than half of shoppers (47.5 percent) remembering them. Heavily tested and brand-oriented product advertisements did best at 71.1 percent, but most interestingly, how-to and tip videos were close behind at 66.5 percent recall.

As those working in the retail industry probably know, one of the biggest complaints about in-store digital media is that it pours more advertising noise into an already overwhelming environment. To address this concern, Wal-Mart and Televisa devised a content creation strategy that's mindful of the store's many other visual and audio distractions. The guiding principle can be summed up this way: Think billboards, not television. The majority of shoppers won't stop and stare at the screens, so communicate your message in the blink of an eye.

Additionally, the content must be compelling enough to attract attention to the screen, even if a shopper only glances at it for a second. Ad messages are kept short - no more than 10 to 15 seconds - and always include a call to action for shoppers. The star of the message should always be the product, its attributes and the added value it brings to the consumer over its competitors - the things that make it desirable in the first place. Additionally, targeting ads by region can be appropriate, especially when a product is used differently by different communities. Finally, it's important to keep content fresh to avoid shopper complacency and employee fatigue. Think of the network as a monster - you must feed it!

It's also growing quickly. Marketers spent an estimated $1 billion on ads on out-of-home video screens last year, up 28 percent from $786 million in 2006 and more than fourfold the $235 million spent in 2001, according to research consultancy PQ Media. In fact, out-of-home video screens account for the vast majority of the $1.69 billion spent last year on so-called "alternative" out-of-home media, PQ Media says.

Included in PQ Media's tally of alternative video-screens are displays in retail establishments like Wal-Mart as well as screens in health clubs and restaurants, movie theater lobbies and airports. The research company's broader category of alternative out-of-home media also encompasses digital billboards (such as at sports arenas) and ambient advertising, which includes ads placed on products like pizza boxes.

Not surprisingly, as ad spending on non-traditional media is increasingly over, spending on alternative out-of-home media also is rising. In 2001, alternative out-of- home media accounted for just 12.8 percent of all out-of- home ad dollars; by last year, that proportion had surged to 23.9 percent, according to PQ Media.

Why are marketers turning to locales such as retail stores? One key reason, says PQ, is the proximity to point-of-purchase; in other words, advertisers have the ability to get a message to consumers while they're clearly in the shopping mindset. Another plus includes the ability to purchase national, regional and local ads.

While they haven't definitively settled the matter of retail media performance or optimal content creation methods, Wal-Mart and Televisa have demonstrated that, at least according to one key metric - recall - it's possible to create content that can sell product while providing value to the shopper and improving the in-store experience. By looking at additional metrics in the future, the duo will almost certainly find new ways to improve the effectiveness of their content.