Grocery TV signs deal with Hy-Vee to sell in-store ads via Trade Desk

The next generation of in-store digital advertising is coming to Hy-Vee.

The grocery chain has partnered with Grocery TV, an Austin, Texas-based company that has built a network of digital screens in more than 5,000 retail stores across the United States. The agreement allows Hy-Vee to connect its in-store digital screens to this network. network. Advertisers will be able to purchase this ad space through demand-side platform The Trade Desk.

Hy-Vee has more than 285 stores in the Midwest and launched its retail media networkRedMedia, in 2023. Marketers can purchase ads that appear on Hy-Vee’s website and app, in stores and across the open web. The partnership with Grocery TV allows RedMedia to manage off-site and in-store campaigns through the same platform.

In-store retail media is growing faster than online, noted Sarah Marzano, retail media analyst at Emarketer. In-store stores represent less than 1% of total retail media ad spend, but there are significant opportunities once retailers like Hy-Vee can solve the challenges of physical technology, infrastructure, attribution and measurement capabilities.

The partnership could be significant if Grocery TV “can make the omnichannel ad buying and campaign management process easier for existing RedMedia advertisers,” Marzano said. It could also give Hy-Vee access to Grocery TV’s television network. non-endemic advertisers, which “could represent significant additional revenue for RedMedia and further fund its holistic retail media efforts,” Marzano said.

Emarketer

Take advantage of in-store advertising

This is one of Grocery TV’s largest retail partnerships to date, and has more in-store touchpoints than any other Grocery TV retailer. The deal made sense for two main reasons, said Marlow Nickell, CEO and founder of Grocery TV.

First, selling digital ads through the Grocery TV network creates an additional revenue stream for Hy-Vee that it is unable to obtain elsewhere. Indeed, advertisers who purchase via the platform or The Trade Desk will be able to make regional or national purchases including Hy-Vee.

Second, the technology behind Grocery TV is specifically designed for in-store ads, unlike other larger tech players that power in-store digital ad networks.

“It’s an end-to-end solution, from the media players themselves to the ad server and content management system,” Nickell said. “Our platform is really well configured to [all of Hy-Vee’s touch points] in a way that is not as common in the market today.

Preserve the customer experience

However, the key to running digital ads in-store is making sure they don’t annoy customers, Nickell said.

“We just want to make sure that, philosophically, we are aligned [that] it has to be good for the customer experience,” he said. “Because if it doesn’t, it won’t work.”

For Grocery TV, that means muting the sound so shoppers don’t hear ads from the store’s screens screaming at them, and making sure the screens never distract shoppers.

“If you have a screen that prevents them from doing what they want to do, then it’s going to upset people and it’s just going to create a bad experience,” Nickell said.

The screens also need to keep working, a problem that has plagued other attempts at in-store digital advertising companies. like cooler screens. To ensure their screens don’t suffer the same fate, Grocery TV has a national retail operations team with regional staff to resolve issues as they arise. And thanks to the way the devices are connected to the broader Grocery TV network, the technical team can monitor the status of each screen in an effort to prevent technical issues before they cause consumer frustration or merchandising teams.

Drive Sales with In-Store Ads

Sales attribution is a major challenge in stores because it’s difficult to know who saw an ad and what happened next without running into privacy issues. Advertisers are able to track clicks online, but it’s not as easy to track who glanced at a digital screen and then grabbed a box of cereal or snacks.

Companies like in-store audio company Vibenomics work with retailers to review loyalty program and sales data within the time window in which a campaign was run to better understand the effectiveness of ads.

Grocery TV primarily relies on collecting data through two different stores with similar buyer profiles. Grocery TV airs the campaign in one store and not the other, then compares the two to understand the campaign’s sales increase.

A media buyer who spoke to ADWEEK on condition of anonymity said what’s been missing in in-store advertising is more specific sales attribution data.

“As soon as they can determine sales attribution, they are on the right track,” they said.