For years, in-store digital media has chased scale, adding more screens to more stores. However, this approach often overlooked the fundamental component required to turn a shopper’s glance into a purchase: relevance.
Now, a more deliberate strategy is taking hold. Retailers are rethinking their in-store networks not as a collection of screens, but as an intelligent infrastructure designed with purpose, according to Pratyush Kumar, GM and head of ad products at Loblaw Advance, in this video interview with Beet.TV.
“It was never about scale. It was always about relevance,” he said. “There was a lot of inventory around retail media available in the stores, which looked like retail media, but didn’t really act like retail media.”
Putting intent into the infrastructure
The key change, in Kumar’s view, is that retailers are finally building their in-store networks with clear intent. This involves more than just placing screens; it means creating an ecosystem of sensors, point-of-sale integrations, and thoughtfully located displays that enhance, rather than detract from, the shopping experience.
“With intent around driving relevance, making sure the customer experience, shopper experience is never impacted,” Kumar said. This intentionality is reflected in recent industry moves, such as Loblaw Advance’s partnership with STRATACACHE to significantly expand its digital screen footprint. Such initiatives aim to build the kind of purposeful network Kumar describes.
This focus on infrastructure is designed to avoid jarring inconsistencies, such as promoting a detergent on a screen attached to a beverage display. “This entire package of placing the infrastructure with intent, using first-party data, and of course the automations and programmatic, that is what is bringing in scale or that is what’s going to change the way scale actually comes up,” Kumar explained.
Measurement moves from multipliers to transactions
For years, in-store media measurement relied on imprecise methods like impression multipliers, which estimated viewership based on foot traffic. This lack of concrete data limited advertisers’ confidence in the channel’s effectiveness, relegating it mostly to top-of-funnel awareness budgets.
Now, the fusion of first-party data with in-store signals is enabling a much more sophisticated and convincing measurement framework.
This shift allows for closed-loop reporting that connects ad exposure directly to purchase behavior, helping to unlock larger budgets in a retail media market that eMarketer predicts will reach $71.09 billion in the U.S. in 2026.
“You can actually go and say my in-store media drives incrementality. It drives new customer purchase behavior or new customer acquisitions. It drives category growth,” Kumar added. “These are real tangible metrics and that is what makes it amazing.”
Loblaw Advance recently struck a partnership with Bell Media to provide closed-loop measurement for TV advertisers, connecting campaign exposure to sales.
You’re watching “Scaling In-Store, Demystified: How Retail Media Is Reinventing the Aisle,” a Beet.TV Leadership Series, presented by Stratacache. For more videos from this series, please visit this page.
