NEW YORK — Financial services, telecom, and insurance companies are outpacing traditional consumer packaged goods advertisers in adopting in-store media because they face fewer structural budget and agency relationship challenges when funding new advertising formats.
“The irony of it is that it’s been a lot easier for non-endemic brands to lean into the space than the endemic brands,” Marlow Nickell, founder, CEO at Grocery TV, told Beet.TV editorial director Lisa Granatstein at the IAB Connected Commerce Summit. “It’s very counterintuitive because the obvious customer would be an endemic brand that wants to drive sales in store, but they have a lot of structural challenges from a budget standpoint and from the agency relationships to actually fund the in-store programs.”
Non-endemic advertisers view in-store audiences as valuable incremental reach that extends beyond online capabilities, while CPG brands struggle with internal coordination despite eventually becoming the top category.
Small retailers lead innovation adoption
National retailers face organizational complexity that slows in-store media implementation compared to smaller regional players who can move more quickly through decision-making processes.
“You think about the organizations they have and how complex they are, how many people have a say in it. And it’s really tough,” Nickell said. “For in-store, you’ve got your customer teams, the store teams, you’ve got IT, you’ve got the merchants. Everybody’s got a say in what’s going to happen in the store.”
The format started with retailers operating one to 50 stores before expanding upward, with major regional grocers now operating in-store media networks while national retailers conduct pilot programs.
Measurement focuses on fundamentals
Brands prioritize campaign-level return on ad spend, incremental return on ad spend, reach, and brand awareness metrics rather than pursuing direct addressability approaches that work for online environments but don’t translate to physical stores.
“Really when you talk to brands, they don’t even really ask for that kind of stuff. Really what they want to know is at a campaign level, what’s my ROAS, what’s my iROAS, what’s my reach?” Nickell said.
Proven measurement approaches include third-party verification and closed-loop methodologies using matched market analysis where similar customer stores are held out to measure campaign lift versus control groups.
Scale and performance fundamentals established
Grocery TV partners with over 120 retailers to reach approximately one-third of Americans—about 100 million people weekly—during significant grocery purchasing moments that represent major household expenses.
“The scale’s there, the quality is there. It’s really good inventory. It’s purpose built for it. It’s respecting the customer experience, but it’s also really impactful,” Nickell said.
Consistent sales lift and incremental performance often exceeds other media channels, though success requires contextually relevant creative rather than repurposed television advertisements.
Experimentation promotes practical value
Early adopters who invested in experimentation one to two years ago are now scaling programs after learning optimization approaches, while newcomers must address agency ownership questions and budget allocation challenges.
“You can’t just port over a TV ad and put it in the store. It’s got to be really contextually relevant and make sense to really see the performance you’re going to want to see,” Nickell said. “The brands that really leaned in a year or two ago and did that experimentation, they’re now really starting to ramp up this year because they kind of know how to do it.”
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