In all outdoor advertising venues, supermarkets have performed well during the outbreak. After all, in 2020 and early 2021, there are few places for consumers to shop, and supermarkets are one of the few remaining. Unsurprisingly, supermarkets have also become a popular place for advertisers to connect with their audiences. After all, people stay at home, and advertisers have few opportunities to reach audiences in other places.

But supermarkets are not without change. While supermarket sales have risen sharply, people have traveled to supermarkets less often and visited fewer supermarkets, according to McKinsey & Company. Overall, this means that there are fewer opportunities for brands to reach consumers who are willing to receive information in supermarkets.

 McKinsey & Company

Fortunately, there is a quality solution for digital signage. Deploying digital displays at key locations in the supermarket can help create a fascinating situational shopping experience, establish good communication with consumers, and guide them to take immediate action.

 Use digital signage to stimulate impulse shopping

Slickdeals. According to a survey by Net, the average American consumer spends nearly $5,400 a year on impulse purchases, with about 71 percent spent on food and groceries.

 Slickdeals

 Impulse spending is not just about people buying candy at the cash register. The results found that most impulse spending actually occurred in the store.

 Typical strategies such as placing promotional stickers and static posters near items can help, but not for digital signage. The study found that digital signage at shopping sites caused about 2.5 times more emotional resonance than static media, making digital signage an influential advertising medium. Food can already trigger strong emotional reactions from many consumers, and the introduction of digital signage is likely to have a more significant impact on sales.

More importantly, placing digital signage around the supermarket shares more extensive information about product promotions. Traditional in-store promotional notifications are often only placed near promotional products, while digital messaging allows promotional messages to be easily circulated throughout the store. In addition, the screen can display detailed information such as the shelf channel number or the location of the commodity area, so that consumers can quickly find the corresponding promotional products.

 Integrate the digital signage and the original POS system to enhance the promotion efforts

 A study by the National Resources Protection Commission (National Resources Defense Council) found that supermarkets waste 43 billion tons of food annually, or about 10 percent of all food supplied in the United States. As the global green campaign continues to rise and regulation of such waste has been tightened, supermarkets are under increasing pressure to take action to reduce waste.

 Digital signage provides the ideal solution to address this challenge. By integrating the signage system and the point-of-sale solution, the signage display can be automatically converted to sell the goods that need to be sold as soon as possible, instead of advertising the sold-out or sold-out items.

When properly executed, such systems can stimulate sales as needed, successfully reducing the chances of unsold temporary products. This is a good tool to reduce food waste, with both environmental and net benefit benefits.

Digital signage can assist with sales promotion, thereby reducing waste

 With the almost ubiquitous digital influence

 In addition to the common digital display cards, supermarkets can also install digital screens at the end of the aisle or at the edge of the shelf, bringing a refreshing and dynamic experience for consumers who are choosing products.

 Other types of displays are also gradually attracting attention. Pharmacy chain Walgreens has begun introducing freezers that replace transparent glass doors with digital displays. These screens can play ads tailored for nearby audiences, show special messages that invite shoppers to make specific moves (such as following stores on social media), automatically gray out-out options, and so on.

Of course, it is impossible for supermarkets to digitize all the media related to sales. Ads on the checkout automatic conveyor belt, ads on the shopping cart handles, brand ads on the checkout dividers, and other similar forms of advertising are unlikely to go digital. But if you want to effectively convert the inventory into revenue, then you should choose the digital display as much as possible, supplemented with static advertising, to achieve promotional results. Stores shall also use inventory and sales management tools to manage all assets uniformly.

 Establish a stable stream of programmatic advertising revenue

 Online ads are usually programmed, in which AD spots are sold once pre-set transaction conditions are met. This powerful process helps buyers build a high correlation between advertising and creative information or diverse products. For example, when Lipton decides to place programmatic ads on supermarket signs, the signs could automatically play iced tea ads in hot and sunny weather and display ads for chicken noodle soup in cold and rain.

 For example, Foodora, a delivery company, though not a supermarket, also uses programmatic digital outdoor media to broadcast different ads to audiences depending on weather conditions.

 The introduction of programmatic digital signage in supermarkets also has other important advantages, such as the availability of large all-directional advertising. Today’s brands increasingly want to advertise both online, on social, and outdoor media. Programmed digital signage can be purchased on the demand-side platform where media buyers buy other digital media, so it can be used as a significant medium for advertising.

Programmed advertising is widely regarded as the key technology of the future and is indeed digital outdoor media. Network owners introduce this functionality to the supermarket sign, so they have the advantage of grasping the future opportunity.

 Catering to a special audience with advertising and content

Specialty food. The Com study showed that specialty food sales rose 12.9% in 2017, while regular food sales grew just 1.4%. If supermarkets can follow this trend and try to find new ways to cater to consumers of specialty foods, then they can quickly take advantage.