The retail media network boom over the past few years has seen nearly every major multi-brand retailer sell digital advertising opportunities to CPGs online.

Now, retailers are starting to explore the potential of another major ad space: physical stores.

US digital retail media ad spending is projected to hit $61 billion next year, per Insider Intelligence, while in-store retail media spending is only a couple hundred million dollar market, Andrew Lipsman, principal analyst at Insider Intelligence, told Retail Brew.

• But brick-and-mortar stores have the potential to bring in high-margin supplementary revenue streams for retailers, and more eyes for CPG brands, Lipsman noted.
• In-store audiences are on average 70% larger than digital ones, per Placer.ai and Comscore data. In November 2022, Walmart’s monthly reach was 212.6 million in-person shoppers compared to 144.9 million online shoppers, while Kroger’s 32.4 million monthly online shoppers was just a third of its brick-and-mortar reach.
• A number of retailers like Walmart, Kroger, and Hy-Vee have announced moves to cash in on in-store media with screens across stores displaying third-party ads.

More are likely to follow, as physical stores are a “natural evolution,” from online advertising, according to Lipsman, who called stores the “next major media channel.” While there are plenty of opportunities for eye-catching innovation from entrance to checkout, bringing retail media networks in stores also comes with challenges.

Ad it up: Along with the number of consumer eyes they can draw daily, physical stores offer “valuable context” for brands to advertise due to proximity to the point of purchase, Lipsman said.

“It’s also when consumers are formulating their decisions and opinions about brands, so it can be very effective from a branding standpoint, in addition to driving sales in the store,” he said.

Bobby Watts, SVP of Ahold Delhaize Retail Media, which spans retailers like Giant and Stop & Shop, said it has seen in-aisle screens outperforming those on the outer edges of the stores. “Once you’ve got them in the aisle, that’s the big point to try to influence to make a conversion,” he said.

Paul Brenner, SVP of retail media and partnerships at in-store advertising provider Vibenomics, which specializes in both display and audio, said retailers have the opportunity to build advertising platforms “into the flow of the store.”

Surfaces like the checkout aisle, of course, along with the deli counter, an end cap, the store entrance, even meat bunkers (those open freezers consumers can reach into in grocery stores), are all open to be digitized.

Keep reading here.—EC

Psst! You know what’s just around the holly-jolly corner, right? (Of course you do—Black Friday and Cyber Monday.) So how are consumers thinking about spending this season, given the economic headwinds?

No need to take your best guess. Klaviyo surveyed 3k US consumers to understand how they plan to shop this year.

This consumer research report will also help e-commerce marketers take a magnifying glass to spending trends, which can highlight the most impactful marketing strategies. Find key stats and deets on:

• economic perceptions
• in-store vs. online shopping
• creating perceived value
• when holiday shopping happens

And that’s just the tip of the tree. Intrigued? Download your free copy.

Thanksgiving tables will feature plenty of baked goods, and thanks to Kiva, which makes cannabis edibles, many of the people sitting around the table will be baked, too. Kiva Turkey Gravy, a just-add-water powder with 10 milligrams of THC per pack, promises on its product page that “your household will be back in harmony in no time—each remembering that it’s all…truly…gravy.”

Pop into a cannabis retailer the day before Thanksgiving, and you’re apt to get a deal on the gravy.

Green Wednesday, cannabis’s answer to Black Friday, is by many accounts the second-biggest sales day of the year for the industry, behind only April 20, the date that evokes the common term for cannabis: 420.

“Green Wednesday has been the sole contender for 4/20,” Matthew Janz, director of marketing at The Source, a chain of recreational and medical dispensaries in Nevada, told Retail Brew via email. “There have been years when our Green Wednesday beat 4/20—it seems to be a neck-and-neck race between the two.”

Last year Ceres Collaborative, which owns recreational and medical dispensaries in Vermont, saw a sales lift of more than 160% on Green Wednesday as compared to the two Wednesdays that preceded it and the two Wednesdays that followed it, Russ Todia, COO of Ceres Collaborative, told us in an email.

Like retailers typically do on Black Friday, cannabis stores lure shoppers in with special offers. However, the substance remains illegal under federal law, and state laws that regulate retail cannabis vary widely, so retailers develop strategies to get customers in their stores but not get in hot water with regulators.

Green with NV: Many stores that promote Green Wednesday use it to highlight specials that they run beyond that single day.

• Nevada’s The Source, for example, told us that beginning on November 20—the Monday before Green Wednesday—through December 3, it’s giving shoppers who spend $100 or more cannabis-themed scratch-off advent calendars. Everyone will win something, even an ounce of cannabis for just a penny.

Keep reading here.—AAN

On Wednesdays, we wear pink spotlight Retail Brew’s readers. Want to be featured in an upcoming edition? Click here to introduce yourself.

Anna Briggs is head of partnerships at Settle, a payments solution for consumer brands.

(Editor’s note: This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.)

How would you describe your job to someone who doesn’t work in retail? I lead partnerships at Settle, which means I find opportunities to bring like-minded service providers and enablement tools onto the Settle platform to help brands optimize cash flow. Settle is a hub for e-commerce merchants to manage accounts payable, financing, and purchasing, so I look for partners who can bring additional value to those workflows.

One thing we can’t guess about your job from your LinkedIn profile? I live in Austin, and there is a vibrant and supportive CPG community here. I get to go to lots of events, hang out with some of our partners in person, and meet local CPG founders. A recent fave is Funky Mello, a plant-based marshmallow cream. They’re also an alum of our partner SKU, the Austin-based CPG accelerator.

What’s your favorite project you’ve worked on? We just released our new purchasing suite of tools, and it was really exciting to be involved. Maintaining visibility across the entire purchasing process is a huge pain point for our partners’ clients, so it was rewarding to deliver something valuable to their teams. 

Which emerging retail trend are you most excited about right now, and why? I’m super interested in the resale space and tools that help brands drive value out of secondary markets for their products. There is an immense amount of waste in the retail industry, and I’m excited about platforms that incentivize consumers to shop secondhand, or sell their used items instead of throwing them away.

Keep reading here.—EC