Changing Channels

The television community again crosses its fingers this month, hoping that the annual Upfront ad-buying market remains strong despite another year of debate over the relative effectiveness of TV advertising.Meanwhile, proponents of in-store media are hopeful that the rollout of a television network inside Tesco, the U.K.'s largest grocer, will jumpstart the prospects of retail narrowcasting as a legitimate ad buy here in the U.S.Industry pundits have been drawing the curtain on TV advertising for several years now. (They've done the same in the past with print and radio, and those shows still haven't closed either.) And futurists have been promising the era of in-store TV for nearly a decade. (Wal-Mart aside, there haven't been many supporters.)Could this finally be the year when marketers admit that TV advertising is no longer effective enough to serve as the primary marketing tool? Might we finally see significant progress in developing the retail environment as an alternative media conduit?Well, yeah, maybe. The evidence is still too insufficient to go ahead and schedule the revolution. But there have been a few recent signs:What has been a steady decline in TV viewership for any one program or any single network this year turned into the alarming defection of an entire demographic group. Now where do you go to reach 18-to-34-year-old males? Even network NBC has decided that Best Buy might be a logical place to find them. Tesco is admired as a retail innovator, so its rollout of a major narrowcasting program is a big deal. Kroger, for example, currently is in the process of overhauling its loyalty-card program to emulate what the British chain has done in that area. Food retailers might view Tesco's TV initiative as a similar bellwether.Reports that another U.S. TV network plans to fund installation of an in-store TV network as a promotional vehicle for its programming could be the most significant step yet. If advertisers outside the retail world start viewing the store as an effective marketing medium -- and would be willing to help eliminate the cost prohibitions that have kept many retailers from jumping in -- the revolution might very well be upon us.In-store media historically has been regarded as detrimental to display merchandising. That's because funding for these tactics usually comes from the same below-the-line marketing coffers, and not from advertising budgets. If the aforementioned initiatives continue, both the perception and the reality should change.But that either-or debate has been counterintuitive all along, as results from another recent U.K. trial attest: In measuring the effectiveness of a dynamic digital signage network (another tactic long in the development process), convenience-store operator Spar found that ads were "most effective" when the products being promoted were displayed "conveniently close" to the TV screens.Media, in any form, can only do so much on its own.As always, we encourage your feedback and welcome your support. Sincerely,Peter BreenManaging Director, Contentpeter_breen@instoremarketer.org

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