Even as physical retail reinforces its significance in a post-Covid, e-comm driven world, brands are leveraging its role in more ways than one. Instore media, which has always been a strategic marketing medium for brands and an important source of revenue for retailers, is getting more dynamic today, supported by evolving new technologies and brands’ evolving needs to engage their customers. 

With 80% of retail purchases still happening in-store, having physical media in the store space is a strategic way of capturing audience attention in a way that leads to immediate purchase. 

As Amit Chatterjee, National Head - Instore Advertising @ Shoppers Stop, tellsRetail4Growth,while speaking about instore media, “It is a wayof generating revenuefrom the store space and adding directly to the bottom line.” For Shoppers Stop in fact, every store across its chain of 110 stores is a business unit, with the fixed assets including media units becoming an important source of revenue. Speaking on the category of brands who spend on this medium, Amit points out that lifestyle brands, including cosmetics, perfumes, accessories, etc., and brands who have a presence in the store, obviously spend more.  

He however adds that though business from this medium has been growing at an average year on year rate of 6-7%, brand spends on this medium vary. While spends vary according to the brand marketing plans and the scale of campaign, they also depend on the store location and performance.  Elaborating on this Amit says, “Brands’ approach to marketing spends is changing, becoming a little more sporadic, with a greater skew towards short term plans, rather than continuous year-long campaigns.” 

More importantly, as Amit highlights, there is a greater thrust on measuring ROI for every investment made. “There has been a drastic change in the whole thought process, with brands getting more focused on ROI, without which they don’t want to invest in anything today,” says Amit. This entails, as he points out, the need for tools to measure ROI, even from static media, and greater innovations, especially using interactive technology tools. “Innovation is a must, or else the business will stagnate. Plus, you need to use the right tools to justify investments,” Amit reiterates. This also means strategic use of interactive technologies for better shopper engagement, omnichannel enablement and date capture – critical aspects that can drive faster ROI.  

This is also one of the reasons that Shoppers Stop is currently focused on developing in-store platforms with immersive new technologies and omnichannel capability to drive higher shopper engagement in store.