Shopping around for the next big thing

Tesco trolleys, Asda car parks and shopping mall cubicle doors may not have the wow factor of a banner-wrapped seven-storey building. But as the key locations for reaching shoppers at point-of-purchase, these spaces are being fought over by a growing number of outdoor advertising companies.

Supermarkets and shopping malls are perhaps the most desirable retail media territories. Some 20 million people a week visit supermarkets. Malls also have a healthy footfall, with 10 million people spending at least an hour and a half there each week.

Titan and Clear Channel UK dominate in mall six-sheets and, along with JCDecaux, dominate the supermarket poster business. Yet, the established players are being challenged by smaller operators with niche offers.

Redbus Outdoor has turned trolley and shopping basket advertising into a reliable - and lucrative - medium. Sales Activation Solutions does trolleys and offers floor stickers and sampling. Admedia runs washroom poster sites in malls and service stations. Streetbroadcast is signing up a string of retail parks. Screen FX is creating a network of screens in malls, as is Avanti Screenmedia, which has just hired Julie France, former group managing director of Clear Channel UK, to help it expand into, among other things, retail six-sheets.

For Nigel Cowlin, head of media and communication planning at Unilever UK & Ireland, the beauty of retail media is its proximity to point-of-purchase.

"The gap between being exposed to the message and taking the product off the shelf is at a minimum. In terms of how you use the medium, we can think about conveying a more detailed message at point-of-purchase than you might do at the roadside. If it's in car parks, people are moving more slowly and potentially you can be more detailed."