Traditional retail is changing. As it evolves, so do we in the shopping centre business and using enhanced data can increase advertising options and drive bottom line profitability.
For many years, the growth of online shopping has been seen by some as a harbinger of doom for bricks-and-mortar stores and shopping centres. But traditional retailers and owners have fought back, with many centres transforming themselves from simple shopping outlets to community destinations with offerings spanning entertainment, dining, unique events and much more.
Just as the experience of shopping has changed – whether online or on foot – so have the techniques and technologies used to better cater for and attract more foot traffic.
One example of this seismic shift is the way the shopping centre environment is now treated as a media platform. While centres have for decades leveraged their real estate for advertising solutions, today’s more sophisticated retail media really only started its evolution about ten years ago, when we at oOh!media first identified it as a major opportunity.
Since then, we have introduced into shopping centres digital panels, large format classic and digital, and interactive panels that engage audiences through touch, sound, motion, audience analytics and other smarts.
The latest innovation in retail media – the application of powerful data – continues this evolutionary trend and delivers results for owners, centre management, advertisers, retailers and shoppers alike.
Retail centres have a wealth of data at their fingertips. To maximise a centre’s appeal, they collect data and analyse shopper behaviour, visit frequency, optimal tenancy mix, and so on, and are bringing these data sets together in ever more sophisticated ways to deepen their understanding of their operations.
In a similar way, we are also seeing Out of Home advertising companies invest increasing amounts of money in data gathering and analysis tools to complement their ownership of traditional signage assets. For example, our DataScience capability includes a new tool called Smart Reach that combines the most robust anonymised datasets available, enabling advertisers to maximise their media spend and reach 25% more buyer audience through unmatched targeting across the media landscape.
In the Out of Home industry, what we want to understand is quite simple but hard to implement – namely, where are certain audiences most likely to be during the day? Where do they visit and spend time? And what can grab their attention?
This data is of immense value to advertisers looking to build their brands and sell product to an ever-shifting range of target audiences. If you can highlight where more of those audiences are likely to be at any given time, then you’re maximising advertisers’ budgets, improving their ROI by showing relevant advertising to audiences, and reducing wastage.
This approach is working because the tools and data available these days is transformative. It is deeper, richer and far more granular than anything that has gone before it and creates numerous commercial opportunities.
Because of the data-driven insights provided by dedicated companies such as Quantium, whom we have an exclusive partnership with, we know in far greater detail what types of people are seeing any given asset, grouped by socio-economic profile, spending habits and entertainment preferences – all broken down to ever more detailed levels of specificity. This data is valuable to all retail industry participants.
A few years ago, you might have used more basic forms of this data to plot a customer’s path through the centre, for example targeting generic grocery shoppers from entry until they were right in front of the supermarket. Today the approach is more sophisticated and far-reaching, as we take a step back from the immediate retail environment and use other formats to bring more visitors to the centre itself, which helps drive sales.
For example, we can use our whole network of assets outside shopping centres to reach and prime target audiences from when they leave home and or work – before they actually get to the centre itself. Robust data gives us strong insights into how audiences move across a city or suburb, and we can use our Commute, Road and Office assets to deploy the right messaging before arrival, which is then reinforced within the centre and at the point of purchase.
Other advances include far more contextually relevant messaging in centres, with not only brand advertising, but also targeted information being used to provide a public utility. Ads can be set for certain times of the day only, or have their content modified quickly to boost relevancy.
Data also helps advertisers when looking at all the shopping centres in a state, and then tailoring advertising to centres where they know there is a much higher chance of converting sales, weighting their spends accordingly.
The benefits for shoppers are obvious too. Audiences receive much more relevant content and are also encouraged to engage in various creative ways with the advertising or information provided, making the whole experience more pleasurable and more likely to be repeated.
For shopping centre owners, enhanced data insights not only increase their advertising options, but can also add to the tools they deploy to drive bottom line profitability. Enhanced customer experiences and a greater focus on driving visitors to the centre by understanding the journeys they take to get there are valuable contributions. Data may also help with tailoring specific events or sales, among many other uses.
These new opportunities represent an enormous change from the past. We have seen the retail landscape change dramatically in the past 30 years, and today’s environment is much more complex and incredibly more sophisticated than anything that came before.
Retail as we know it is being redefined, and sophisticated advertising backed by data analytics now firmly a part of the retail experience for consumers, retailers, advertisers and centre owners alike. These will only increase over time as tools and analytics evolve and become more advanced, supporting the industry as its revolution continues.
