Turning attention into action with retail media

In these value-driven times, shoppers are becoming more budget-conscious and planning purchases more carefully. In an increasingly crowded retail environment, breaking through shoppers' routines and influencing decisions is becoming more challenging. Retailers are using many different types of retail media to capture shoppers’ attention and convert attention into purchase. To help suppliers with their retail media strategies, the ShopperVista team accompanied shoppers as they did their grocery shopping to find out which retail media formats were most effective. The insights will be published in our report ‘Retail media: what do shoppers notice?’ on ShopperVista on 28 May.

Answering industry challenges with real-world shopper behaviour

In February, we ran a client engagement session to gather feedback and shape our content plan. Responses from professionals across the industry enabled us to align our reports with the challenges most relevant to both suppliers and retailers. Retail media was one of the topics raised most often. With an increasing array of retail media formats available to suppliers, understanding which touchpoints will matter most in future is a major challenge, particularly as the effectiveness of different formats and shopper sentiment remains unclear.

To get under the skin of retail media and uncover which in-store formats are truly cutting through, we first observed shoppers unprompted to understand what they noticed organically. We then retraced our steps with retail media front of mind, probing further to uncover their responses to messaging and branding.

We combined insights from these accompanied shopping trips with past ShopperVista data to identify the features that make different formats resonate with shoppers. In the report, you can find out how to ensure your retail media is noticed and incentivise sales.

In the report, we delved deeper into five key formats:

Gondola ends: Gondola end space benefits from visibility and can be noticed by those who avoid certain aisles to avoid temptation. However, many shoppers are highly routine and head straight to the categories they need. Gondola ends, therefore, need to stand out; in this report, we identified what helps drive cut-through of the aisle-end displays. While gondola ends have high visibility in-store, shoppers also expect more from them. This report explores how to meet their evolving expectations.

Digital screens: Getting shoppers to notice retail media is a challenge, and influencing their decisions is harder still. We explored whether shoppers really notice digital screens in-store, the role of visibility and visual content, and what they believe could make these screens more engaging.

Branded bays: Branded bays are often colourful and visually appealing, but our research questioned whether visual appeal alone is enough to influence shoppers at the point of purchase.

Shelf fins: Shelf fins are a smaller, more subtle form of retail media, usually only seen by shoppers browsing the aisle. Often featuring product imagery, callouts and messages about new products or Clubcard offers, we explored what helps them capture attention and support decision-making in-store.

FSDUs (free-standing display units): FSDUs vary widely in quality and are placed throughout the store, so we wanted to understand how placement shapes their effectiveness and where shoppers expect to see them. In a crowded retail environment, we explored how these displays can cut through and encourage shoppers to try something new or pick up an impulse buy.

Want to find out more?

ShopperVista subscribers can unlock the full report from May 28^th to find out more about how to align your retail media with shoppers’ needs and expectations. In the meantime, subscribers can gain insights, based on quantitative analysis, into the displays that drive the highest engagement through our Influencing shoppers in-store and online report. While our report, driving impact across the shopper journey, used eye-tracking research to understand how much attention shoppers pay to the retail environment.

To further explore how to capture attention and drive sales through shopper marketing and retail media, sign up to our upcoming virtual workshop.

If you have any questions on the report or would like to explore how we can tailor our research to your business needs, please reach out to [email protected], or contact [email protected].

To find out how you can get involved in ShopperVista’s next client engagement session, please reach out to a member of the ShopperVista team through [email protected].