Tesco is filming customers to monitor how they respond to digital advertising screens in its stores.
In a trial across several stores, the supermarket is measuring how many people come near the screens, how close they were to them, and how long they stayed there.
The effort is to capture how customers interact with the screens, which display advertising images and videos supplied by brands.
It is understood the trial does not involve facial recognition or capture the individual identities of customers.
The move was first spotted by IGD retail futures senior partner Bryan Roberts at the Tesco Extra store in Hatfield. A single screen in the store – located in the seasonal aisle – displayed the message to customers: “Trial measurement technology is used in this store to understand how people engage with our digital screens.”
The project is being led by the supermarket’s retail media arm, Tesco Media and Insight Platform – a partnership between Tesco and Dunnhumby, launched in 2021.
Last month, Tesco Media launched Tesco Media Creative Studio, which will work with brands to quickly create compliant ads in multiple formats using generative AI.
It has been rapidly expanding its network of in-store digital screens, as well as launching location-based ads on self-scan handsets.
In physical stores, two-thirds of shoppers are “open to discovery” during their shop, research commissioned by Tesco Media found, jumping to 80% for those with children. Some 60% of shoppers with children discover and buy a new product during their shop, while 69% of all shoppers “make their final decision about what to buy” as they’re shopping.
At a recent event for brands, Tash Whitmey, managing director at Tesco Media, said retail media’s strength is “that it is where the interests of the advertiser and the retailer are aligned in driving the right outcome for the customer”.
“Our mission is to build media solutions that work for customers, advertisers and Tesco, in that order, by enhancing the shopping experience in store, bringing some everyday magic and making it easier to discover your products existing and new,” Whitmey added.
The trial was a “clear indication that retail media measurement is set to become a significant theme over the coming years”, Roberts told The Grocer. “And it’s not surprising that Tesco is leading the charge in this area.
“Over the next five years, we anticipate that selected retailers in specific markets will reach a new level of retail media sophistication,” he added. “This will involve the creation of well-defined, thoroughly tested, and shopper-centric retail media networks that have demonstrated clear effectiveness in delivering accurately and consistently measured outcomes.”
According to data released today by WARC Media, global retail media ad spend is set to reach $196.7bn in 2026, overtaking the combined linear and connected TV spend next year, having amounted to barely a quarter of the total TV market in 2019.
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