Home of the Brave New World

If you're like me – and evidently like most TV viewers – you rarely watch a commercial. Probably haven't in some time. (Except for Super Bowl commercials, which are sine qua non viewing.)

Brands put an enormous amount of energy into clever, well-placed and expensive 30- and 60-second spots. And we don't watch them. Years ago, remote-control clickers allowed us to change channels, and avoid annoying ads, without leaving

our recliners. Then we got commercial-free premium cable. Then VCRs that fast-forwarded through the commercials. Now we TiVo those shows.

The brand marketers are finally beginning to catch on: If their demographic isn't watching their commercials at home, where can they reach the consumer? How about where the consumer shops? In the store!

One option is what some are calling “Banana-Vision.” It's the nickname for the 42-inch high-definition LCD monitors Wal-Mart has installed directly over the pyramids of bright yellow bananas in its stores (and, of course, elsewhere). Wal-Mart is said to be creating a tidy little profit center with its in-store television network, selling commercial time to its product vendors. The commercials are screened on TV monitors to something like 30 million Wal-Mart shoppers a week. It's being called (perhaps hyperbolically) the “fifth network,” about to rival the big four – ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox – in advertising revenue. (According to Wal-Mart's rate card, advertisers pay $137,000 to $292,000 to show a single commercial for a four-week period, depending on the length of the ad and the number of stores where it is shown.)

It's all part of the brave new world of dynamic in-store digital media. Curiosity, excitement and concern surround the potential for applications of this still-new technology: messaging, video or graphics, delivered through a centrally managed and controlled network – often over the Internet – and usually displayed in stores on large LCD/plasma screens or high-definition flat screens.

What's new and potentially exciting about that is not simply the high quality and size of the images. Nor is it the potential revenue from vendors. Not everyone has Wal-Mart's clout. It's also that chain retailers can centrally customize the message so that in-store promotions can be updated immediately; messages can be controlled by region of the country (different information in Atlanta than Seattle than Boston) or by time of day (hitting non-working housewives and moms in the morning, after-school kids in the afternoon, working couples in the evening) or even from one store to another.

But, as with all new technology, questions abound. How much does it cost? What's the return on all that investment? Will you have to tear up your store to rewire or lay cable or install screens? Exactly where will the content come from? Who are the reputable suppliers? Exactly which departments within the retail organization should be responsible for this? And where, exactly, do you start?

Well, you could start with VM+SD's new In-Store Digital Media supplement in this issue, the first of two on the subject we'll be running in 2005. (It will also be distributed at this month's Digital Retailing Expo in Chicago, probably another excellent place to start.)

Unlike Huxley's “Brave New World,” this stuff doesn't come with any magic soma pill. But you might well find utopia, with the right information and the right planning.