News

Walmart reveals 18-month results for SMART Network

The retail giant has tied digital signage to its POS network and it is yielding impressive sales uplifts.

February 23, 2010

Walmart released critical information on the state of its SMART digital signage network this morning at Digital Signage Expo as part of the Digital Out-of-Home Advertising Summit. Following a keynote from MediaBytes’ Shelly Palmer, three men who helped develop the network several years ago talked to a “standing room only crowd” about the network’s uplift stats, notable campaigns and plans for the future.

“Who remembers Walmart TV?” asked Andy Johnson, creative director at Walmart. Many in the audience sheepishly raised their hands. “Now, who has seen the SMART Network? The two could not be more different.”

Anyone who has seen both networks would surely agree. Faded CRT televisions hanging from shoddy mounts high above the retail area were replaced 18 months ago with high-definition screens in portrait and landscape mode at shoppers’ eye levels.

Johnson compared the two networks with the following lists:

Old Walmart TV network
1. Audience aggregation
2. 30 second ads
3. Single-channel CRTs
4. CPM-based pricing

New SMART Network
1. Helping shoppers shop smarter
2. Formats designed for retail
3. Zone specific screens
4. Lift-based pricing

Research also supports the SMART Network’s success over its predecessor. Bill McMullen, senior vice president and general manager of Studio2, cited a recent Nielsen survey that said 40 percent of Walmart shoppers noticed the network, 32 percent recalled an ad on the network and 64 percent reported a “positive experience” from the network.

These percentages are impressive when one takes into consideration that the SMART Network reports 140 million impressions per week, with a CPM of $2-4. To put that in perspective, the Super Bowl reported 100 million impressions earlier this month.

The triple play

Walmart’s premier SMART Network ad buy is called the triple play, where a campaign is shown on a large welcome screen at the entrance of the store, a category screen in departments and endcap screens on each aisle.

According to Johnson, it takes 21 seconds for a shopper to move from the door of the store to the greeting area where the welcome screen is placed.

“The welcome screen messages run about five seconds,” Johnson said. “Of those 21 seconds, we’re hoping to get at least five seconds of attention.”

Category screens are “a few steps away” from the products, and usually mounted above departments like over the counter drugs and frozen foods.

Endcaps, Johnson says, are “within arms reach” and provide “the one piece of info I need to make a buying decision right now.”

Success

By all accounts, the SMART Network has been successful in the past 18 months, as it has proven to increase sales for many of the products that are advertised on it.

Walmart has a sophisticated back end system for its SMART Network that ties the digital signage into the point-of-sale system. Tying the two to each other allows Walmart to isolate the exact sales lift effects of the network’s content, says Dave Debusk, VP of DS-IQ.

“We know what content is played on what screens at what stores at what times,” he said. “And simultaneously we know what was sold at those times.”

Based on that data, Walmart was able to calculate the following percentage increases in store departments which feature the SMART Network.

Sales lift by departments
Electronics – 7%
Over the counter TC – 23%
Food – 13%
Health/beauty – 28%

Sales lift by product type
Mature item boost – 7%
Item launch – 9%
Seasonal push – 18%
Price leadership (items on rollback) – 6%

The future of the network

Debusk said that his company and Walmart are going to continue to work on isolating sales uplift and are already working on a program to optimize advertising.

The optimization of the network will allow advertisers to run multiple campaigns and let the network “decide” which ad is most effective based on point-of-sale metrics. The network can then automatically respond by running ads at times when they have proven to be most effective.

“One product may sell better on the weekend, another is better during the week,” said Debusk. “Optimization can realize that one product sells better on weekend and throttle back on it during the week, at the same time throttling up on messaging for a brand that does well during the week.”