What Albertsons is looking to learn from its test run of in-store digital displays in two markets

Albertsons is among a growing number of retailers experimenting with in-store signage as an element of their growing advertising businesses. And, given Albertsons reach — more than 2,200 stores in 35 states — it’s an important validation point. Still, like many other retailers doing pilot programs this year, Albertsons has yet to determine how quickly to scale up the program and how it will measure the efficacy of the technology in generating revenue and profits moving forward.

“We’re taking this pilot as an amazing opportunity to learn. When it comes to in-store, digital screen networks, there really isn’t a playbook,” Roche said, referring to the fact that while there are many case studies about other formats like search ads, there hasn’t yet been a widespread rollout of digital screens at U.S. retailers. “It’s not like we can say, ‘OK, let’s just rip the page out of the textbook. We’ll rinse and repeat and we’ll apply it.’ … We’re really taking this pilot as an incredible opportunity to learn, to tweak, to optimize and to continue rapid expansion.”

Not just ads, but also informational content

The company is adding television screens to key areas of each store such as the entrance, the produce department, the meat department and the center of the store. The screens will display both advertiser content and informational content. For example, in the produce department, a customer could spot a 15-second video on what to do with radishes. Roche said a playlist of ads alone wouldn’t be an ideal shopping experience, so the company is looking at how to optimize content to both enhance the shopper experience and drive growth for suppliers.

“We have a tremendous amount of people who are coming to a store every week. Bringing them excellent content and maybe helping them think outside the box and giving them that inspiration really enables a full-funnel experience for both our advertisers and for our shoppers,” Roche said. “[Brand marketers] are excited to have some space to play to build that affinity. … Learning how to make a seven-layer dip and what chips to use for such a substantial dip is a really great brand moment where brand marketers can build affinity.”

The first brand partners include snack and beverage company Mondelēz, as well as non-endemic brands such as PayPal.

“I think the level of attention you have from a shopper when they’re in store is high. People are alert. They’re looking at the shelves. They’re making real-time decisions,” Roche said. “In such an attention economy that we’re working in, our non-endemic brands are really leaned into trying to add to that journey, whether that’s in the [fintech] space or elsewhere.”

Roche said the genesis of the program was the retailer’s large amount of store traffic, having 36 million people in its stores every week and 45 million loyalty members.

“That traffic is really valuable,” Roche said. “Our shoppers love being in the store, so by enhancing their in-store experience and enhancing their shopper experience, but also helping to get our supplier partners ingrained in that shopping experience and giving brand marketers opportunities to really tell big stories in store, it’s really an incredible canvas.”

The quest for measurement

Ultimately, Roche said the goal of the test is to figure out how to close the loop through measurement technology.

“By introducing more technology, we can start to understand things like, ‘Is this individual ad working?'” Roche said. “We’re able to get a lot more granular and move more into causation and move away from correlated results. That’s what we’re aiming to do, and frankly, that’s what our suppliers want … They want attributed impressions. They want to understand exactly how every impression is driving their business forward, and we want to be able to deliver that.”

Roche said that could include sensor technology to understand exact efficacy of each screen, dwell time and served impressions while maintaining privacy, though the company declined to share exactly how it would accomplish that.

“This is all-new, bleeding-edge, I would say, hot-off-the-press types of technology,” Roche said. “It takes some calibration. It takes partners who want to say, ‘Hey, I’m willing to learn with you all,’ which makes us really lucky in this space, because we have those partners.”

The year of digital signage pilots

Several other major grocers have recently launched digital signage pilot programs in the same vein. Kroger announced in June that Barrows Connected Stores was building a new platform for the retailer to deliver animated content in its stores, integrated onto shelves, endcaps or other locations throughout each store. At the end of last year, Iowa-based regional grocer Hy-Vee added 10,000-plus in-store screens across more than 400 locations.

“2025 is the tipping-point year of in-store RMN pilots,” said Sean Cheyney, head of retail media at Vistar Media, an out-of-home advertising firm.  “Everybody’s realizing that this is something they need to do. … The retail media teams are really driving this, because they’re running out of inventory on their owned-and-operated [online] assets.”

Like Albertsons, retailers are generally looking at the best play to manage and expand the screens, how many to put in and how it fits into the broader store strategy, he said. Measurability is a big component to these tests: Most commonly, screens have had little to no way of measuring success of ads. Now, he said, grocers are using platforms like Circana, Inmar or LiveRamp that they’ve been using elsewhere in the store for measurement to determine the ROAS of what’s happening on the screen. Like what Albertsons is experimenting with, sensors can also be used to measure impressions.

He expects to see more widespread adoption of in-store digital signage within the next year and a half.

“It always drives me nuts when [retailers] look at it in a silo, which is the way [in-store] has been for a long time,” he said. “Now they’re looking at it and saying, ‘How can this fold into the greater retail media ecosystem?’”

Still awaiting ‘the killer campaign’

Sean Turner, CTO of retail media tech platform Swiftly — which has worked on retail media platforms for California-based grocery chain Save Mart, as well as Oklahoma-based chain Homeland — also admitted the technology is still in early days.

“I don’t think, as of yet, we’ve really seen the ‘killer campaign,’ or the killer setup where all of the necessary elements come together and just blow away what we’ve been doing in the paper world,” Turner said.

That campaign, Turner said, would ideally start long before a shopper gets to the store, making sure they know about the brand through platforms such as web ads, connected TV or linear TV, as well as on-platform retail media like video in retailer apps. The video could link to recipe ideas that use the product or nutritional information, as well as a coupon. That would get a customer in the store, where they would see in-store videos with quick clips that remind customers of what the product is and how to use it. That would draw attention to the product in the store, where the customer would find something like a QR code driving them back to that offer they saw earlier online.

“The shopper is going to make up their mind as to whether or not they’re going to buy the product, or at least get most of the way there, before they get in the stores,” Turner said. “You have to do that work before they get in.”

He said once retailers and CPG brands figure out how to best use the medium, he expects more rapid adoption, going from the pilots of a few stores or a few markets to every store within a grocery banner. Still, he said such programs can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars per store, so it could be a few years before the technology is affordable enough for grocers to make the plunge, as well.

“The margins [in grocery] are so incredibly thin. … You have to be able to make a profit on everything that you’re doing as a store in order for that to work,” Turner said. “I think we’re going to have to see the confidence and the proof points on the CPG side really accelerating, and as kind of a consequence or a result of that, you’ll start to see the retailer side accelerate.”