“It’s time to awaken the sleeping giant.” That was the call-to-action that Chris Riegel, CEO of global digital signage solutions giant STRATACACHE, sounded at the IAB Europe’s Retail Media Impact Summit in Amsterdam in late September to more than 150 of Europe’s senior retail media leaders.   

That “sleeping giant” is in-store digital retail media. In the broader retail media ecosystem, Chris points out, it has long received only a tiny sliver of retail media spend, despite the fact that physical stores are where 93% of retail spending happens. 

After the live event, Chris—along with Chris McLelland, Director of Business Development, EMEA at Walkbase, part of the STRATACACHE family of marketing technology companies, sat down with IAB Europe’s Collin Colburn to dive deeper into how to tap in-store digital’s untapped potential. Now, IAB Europe is sharing that conversation in the latest episode of its Retail Media Roundtable podcast.  

“When I say ‘awake the sleeping giant,’ it doesn’t mean you have to have 300 displays with blinking lights distracting the customer,” Chris Riegel explains in the podcast. “Now you can have a targeted, customer-focused, experience-focused execution that drives revenue, drives trips, and drives a better customer experience.”

 

Data Is the Game-Changer

In the podcast, Chris McLelland homes in on what makes this moment uniquely transformative: In-store data measurement is no longer just guesswork. Advanced sensor technology now captures granular data from the moment shoppers enter a store until they leave, enabling retailers and brands to craft data-rich, location-specific media strategy.

“Gone are the days where you just run media because it’s contextually relevant,” he emphasizes. “Today you’ve got thousands of data points that you can harness and turn into strategy. But data on its own is just noise. The insights you can get from it are what’s important.”

“Don’t just collect data,” he advises. “Listen to it. Learn from it.” This analytics-driven approach he extols will enable brands to move beyond static campaigns to dynamic, responsive messaging that adapts to real-time store conditions and shopper behavior. 

 

It’s All About Conversion

One misreading that retailers often make, Chris Riegel explains in the podcast, is conflating digital out-of-home (DOOH) with in-store digital media. The key distinction, he says, is that while DOOH delivers mass awareness, in-store media drives real-time point-of-sale conversion.

“If you’re a retailer and you’re thinking of (in-store) as digital out-of-home, you’re devaluing the asset that you have, which is data,” he warns. Thanks to the latest tech and AI-powered analytics, in-store data measurement offers retailers insights that it can monetize over repeated shopping trips and use to enhance the shopping experience. 

That data not only offers direct attribution from impression to conversion. It also offers granular insights into shopper behavior, down to when and where an in-store digital ad had delivered the most bang for the buck.

 

A Creative Canvas All Its Own

Another key piece of advice that Chris Riegel shares on the podcast: Brands need to rethink their approach in-store creative to leverage its unique potential. 

“Don’t think of in-store as television,” he advises. “In-store is much, much closer to mobile than it is to any form of broadcast.” But it’s not mobile—in-store is its own unique creative canvas, he says. Marketers need to move away from looping 30-second spots designed for broadcast toward dynamic content that changes based on store conditions, shopper patterns, and real-time data.

If there is one big-picture takeaway from the podcast, it is that all the pieces are now in place to awaken the sleeping giant of in-store retail media so that it can assume its rightful place at the heart of omnichannel retail media strategy. The technology exists, the data is available, and the opportunity is massive. “All the elements are there,” says Chris Riegel. “Now go do it.”

Click here to listen to the full conversation with STRATACACHE’s Chris Riegel and Chris McLelland from Walkbase on the Retail Media Roundtable podcast.