A new program rolling out with the holiday shopping season is in-store televisions placed at Wal-Mart checkouts. Nearly 70 percent of Americans will visit one of the retail giant’s outlets over the next four weeks, and for some the checkout experience will include an opportunity to view ads as well as local news and other content.

To find out how to get your client’s message in front of shoppers waiting in line to check out at Wal-Mart, read on.

This is one in a Media Life series on buying the new out-of-home venues. They appear weekly.

Fast Facts

What
Ads broadcast from flat-screen TVs placed in the checkout lanes of retailers.

Who
Premier Retail Networks (PRN), headquartered in San Francisco

How it works
Ads are interspersed with news and other content on flat screens placed by checkout counters at Wal-Mart stores. Customers are targeted as they wait in line to check out, with a focus on items that are available near by and are typically considered impulse buys.

PRN calls the program Checkout TV. It is rolling out as an addition to Wal-Mart in-store television network.

“Commercials run in a 12-minute loop five times an hour,” says company president Eric Bindelglass. “It’s designed to entertain and inform shoppers.” Community information, entertainment and ads make up the cycle. Local news and weather run on a ticker.

Content partners include A&E (Biography), TV Guide, Entertainment Weekly, Oxygen, NBC ("Today Show," "Tonight Show with Jay Leno," "Late Night with Conan O’Brien" and "Access Hollywood") and Telemundo.

“The program will definitely convey the season we’re in,” Bindelglass says. “There’s been a lot of orange and black the last few weeks for Halloween, and now a lot of items being featured are relevant for seasonal gift-giving.”

National advertisers generally typically buy the entire network, Mitchell says. Local advertisers can cherry-pick locations. A portion of the loop is in Spanish at some locations.

Markets
The rollout is in Dallas/Ft. Worth, Washington D.C., Atlanta, Houston, Tampa, Phoenix, Denver and Fayetteville-Rogers, Ark.

Numbers
There are 2,850 Wal-Mart stores. Of those, 283 are part of the rollout of the new Checkout TV program. Wal-Mart annual sales are $182.3 billion. Store traffic is 35.7 million over a typical four-week period, according to a Nielsen New Media Research study, May 2005.

How it is measured
Nielsen has conducted the first phase in the study of Checkout TV, Mitchell says. Next Nielsen will design a study to measure the national audience, looking at factors including store locations, time of day, receptibility to advertisers and brand recall, as well as total percentage of store traffic that views the loop.

Research
A study by Nielsen New Media Research conducted in May 2005 found that:
- 76 percent of shoppers view CheckoutTV
- 94 percent of shoppers surveyed agreed that Checkout TV was a good thing

Additionally, there are 15 million viewers per four-week flight, according to an estimate based on Nielsen Media Research in May 2005. Based on the study, PRN uses the formula that 40.1 percent of store visitors view the checkout screens.

What product categories do well
National and local products and services are both well suited to placement at checkout counters. Products sold near the checkout counter include razors, wireless phone items, magazines and snack items.

Businesses located inside Wal-Mart that advertise on the checkout network include portrait studios, eye centers, banks, tax preparers, hair salons and restaurants. Some are run by Wal-Mart and others by outside vendors. The types of local businesses that might advertise include car dealers, banks, theaters and medical and legal services.

Categories that are incompatible are competitive retailers, alcohol and tobacco.

Demographics
“The reality is you’re going to have a high concentration of everybody going through the doors. Roughly 90 percent of the population visits Wal-Mart,” Mitchell says.

A 2004 Mediamark Research Doublebase profile of Wal-Mart shoppers found that:
- 67.3 percent of U.S. adult females had shopped at Wal-Mart in the past 30 days
- 53.8 percent of Wal-Mart shoppers are women
- 62.7 percent of U.S. adult males had shopped at Wal-Mart in the past 30 days
- 46.2 percent of Wal-Mart shoppers are men
- 66.5 percent of U.S. adults aged 18 – 49 shopped at Wal-Mart in the past 30 days
- 64.1 percent of Wal-Mart shoppers are 18-49
- 69.4 percent of U.S. women aged 18-49 shopped at Wal-Mart in the past 30 days
- 33.8 percent of Wal-Mart shoppers are women 18-49
- 63.6 percent of U.S. men aged 18-49 shopped at Wal-Mart in the past 30 days
- 30.3 percent of Wal-Mart shoppers are men 18-49
- 66.1 percent of U.S. adults aged 25-54 shopped at Wal-Mart in the past 30 days
- 59.3 percent of Wal-Mart shoppers are adults 25-54
- 68.6 percent of U.S. women aged 25-54 shopped at Wal-Mart in the past 30 days
- 31.3 percent of Wal-Mart shoppers are women 25-54
- 63.5 percent of U.S. men aged 25-54 shopped at Wal-Mart in the past 30 days
- 28 percent of Wal-Mart shoppers are men 25-54
- 49.7 percent of Wal-Mart shoppers have a household income of $50,000 or more
- 28 percent of Wal-Mart shoppers have a household income of $75,000 or more
- 15.4 percent of Wal-Mart shoppers have an income of $100,000 or more
- 64.9 percent of Wal-Mart shoppers are employed full or part time
- 50.1 percent of Wal-Mart shoppers attended or graduated from college
- 72.5 percent of Wal-Mart shoppers own their homes
- 43.1 percent of Wal-Mart shoppers have one or more children in their household
 
Making the buy
Lead time is four weeks for advertisers supplying their own creative. Customizing segments can take from nine to 12 weeks. For the markets now in the rollout, costs run $80,000 for a spot running five times an hour for a four-week flight, with CPMs ranging from $5 to $12. Flights are typically four weeks.

Who’s already on Checkout TV
TV Guide, Vaseline and First National Bank of Texas are among the initial advertisers.

What they’re saying
“It’s new. It just rolled out in major shopping markets. The audience is pretty broad, but you can go after a segment, say women 25 to 34. It’s great for clients who want to be at the point of purchase. It’s also very customized and has sound capability, which is a plus because you can use your TV spot.” – Ryan Laul, account manager for New York-based Outdoor Vision

Web site info
PRN at www.prn.com

Etc.
Screens also appear in Wal-Mart in other departments, including interactive music preview stations in home electronics.

Retailers that have PRN in-store television programming include Albertsons, Best Buy, Circuit City, Costco, Jewel-Osco, Pathmark, Ralphs, SAM’S CLUB, Sears, Shaw’s, ShopRite and Star Markets.