Convenience stores more effective for brand-building, Co-op study finds

Convenience retail media is reportedly able to “super charge” brand recall four times more than campaigns in larger stores, due to shopper frequency and the “uniqueness” of a convenience store’s format, according to a study released by Co-op Media Network (CMN). 

In partnership with Lumen Research, CMN has evidenced the recall power of advertising in a convenience retail setting and revealed the “untapped” potential of retail media as a brand-building marketing channel when compared to traditional media. 

CMN has hypothesised that, due to Co-op’s smaller store sizes, formats and higher shopper frequency, advertising messages within convenience stores would be seen and recalled by more people – and more often. 

Furthermore, in a convenience store, the presence of mixed category aisles leads to customers encountering a wide variety of advertisements within the same space. 

The Lumen Research methodology involved shoppers navigating either a small or large Co-op store on a BBQ shopping mission – engaging with a mixture of categories from protein, produce, frozen, ambient and BWS – while wearing unobtrusive eye-tracking glasses. These devices monitored what the shoppers were viewing, the duration of their gaze and retinal movements.

According to Lumen, this approach provided precise insights into what the shoppers were observing and offered an understanding of which advertisements were within their peripheral vision. It also assessed viewability and opportunities to see, indicating instances where advertisements could have been seen without direct focus. Upon leaving the stores, shoppers were tested on brand recall and completed brand choice surveys.

Results indicated that larger stores do generate brand-building with shoppers. However, when comparing smaller Co-op stores to larger-format stores, attention and recall were significantly enhanced in the convenience setting. 

The data revealed that a shopper who walks into a convenience store has twice the visibility of the advertising, triple the attention and quadruple brand recall compared to a large store.

Kenyatte Nelson, chief membership and customer officer at Co-op, said: “Traditionally, in-store advertising has been viewed by media buyers as a pure sales activation tool that was great for last-minute promotions but not for brand-building. However, this groundbreaking evidence now spotlights retail media, especially in a convenience setting, as one of the most powerful brand recall tools.

“The results from the Lumen Research study showcase the unmatched impact of Co-op’s small-format convenience stores and the findings position in-store advertising as a dual-purpose channel, driving both short-term sales and long-term brand growth.”