Video
Ads Are Planned for Grocery Carts
By JESSICA MINTZ
SEATTLE
(AP) - Microsoft
Corp. (MSFT)
(MSFT)
is bringing digital advertising
to the grocery cart. The software maker spent four years working
with Plano, Texas-based MediaCart Holdings Inc. on a grocery
cart-mounted console that helps shoppers find products in the
store, then scan and pay for their items without waiting in
the checkout line.
Microsoft's
acquisition of aQuantive, an online advertising company, last
year for $6 billion shored up the company's capacity to serve
video ads onto these grocery cart screens.
Starting
in the second half of 2008, the companies plan to test MediaCart
in Wakefern Food Corp.'s ShopRite supermarkets on the East Coast.
Customers with a ShopRite loyalty card will be able to log into
a Web site at home and type in their grocery lists; when they
get to the store and swipe their card on the MediaCart console,
the list will appear. As shoppers scan their items and place
them in their cart, the console gives a running price tally
and checks items off the shopping list.
The
system also uses radio-frequency identification to sense where
the shopper's cart is in the store. The RFID data can help ShopRite
and food makers understand shopping patterns, and the technology
can also be used to send certain advertisements to people at
certain points - an ad for 50 cents off Oreos, for example,
when a shopper enters the cookie aisle. Microsoft said it is
still working on how it will present commercials and coupons.
Microsoft
is also working with MediaCart and ShopRite to help advertisers
reach potential consumers based on past grocery purchases, which
are logged when they swipe their loyalty cards.
"This is not all necessarily about bombarding consumers,
about targeting advertising," said Scott Ferris, general
manager of Microsoft's Advertiser and Publisher Solutions group.
"It's about also making the shopping experience better
for the consumer."
Advertisers
will get more feedback about which commercials or coupon offers
are effective, because customers either buy the products or
accept the offers on the spot, or they don't. But Ferris said
neither Microsoft nor any advertisers will have access to the
personal information consumers provide when they join the supermarket's
loyalty card program.