Wal-Mart Set to Deploy Digital In-store Advertising Dubbed ‘Smart Network’
September 5, 2008 by Susan Gunelius
Filed under Marketing
You’re not fooling me Wal-Mart. Your so called ‘Smart Network’ that is meant to deliver to customers, “helpful, custom content closest to the point of decision that helps them shop smarter,” doesn’t make me want to swallow what you’re trying to dish out. Advertising by any other name is still advertising.
The above quote came from Stephen Quinn, chief marketing officer of Wal-Mart from an article on Brandweek.com, but just three paragraphs later in the same article, we hear from Bill Lynch, Premier Retail Networks’ (PRN) executive vice president of sales (PRN will provide network operations for Wal-Mart’s Smart Network) who says without qualms that, “All of the content [delivered on the Smart Network] could be classified as advertising, but hopefully it won’t be perceived that way by the consumer.” And there you have it.
We’ll have to wait and see if the Wal-Mart Smart Network is actually helpful or just adds to the cluttered Wal-Mart in-store experience. Wal-Mart has scheduled to roll out the Smart Network to 300 stores in time for the 2008 holiday season with 27,000 screens expected to be in stores by 2010.
I’m also waiting to see how the Smart Network screens (which look like regular television screens) affect store traffic flows. I already get annoyed by people who stand in the way of the aisles with their carts blocking all traffic. Will the Smart Network screens add to the bottleneck?
Again, we’ll have to wait and see if the content delivered by the Smart Network is actually helpful to customers. I’m having trouble getting over my reaction as a consumer to the Smart Network. My initial reaction is “Smart Network = annoying nuisance”. However, perhaps it will be useful (insert sarcastic tone here).
What do you think?
Image: Flickr
wait, don’t they already advertise in their stores?
with those TV screens hanging from the ceilings?
Mark, I was wondering the same thing. Those TVs have been called Wal-Mart TV and these are the new Smart Network, so I’m not sure if it’s an extension of the original concept, a replacement or an addition. They don’t have Wal-Mart TVs in any of the Wal-Mart stores near me, but it looks like there won’t be any escaping the encroachment of Wal-Mart’s in-store advertising television anymore!
Whatever. I’m looking for a universal remote either way, since the ’smart network’ has begun *tweeting* to manipulate me into looking at it. I find it worse than annoying, and if I could get away with cutting the wires or spraypainting graffiti I would. Meantime I am enthused to come up with other means of disrupting their regular programming. Feel more and more like we’re all cattle lining up to get milked.
hate it