The Case for Studying In-Store Media

The term “in-store media” refers to displays in retail establishments as diverse as supermarkets, department stores, and specialty clothing boutiques. In many countries these displays are becoming digital and interactive. They tie into people’s hand-held mobile lives, transforming the ways retailers relate to one another and their customers. Yet despite these displays’ longstanding and growing importance, media researchers have neglected in-store phenomena. Indeed, researchers’ scant attention to this type of media has led them to miss out on fascinating developments with potentially important social implications. This paper aims to encourage research on retailing by suggesting the utility of a media industries perspective. The framework points to the value of studying the production and circulation of digital and physical marketing materials that merchants use to target shoppers. Preliminary work from this viewpoint reveals new data-led approaches to customer relationships that raise questions about when and how retail-based media reinforce, extend, and shape anti-pluralistic, even anti-democratic, processes and perceptions.