Northeast Adcorp News - Shopper Marketing

Kiosks Provide Sanitation and Circulars

These kiosks can be found next to store entrances at supermarkets including ShopRite. They hold sanitary wipes and circulars and display ads from local businesses.

Shopper Marketing. Vol. 22, No. 12 - December 2009 As talk of swine flu and virus protection intensifies, supermarkets would be wise to provide disinfectant shopping cart wipes at store entrances.

Welcome Center Kiosks from Northeast Advertising Corp., Tarrytown, N.Y., deliver complimentary sanitary wipes, a store’s weekly circular, and prominent ad messages from local companies that fund the free kiosks and cart wipes

"Supermarkets across the nation are working to avoid sickness as well as indemnify themselves from any liability related to it,” says Peter Broccole, senior vice president of the company. “At the same time, display advertising by local companies on the kiosks has increased by 44% over the past 12 months, even in a down economy."

Broccole attributes this increase to the excellent exposure offered by the kiosks. Benefits to advertisers include placement at the highly trafficked front entrance; repeat messaging as most people visit their supermarket three times a week on average; and audience selection, as sponsors hand-pick the stores in which they advertise.

Top display advertising categories include doctors, dentists and hospitals, followed by insurance and real estate companies – all serving a store's local customer base and seeking to grow their businesses by increasing branding. The company is not going after national brands to advertise.

About 300 supermarkets in the Northeast are using the kiosks today, including ShopRite, which has increased placements from 30 to 200, several stores in the Associated Supermarkets and Key Food chains, and a host of independents. Broccole says many leading sanitary wipe manufacturers provide standalone kiosks that dispense shopping cart wipes, but that supermarkets must pay for the wipe inventory.

His company’s offering provides the wipes and permanent wooden kiosks that include a place to stack and display weekly circulars; a refuse container for used wipes; back-up wipe storage; and space for aluminum- framed ads up to 2 feet by 4 feet – all funded by advertising sponsorships.

He cites research that shows the average public restroom, cleaned about three times a week, is more sanitary than the handle of a shopping cart. "Especially now when everyone is concerned with swine flu, and supermarkets want to help alleviate the germs that cart handles carry, it only makes sense for supermarkets to provide the wipes for free, while also gaining an entire Welcome Center Kiosk for the store."

Supermarkets are prime targets for the Welcome Center Kiosk rather than drugstores or even Walmart "because advertising effectiveness is all about repetition; people have to go to the grocery store and average three trips a week. more than they visit most other retail locations," says Broccole.

The Welcome Center Kiosks are maintained by an internal Northeast Advertising Corp. merchandising team. — Lorna Pappas