The in-store agency

Wal-Mart has appointed Saatchi & Saatchi X (conveniently headquartered in Springdale, Arkansas) as their first agency of record for in-store marketing.

It may be that other retailers have named agencies of record for in-store but, because they weren’t Wal-Mart, it escaped my notice. In any case, Wal-Mart’s embrace of the concept indicates (again) the growing importance of the store as a medium.

I have been arguing for years that the store is the most-important advertising medium, an idea that has gained further traction with the fragmentation and decline of what used to be “mass” media – especially TV and newspaper.

While Saatchi has long been working with Wal-Mart on store design projects and promos, it will be interesting to see what being agency of record truly means. In-store communications in most retailers (and my experience with Wal-Mart indicates that they are no different) consists of a wide variety of vehicles (signage, kiosks, endcaps, in-store broadcast, etc), some produced in-house, the rest from various suppliers, offered up in no coherent manner, and presenting competing and often contradictory messages.

Is Wal-Mart, through Saatchi, going to try to impose some sort of discipline?

It won’t be an easy job (to put it mildly), but it will be interesting to watch. And manufacturers, who are trying to get their messages through the in-store confusion, need to watch carefully and adapt their trade promotion programs accordingly.