Retail Media: Spar Integrates In-Store Channels with Footprints AI

The Romanian adtech provider Footprints AI is putting its retail media software to work for Spar International, per a company announcement reported by invidis. The new system consolidates advertising channels across more than 13,500 of the retailer's locations in 50 regions, letting advertisers plan, book and evaluate campaigns in Spar stores from one place.

Footprints AI is not setting up a network of its own for this. Instead, the software draws on channels the Spar retailers already run: in-store screens, in-store radio, online shops, apps and point-of-sale data. The company, which operates from footprints.ai, says it is already active in a further 10,000-plus stores across Central and Eastern Europe, Latin America and Southeast Asia — a footprint separate from the Spar rollout.

Under the arrangement, each Spar national organization keeps control of its own data and advertising space. For Spar's Central European stores, Zetadisplay is currently building a retail media network outfitted with hundreds of displays.

"Retail media has reached a point where brands and agencies no longer need an isolated network. They need a marketplace that can scale results," said Dan Marc, CEO of Footprints AI.

Planning rests on the company's predictive audience targeting, which forecasts what customers are most likely to buy within the next one, seven and 30 days and uses those projections to build audiences and tune campaigns. The forecasts blend real-time signals: shopper behavior in stores, screen and radio ad delivery data, POS transactions and app activity.

The vendor puts the accuracy of those forecasts at 98 percent — a figure based on its own benchmarks from more than 7,000 campaigns for global brands such as Coca-Cola, Pepsi and Heineken, not an independent measurement. Footprints AI says the same tools are meant to help Spar's national organizations lift their advertising revenue.