IN CLEAR FOCUS: Ron Levac, Chief Innovation Officer at Spectrio, explores the transformation of retail through digital signage and Retail Media Networks (RMNs). As brick-and-mortar stores influence 80 percent of purchases, Ron reveals how retailers can leverage digital displays, AI, and data analytics to enhance customer experiences. Learn how emerging technologies like MicroLED are revolutionizing in-store advertising, and why RMNs are projected to capture over 20% of media spend by 2027.
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Episode Transcript
Adrian Tennant: Coming up in this episode of IN CLEAR FOCUS
Ron Levac: In retail settings, creating awareness of the brand and its value proposition is what’s key. With the advances of RMN and the seamless integration into our tech stack, we’re able to say, not just “Use, educate, inform, and entertain,” but “Oh, by the way, you can monetize.”
Adrian Tennant: You’re listening to IN CLEAR FOCUS: fresh perspectives on marketing and advertising, produced weekly by Bigeye: a strategy-led, full-service creative agency growing brands for clients globally. Hello, I’m your host, Adrian Tennant, Chief Strategy Officer. Thank you for joining us. NRF 2025 Retail’s Big Show is being held in New York City this week. Over the past couple of years, the retail industry has been experiencing a significant transformation in how brands connect with consumers in physical stores. While e-commerce continues its growth, brick-and-mortar retail still accounts for approximately 80% of all purchasing decisions. This has led to increased interest in Retail Media Networks, or RMNs, which are projected to represent over one-fifth of all media spending by 2027. Through AI-powered analytics and digital signage, retailers are creating new revenue streams while offering brands creative opportunities to influence shoppers at the point of purchase. Today’s guest is at the forefront of the evolving relationship between digital signage and retail media. Ron Levac is the Chief Innovation Officer at Spectrio, one of the nation’s leading providers of comprehensive digital signage systems. To discuss how retailers can transform their digital signage from a cost center into a revenue stream through Retail Media Networks, and the role of AI-powered analytics in creating more engaging customer experiences, I’m delighted that Ron is joining us today from rural Wisconsin. Ron, welcome to IN CLEAR FOCUS!
Ron Levac: Hi, good morning. And I appreciate the opportunity to speak about Spectrio and what we do, and how we do it, for your audience.
Adrian Tennant: Ron, can you start by explaining what Spectrio is and the types of clients you serve?
Ron Levac: Yes, I can. What we’ve always focused on is to provide tools for our clients that help them connect better with their shoppers and their customers. That’s a high level. The way that manifests itself is typically digital signage is a big component of what we do. We’ve acquired many companies over the last few decades that had different digital signage content management platform and started to aggregate and that’s how we’ve become one of the bigger players in the industry is doing that. But along with that, we do in-store music or overhead music and messaging. We do on hold messaging. So if, when you call a typically healthcare type provider, on hold messaging, that’d be us. Kiosks, wifi marketing. So you go into a location and there’s the public wifi, the landing page, the post login page, things like that. So those are kind of the areas that we work on. The verticals, we work on primarily retail, the big presence in automotive, QSRs, and then we have the things like finance.
Adrian Tennant: Eighty percent of purchasing still happens in physical stores. Ron, how are retailers leveraging digital signage to influence these in-store purchasing decisions?
Ron Levac: Well, it’s quite the balancing act, because there’s always the idea of balancing the attention-grabbing content without making it be the flashing lights everywhere type of scenario. So where it’s done well is typically the digital touch points are engraved into a specific use case. And then it’s both physically and functionally. So integrated into a fixture, into a kiosk, or it’s blended into the environment. It provides some role there. And the functionality is where it actually provides a purpose more than just trying to sell an ad. And I know we’ll talk more about that, but that practical purpose for it. So there’s that. In retail settings, creating awareness of the brand and its value proposition is what’s key. So if you can do it in a personalized, more interactive way, that’s when you get bonus points.
Adrian Tennant: What role does data analytics play, and what kinds of data are most valuable to collect?
Ron Levac: So it’s a great question. What we typically do is break that down into three different buckets. So as far as, you know, just data and analytics, the first one is understanding the shopper behavior. So the count and the dwell time, either by store or by category within a store, the traffic to transaction ratio, the conversion, right? So you understand that for the different locations. repeat visitor frequency. So how many times does somebody come back to the store? And even queue management, you know, when do the queues swell so that you can impact when additional lines should be open or there’s somebody there and then they exit. So that’s when you’ve got a challenge. We’ve got different use cases where we help alleviate that. The second bucket, we call it campaign performance. So this is where you’re gauging the impact of the content that’s been created and deployed. So your classic A-B testing, A-B test everything. We try it here, you try it there, try this, try that. And then you see, if you’ve got the ability, and this is what’s key, if you’ve got the ability to measure the impact, dwell time, engagement, proximity, touches, gaze, things like that, then you have the ability to measure the effectiveness of all the different content. And what that helps you do is if that engagement starts to drop, you then are able to identify it’s time for a refresh. So imagine you’re getting whatever grade for the content that’s out there, and after two weeks, three weeks, four weeks, it starts to dip. In this particular region, it’s time to do a refresh. And then from that, you know, there’s just a basic metric of quantifying the effectiveness of the campaign. And then with this data, if it’s in real time, then you’re actually able to leverage it during the responsive content as well. We have this concept of touchless interactive, the idea that there’s a screen running and there’s nobody in the proximity of it, which means the content should be in such that you see it from a distance. large font, big graphics, things like that. And then it detects somebody within 12 feet. Well, that’s the job of that screen now changed to try to bring them in to engage. So then it says, Hey, come here. I got some more info on whatever. So then the person then got within three, four, five feet, the engagement zone. And now all of a sudden there’s a lot more detail. This is the product that’s on sale. These are the features that that type of thing. And then at the end of that, it could say, hey, you’re also interested in this. And then if they stick around, then it goes to the next line. If they disappeared, then it goes back to the attraction, getting the attractor. So this is just examples of the value of understanding what’s going on in front of a screen so that it could influence the content, make it a more personalized experience. You know, again, the content triggering. The third place that we look at data as being critical is location performance. So not all areas of the U.S. are the same. Not all content, not all your campaigns, all that would perform the same. So the ability to look at individual or regional stores and seeing what works best where. The idea of what are your top five performing, bottom five performing, and looking at their lessons learned from the top five that you can impact on the bottom five. and start raising the average type of thing. Then on the location performance, of course, also the staffing level decisions. You know, if you’ve got a sense of number of people that engage in whatever sections of the store, you have the ability to influence your staffing when you need somebody where.
Adrian Tennant: How can brands measure the effectiveness of their in-store digital advertising compared to their other more traditional media spend?
Ron Levac: Sure. Well, this is where it starts to get exciting. It’s a bit more traditional, like online, where you can track in real-time, the number of opens, the number of impressions, the number of clicks for anything that you put out there. In-store campaigns historically have been more about your launch and you kind of hope that it works. Right. That that’s been the more of the situation. So a brand would initiate a campaign and wait for the sales results to measure if it was effective or not, which could be a day a week, but it’s typically a month or two. Right. So there’s a significant line there. What you have the ability to do now is. You launch the campaign and say, within a week, you’re able to get some of the leading indicators as to whether it’ll be performing better or not, and then make adjustments if necessary. So for example, if it ended up that it wasn’t working, you can have the traffic going down the aisle. If there’s no traffic going down the aisle, Then it’s a wayfinding sign problem, right? Creating awareness that this product is in the aisle. Got it. But say there was traffic down the aisle, but there was nobody stopping or the product wasn’t standing out. Nobody was looking at it or paying attention to it. Then it’s more of a planet gram problem or a packaging problem, right? But now say you did actually have somebody stopping, engaging and looking at it and it still wasn’t selling. So then it’s a feature set or a price point. That’s the challenge, right? So, so you can see where before the product didn’t sell. Oh, what do I do? I don’t know. Let’s try a new campaign. Let’s do versus now with this sales funnel that, you know, in the sales world, everybody loves, right. To understand how you’re moving through the pipeline. You now have the ability to build that for your brand or for your product in the category. So now with the availability of the different sensor technologies, you can actually build an in-store sales funnel for the brand. So that’s quite interesting.
Adrian Tennant: It is. Now, I’ve heard you say there needs to be a practical, tactical purpose for digital signage beyond just advertising. So can you elaborate on what you mean by that?
Ron Levac: Sure. So if this was a webinar, you’d see the color of my hair. It would substantiate the fact that I’ve been in the industry for several decades now. And I’ve seen this build it and they will come. Somebody made a movie out of this, build it and they will come. And that model we’ve sold into it. I’ve always been on the infrastructure side. So selling to that. So we didn’t discourage this action, but it rarely ever works. The majority fail, at least historically. Right. And you’ve got your Lamars and your JC DeCos that have been successful at it, right? So they’ve deployed a lot of endpoints and they’re wildly successful at monetizing those. But for others, it’s harder. And on the flip side, for Spectro for decades now, what we’ve been doing is selling, deploying, and managing networks of digital signage that have that practical tactical purpose. They’re used to either educate, inform, or entertain. And now with the advances of RMN and the seamless integration into our tech stack, we’re able to say, not just use, educate, inform, and entertain, but oh, by the way, you can monetize. So that’s a big difference. So what that looked like is the ability for a brand to create either brand or product awareness at the point of decision. So the self-edge or the last eight feet is an example of how that would be done. Or an interactive display that allows the shoppers to compare and contrast product features. So that’s either like a kiosk or a lift and learn display. And all of those with that integration with the RMN, with the ad technology, you can have some level of monetization. All the retailer has to do is, or the brand has to do is decide how much of that airtime you want to have for your brand content versus ads.
Adrian Tennant: It’s fascinating. You’re Chief Innovation Officer at Spectrio, can you explain how AI and machine learning are being used to make digital signage more responsive to consumer behavior?
Ron Levac: Right. So from my perspective, it all starts with the sensors. So it’s a way of determining in real time more about what the shopper’s doing. Where are they looking? Where are they pausing or engaging? What products are they being picked up and evaluated? So once you have that, you have the AI translating that using the sensor inputs into insights. And then that insight is what the platform uses to personalize the content delivery, which makes it more effective.
Adrian Tennant: Ron, what kinds of sensors are we talking about here?
Ron Levac: Good question. Historically, we’ve been focused on computer vision. So computer vision is able to detect the presence and the behavior of shoppers in front of a screen or in an aisle or in front of an end cap. And along with that, profile the demographics because it’s using cameras and there’s a data model that can translate facial characteristics into gender and age and so on. So that’s what we’ve always done. Now there’s new data models that detect logos or other characteristics, things that people are carrying and things like that could be data point that would influence again that AI that we talked about to create new insights that would then change or modify what’s being displayed on the screen. The other technologies that we’ve invested in are radar technology. So this is what we use when somebody has an emotional reaction to the word camera. So computer vision, you got a camera in it. Wait, you’re not putting the camera to detect. It doesn’t matter that it’s built to meet GDPR requirements and things like that. Never any video stored, images taken, all that. It doesn’t matter. It’s just, it’s got a camera in it. He said, no problem. Let’s use radar, which does the same thing in terms of detecting the presence, the engagement, the dwell time, proximity, and so on. It just doesn’t do the profiling of the demographics. Then other sensor technologies, a whole bunch that do different things to detect engagement with the product. So then typically used in the lift and learn. So somebody picks something up, then trigger different content. So that’s more triggering and personalizing the content. So we’re going to be showcasing our lift-and-learn solution that uses specific sensors in HP’s booth at NRF this year. They selected us as their CMS partner this year for their booth. So we’ll be showcasing that functionality along with the sensor. So we will have the radar sensor. They’ve got six little vignettes that we’ve got mounted our radar sensor. So you can see the traffic and engagement at each of the little vignettes in your booth at NRF. If you’re interested in seeing that in action, that will be there.
Adrian Tennant: Let’s take a short break. We’ll be right back after this message.
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Adrian Tennant: Welcome back. I’m talking with Ron Levac, Chief Innovation Officer at Spectrio, about the evolution of digital signage and Retail Media Networks. Ron, what are some of the challenges retailers face when implementing a digital signage network? I’m thinking particularly about infrastructure costs.
Ron Levac: There’s several challenges in deploying technology in retail settings. One of the first go-no-go items is power. So is power available at that particular endpoint? And then if not, then is it technically possible? What would be the cost of doing it? Things like that. So that’s really typically the first go-no-go. After that is internet connectivity. Retailers will typically not let you onto their own network. So you have to drop in a new one. And is the connectivity robust or not would be a question. Is it just for a single endpoint? So then cellular would be normally a good choice, but then is there coverage? So those are things to look at. So the Internet Connector is the next challenge. Then the next time would be installation. If it’s a simple shelf mount, that’s fine. Or if it’s something more elaborate, then you need a lift to get it installed. So those are big differences in cost there. The actual digital endpoints, the screens, the players, the sensors, the cost of those things have dropped down dramatically. So it’s typically not the challenge. So all of these things impact deployments. You require a retailer brand to keep in mind when scoping out a project. So the good news, is what we’ve been discussing here is that with the advancements in retail media network technology, there’s an alternative here to help offset some of these infrastructure costs with another line of revenue.
Adrian Tennant: Got it. Well, it’s NRF 2025 this week. So what trends do you see emerging in Retail Media Networks and digital signage?
Ron Levac: That’s a great question, and I’m going to use it to plug what we’re doing, because that’s what we’re showcasing a bunch of stuff in our booth that should be interesting to most folks. So again, because of the financial impact of our amends, we’re seeing more and more endpoints being deployed. So in a location where you’d have four or five, now you’re talking 20, 30. So very different. And then there’s also the conventional use cases, but also where you typically wouldn’t be able to justify putting one point and then point in. You can now just because of, again, that ad monetization helps offset some of that cost. But we’re going to be showcasing some of these emerging technologies and use cases in our booth. So the first one is we’re showing a full color 32 inch electronic ink poster, which is 100 percent wireless, meaning no data or no powers. Those challenges I was talking about a minute ago, There’s no challenge. It’s all good. So it’s e-ink. I would assume most of your listeners have heard that term. So it consumes power only whenever the content changes. That’s why we call them a poster. You don’t change it that often. So the use case we’re showcasing in the booth is as you enter into a grocery store, double doors swing open or slide open right there in the middle where everybody has got to walk by. You put this thing on a pedestal and it would have this week’s circular. And then it would have what actually the really important to them is usage of their either loyalty app or their digital coupons. So it would emphasize that with the QR code and then would have a banner for an ad that you would sell at a pre that everybody would see. So that’s interesting. The other one we’re showing is a double-sided wayfinding in aisle display, so back-to-back display that would be in the middle of the aisle, so it would be facing up and down the aisle, and that would have your wayfinding about what’s in the aisle, but also a window that’s showing ads and a banner section emphasizing, again, the Loyalty app or the digital coupons. And what’s interesting with that is it has built-in sensors that are able to report, monitor the engagement in four foot sections of the gondolas along the aisle. So that information is important. Back to the reasons why analytics was important to a retailer. People would have an understanding of how well their planograms performing and all that stuff and how well the traffic’s converting into engagement in different sections. But it also is used for, in the RMN world, for to determine the multiplier for the ad placements. That’s a pretty interesting one. And a little twist we have on that one, we’re actually showing how we can visually validate the delivery of the content on the screen. So back in the day, and I think that’s still there, is the digital billboards on the side of the road. You would see a camera pointing towards the screen. so that it can be monitored, so that when a brand says, I’ll give you a five grand, six grand, seven grand run my ad for the month, there’s something that visually confirms that ad was actually displayed. Well, we have the ability to do that as well. So for the in-store screen, and this is all about trying to make it so that the advertisers themselves are more confident that the ads were actually delivered. Right. And there’s part of the ad tech stack. There’s all types of things there that help validate that things were played. So there’s a media player that played it. But now with sensors monitoring that those people looking at it and are in front of the screen and then another sensor that confirms that the screen was displaying the data, a fully closed loop, it should create a greater level of confidence that this technology, this in-store retail media network is a good place to spend advertisement dollars. Because right now it’s a very small part of people’s ad budget is spent on in-store. And the idea is to get a bigger share of that. To do that, create confidence that the ads are being actually displayed and viewed. Another application we’re showing is using the larger format electronic shelf label displays. You’ve all seen those where there’s a single product and a number and that. And some of these ESL manufacturers have the larger format, five, six, seven inches square type of thing. So the idea there is you’ve got a category price tag, so think chainsaws, the 12 inch, 18 inch, 24 inch, and then the price for each one, because you’re not putting one by, you know, the product’s so big or whatever. So the idea like that. And then a section of it is an ad as well. So it’s an armament, but it emphasizes product in another aisle. So again, at a premium. So these are premium positions. Doesn’t change that much, but you would have something for a product in another aisle that you can sell to another brand. And the last one that I want to mention is, I was just in Taiwan a couple months ago where I saw this for the first time, and we have the privilege of showing it in our booth at NRF. It’s a 60-inch micro LED display. So what’s interesting with micro LED is that the term’s been used, but now this is really micro LED. So this is the true micro LED versus what people would say, hey, it’s micro, it’s really TD. So you got to think of it as a high def 60 inch display. The pixels were historically, you know, you have your pixel right next to the next pixel, so there’s no air gap. Here, there’s a, call it a massive air gap. What that translates into is transparency. If the dot’s not lit, you’re seeing through it. So we’ve got a tremendous content production team here. So they’ve been working with content that makes it look really cool. So the idea is you got this big 60-inch display and you can see through it and all of a sudden things happen. And you know, so you’ve got things flying around and it grabs, pulls in the screen. It’s just really, one, it’s going to be eye-catching. You’re expecting it to be a big impact at the show. It’s the latest in MicroLED display technology. So it’s definitely something if you’re looking for something new and exciting, check that out. Definitely would recommend making special effort to go and see that. Which then brings me to where is that right? I’m sure you’re just about to ask. So this is we’re in booth 6-3-3, 633 with our partner, SageNet.
Adrian Tennant: Perfect. Ron, I’m curious, as Retail Media Networks become more sophisticated, how do you see the relationship between brands, retailers, advertising agencies – and indeed, any other types of content creators – evolving?
Ron Levac: What’s critical here in the RMN space, there’s been, you know, sometimes referred to as taxes, but there’s been different people at different layers. And everybody grabs a package, toss it over this way, and I get my 5 cents. And the next guy gets his 5 cents next and so on. So a collapsing of the space is happening. So Spectro provides the full ad tech connecting to all of the different demand agencies. And we’ve got a slew of people that focus on creating demand. And then we drive that all the way to the screens, which then allows our clients. This is supposed to be generating another line of revenue for to have a bigger chunk, right? So it’s more dollars for the advertiser and the retailer, and then just fewer dollars being spent in between. So that is definitely seeing that go that way as more and more companies are integrating that ad tech. What we’re pushing is transparency. So when you ask about the relationships between the brands, retailers, the agencies and all that, transparency is key. There’s a model out there that’s, I don’t know. I’ve spoken to some retailers that speak to the big, bad tech companies taking advantage of the naive retailer. And then what that looks like is if I went up to you and I said, Hey Adrian, I got you a deal. You give me access to all your locations, all that kind of stuff, no cost. I’ll put in the infrastructure and I’ll send you a $50,000 check a month. You want it? And you’re like, hey, dude, I’m not monetize anything. Fifty thousand out of left field is great, right? So I do that. And then on the flip side, I’m clearing five hundred thousand. And then you start getting wind of that. You’re like, wait a minute. What did I just do? I just signed the long term contract where I thought it was a good deal, but it really wasn’t. So for us, understanding that there’s that level of anxiety, which could slow down the adoption, let’s put everything on the table. Let’s make it as transparent as possible on all ends so that everybody is getting their fair share type of thing. That would be the other part is the transparency.
Adrian Tennant: Of course, when we were preparing for this particular podcast interview a couple of weeks ago, you had mentioned to me that with Walmart’s recent acquisition of Vizio, you’re seeing increased vertical integration in Retail Media Networks. Ron, how do you think this will impact the broader digital signage industry?
Ron Levac: Yeah, I think, like for us, partnerships and just tighter relationships between both the service providers and the manufacturers of technologies, making it so that it’s viewed as a consortium type of thing. So just tighter to make it so that you can compete with the might of a Walmart that buys companies like Vizio to collapse that whole number of people involved in the solution. So not everybody’s in a position to be able to do something that dramatic. But for us in the industry, it’s really integrate the tech stack, acquire where you can, and partner tightly where you can’t acquire.
Adrian Tennant: Sounds like a solid strategy. Ron, if listeners would like to learn more about Spectrio’s solutions, what’s the best way to do so?
Ron Levac: Well, our website’s packed with insights and information, so that’s always a great place to go, spectrio.com, S-P-E-C-T-R-I-O.com. And then again, our booth 633 at NRF would be a great place to come and check us out.
Adrian Tennant: Ron, thank you very much for being our guest this week on IN CLEAR FOCUS.
Ron Levac: I appreciate it. Thank you.
Adrian Tennant: Thanks again to my guest this week, Ron Levac, Chief Innovation Officer at Spectrio. As always, you’ll find a complete transcript of our conversation with timestamps and links to the resources we discussed on the IN CLEAR FOCUS page at bigeyeagency.com. Just select ‘Insights’ from the menu. Thank you for listening to IN CLEAR FOCUS, produced by Bigeye. I’ve been your host, Adrian Tennant. Until next week, goodbye.
TIMESTAMPS
00:00: Introduction to Retail Media Networks
00:33: Overview of Spectrio and Its Services
02:22: Leveraging Digital Signage in Retail
03:34: The Role of Data Analytics in Retail
04:29: Understanding Shopper Behavior
08:09: Measuring In-Store Digital Advertising Effectiveness
10:10: Practical Purposes of Digital Signage
12:06: AI and Machine Learning in Digital Signage
12:34: Types of Sensors Used in Retail
15:56: Challenges in Implementing Digital Signage
17:22: Emerging Trends in Retail Media Networks
23:02: Evolving Relationships in Retail Media
25:36: Impact of Walmart’s Acquisition of Vizio
26:24: Conclusion and Resources
