Leveraging Digital to Deliver the Lift
CHEVRON | CONVENIENCE RETAIL
The challenge
In retail — especially convenience — the smaller the footprint the greater the pressure there is on revenue generation. For Chevron, the objective was to introduce digital as a key lever to drive same-store sales of strategic categories such as beverages, fresh food, bakery, and alcohol. And, to determine if the impact on sales could be used to generate additional revenue through advertising.
The solution
Our partners at Samsung brought us in to help develop the full-site journey solution and determine the locations that were most fertile for digital, and then how foot traffic, dwell time, and impact on sales/margin would be measured through new sensor technology. The digital journey consisted of several apertures for testing:
- Single and double-sided window displays with high-bright screens
- Software that included RSS / weather and social feed aggregator tool from Sprinklr
- Cash Wrap activation
- Cooler display placement
- End Cap Kiosks with AI-generated virtual wine sommelier, to be added as a fool-proof way to helping shoppers find their ideal choice
Three [3] test stores were each engineered with 6 sensors to monitor what behaviors occurred during the time a driver or walk-in customer is on site. The deployment also included an advertising layer for Brands like RedBull, Pepsi, the Lottery, to test how the store might serve as an in-store media channel. Part of this site media plan had us focusing on Chevron’s Extra Mile private label brand of food and snacks, and monitoring behavior from the loyalty program.
The results
Digital combined with sensor technology revealed an array of learning and insight on the placement of screens for ‘just enough’ optimization of technology, limiting waste and excess spend. Its early days in the pilot but thus far, sales are trending up, Chevron is seeing shifts in behavior to specific categories where digital has been integrated. We are continuing to evaluate advertising income and how that plays against sales trends. The visibility of this project is so significant that Chevron has reported significant outreach from the advertising community to place ads at the store level.
The role of Creative Realities in this use case is acting as a channel partner to Samsung. We handled procurement/commissioning, integration and installing of hardware, integration of Samsung’s Magic Info CMS software, as well as well as procuring and deploying the sensor solution in Fast Sensor. Plans include content curation and creation once brand and campaign work is ready for us to take to the streets.
