Woolies forks out $150m for targeted ad company Shopper Media

Supermarket giant Woolworths is looking to take a bigger bite of the out-of-home advertising market with a $150 million purchase of targeted advertising company Shopper Media.

The grocery retailer told investors on Monday morning that its retail media business Cartology had inked a deal to buy Shopper, which has a network of more than 2,000 advertising screens in 400 shopping centres across the country.

Cartology managing director Mike Tyquin told The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age that the deal would diversify Woolworths’ existing retail advertising business, which is currently focused on ‘fast-moving consumer goods’ suppliers.

“Almost all of [our] networks are in-store or owned assets… This opportunity will allow us to offer a physical, offline network proposition,” he said.

Woolworths launched Cartology in 2019 as a retail media business which offers brands advertising opportunities across its stores as well as in its company-owned magazine.

The retailer’s interest in out-of-home media comes as the industry starts to bounce back after COVID-19 related disruptions.

Industry group the Outdoor Media Association outlined earlier this month that year-to-date media revenues are up 19.5 per cent to $478.6 million. This is 3.9 per cent behind the revenues seen pre-pandemic in 2019.

Shopper Media was launched by long-time friends and business partners Ben Walker and Ed Couche in 2015 as an out-of-home advertising business that uses data points including free shopping centre Wi-Fi to help target digital billboards to consumers.

Walker died this past January at the age of 47, and Couche took the reins as chief executive of the Shopper shortly afterwards.