The Fresh Market Ramps Up Offline Advertising
The Fresh Market has officially joined forces with True Impact Media, an international out-of-home (OOH) media-buying platform, to manage all of the specialty grocer’s OOH media buying and implementation. While the two companies have actually worked together for the past few years, they formalized their partnership after a nearly year-long vetting process, with The Fresh Market ultimately giving True Impact Media its multimillion-dollar annual OOH spend.
The Fresh Market’s 159 locations require careful coordination of OOH media across various markets, with unique marketing campaigns at each location. True Impact Media’s scalable, simple and targeted approach to the entire OOH process, from initial strategy through installation and post-campaign reports, fit the bill for the grocer.
“We looked at all of the key players in the space and assessed the more traditional outdoor-media agencies as well as other tech platforms for outdoor media,” explained The Fresh Market CMO Kevin Miller. “We quickly realized that we would see better impressions and cost efficiency results by using True Impact to find the best media locations and spreading our dollars across multiple operators. They give us the market insights we need and the ability to find the billboards that make the most sense for us, without any bias.”
In 2016, True Impact Media began working solely on a technology platform where advertisers can easily find, assess and buy OOH inventory across multiple markets and media formats. Since then, the company has added such features as targeting, demographic information and print production management. Now its goals are to make OOH more powerful and targeted to help the medium become more agile and central to an advertiser's marketing budget.
“It should be easy to find and purchase OOH, which is in line with the same processes you see with any other marketing medium you have today,” said Q Beck, president of Austin, Texas-based True Impact. Speaking of the future of the OOH media buying process, Beck added, “If you can buy an international flight on multiple carriers online in minutes, logistically you should be able to do the same with a billboard.”
Over the past few years, many external events have led an increasing number of brands to bring full-service marketing in-house, among them the COVID-19 pandemic, high agency/client turnover and new technologies. This cultural marketing shift comes in the wake of major brands bringing many facets of their advertising in-house to gain more control over their budgets, creative campaigns and reporting, as well as to realize increased efficiencies in their go-to-market plans.
“We are currently at the forefront of the billboard renaissance and love nothing more than to show and prove to brands how we are currently digitizing a formerly antiquated marketing space with our platform,” noted Ryan Bohn, True Impact’s SVP of sales. “We successfully remove the red tape and headaches that normally come with OOH media buying. It’s satisfying to get brands in front of their target customers in a much more modern-day efficient and cost-effective manner.”
The Fresh Market operates 159 stores in 22 states. The Greensboro, N.C.-based company is No. 76 on The PG 100, Progressive Grocer’s 2021 list of the top food and consumables retailers in North America.
