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Crane Media Ads On Vending Screens Yield Durable Sales Lift

Crane Media Network manages advertising campaigns on its network of connected vending screens. These are managed over the air, and they help vending operators and brands strengthen consumer engagement, gain actionable insights, and grow sales. The network has grown steadily over the past two years, Crane said. It has delivered more than 15 billion impressions across about 30,000 connected screens nationwide. Brand clients to date include Visa U.S.A. Inc., Hershey Co., General Mills Inc., Mars Inc., Maste...

October 14, 2018

Crane Media Network manages advertising campaigns on its network of connected vending screens. These are managed over the air, and they help vending operators and brands strengthen consumer engagement, gain actionable insights, and grow sales.

The network has grown steadily over the past two years, Crane said. It has delivered more than 15 billion impressions across about 30,000 connected screens nationwide. Brand clients to date include Visa U.S.A. Inc., Hershey Co., General Mills Inc., Mars Inc., Mastercard, Mondelēz Inc. and Kellogg Co.

	Sharon Peyer

Sharon Peyer heads up the Crane Media Network as Crane Connectivity Solutions' vice-president of business development. She plays a key role in helping operators and brands realize the full capabilities of Crane's digitally connected touchscreens.

The Crane Merchandising Systems executive emphasized that the Internet of Things and digital touchscreens on Sharon Peyer vending machines now offer CPG brands valuable new insights into the kinds of people who buy their products, and a new mechanism for influencing those consumers' long-term purchase behaviors through targeted location-based marketing.

Peyer added that Crane's plans include sharing actionable retail recommendations with operators based on the consumer insights yielded by these campaigns. "We learn many things through the consumer response to our on-screen ad content," Peyer said. "These are not necessarily intuitive to a brand or a retailer like a vending operator, and because we learn them at scale, we know they are likely repeatable outcomes." As a result, Crane is able to help vendors better manage their product placements, spurring sales growth by identifying the product categories that sell best in specific locations and displaying marketing content on the vending screens to draw even more consumers' attention to the advertised products.

Demonstrating the power of onscreen advertising was a recent campaign for Hershey's Big Kat Kit Kat bars that resulted in a 15% lift over the course of the campaign across all locations, and about 24% lift in hospitals and colleges.

MAKING AN IMPRESSION: Crane's Media Network advertising programs assist consumer pack-aged-goods suppliers and vending operators to build awareness and increase traffic. A recent 12-week campaign for Hershey's Kit Kat bar (above) produced a 15% sales lift across all locations –higher in colleges and hospitals – which persisted well past the end of the campaign.

The 12-week campaign drove more than three million brand engagements and demonstrated that the sales increase that consumer packaged goods companies gain by advertising on Crane-connected vending screens persists long after the campaign ends. It is also likely that the effect of these ads extends to consumer purchase behaviors in retail channels beyond just vending. Even after the Kit Kat campaign ended, two-thirds of the sales increment persisted in locations with repeat customers for at least 19 weeks, when the follow-up study ended.

"Customers who purchased the advertised product from the vending machine they frequently see, remember once seeing an ad there, buying the advertised product and liking it, so they buy it again, even after the ad is gone," Peyer said about the long-lasting effectiveness of place-based advertising on connected vending machine screens. "We see similar results when we run campaigns for credit card companies, with an uptick in customer use of the advertised payment method. And the brand gains insights into its customers based on where and when the ad is having the biggest impact."

Increasingly, vending operators are adapting machines to accept the "all-in-one" campus cards used by college and university students for dining and other purchases, and they are using the machines' connected screens to promote this payment option to students. "That's the first step," Peyer said. "The next is to measure the sales coming from those cards – and we're seeing a higher proportion of use when card acceptance is advertised on the screen."

Promoting Mobile Payment

Operators may also employ their digital screens to inform patrons that they can use the vending operator's loyalty program, or a third party program like PayRange. "That drives people to take action, whether by downloading the loyalty service's app and enrolling in the loyalty program or using the app for purchases at the vending machine," Peyer pointed out.

Greensboro, NC-based USConnect, a consortium of independent vending companies that uses Crane connected vending screens, offers its customers the USConnectMe loyalty app that lets users take advantage of promotions to earn and redeem rewards or product discounts. They can also make purchases by scanning their app-enabled phones at USConnect's vending machines, micro markets and cafeterias.

Onscreen ads instruct customers to "Tap that App," and those who use Apple Pay can add the USConnectMe loyalty card to their Apple wallet. When they do, the app flashes to notify them that they are automatically qualified for loyalty rewards.

"With connectivity, vending machines become more like retail stores, since they're connected to accept cashless payments, including credit cards and mobile apps," said Peyer.  

Operators increasingly want their machines to accept any form of payment the consumer is carrying. That isn't always cash. But consumers typically have a mobile phone with them and some will have a mobile payment app like Apple Pay or Google Pay activated for use.

"We've definitely seen an increase in mobile payment acceptance on our vending machines and over the last two years, mobile payments on our connected machines have certainly grown," Peyer stated.

In locations where cellular connectivity is an issue, Crane partner PayRange's Bluetooth Low Energy-enabled (BLE) payment system provides a mobile solution to offer cashless payment and thus help increase overall sales.

"Customers may not have change to make a purchase with cash, and if the connection is poor or nonexistent, the machine may not always accept credit cards," Peyer said.

Peyer said she has experienced the value of PayRange first-hand as a vending machine patron. Foley Vending, a Crane customer based in Norwood, MA, operates vending machines at the Westwood Route 128 Amtrak station near Boston; the site is frequented by business travelers going to and from New York's Penn Station.

"I have no cellular reception there. But I can use PayRange and get a snack from the vending machine, which is kind of neat!" Peyer explained. "The first time I used PayRange on my phone at that vending machine, PayRange messaged me: 'Your first vend is on us.' I took advantage of that offer and then felt encouraged to add funds to my account. Now I buy something every time I'm there, which is often.

"Connectivity has ignited significant change in the unattended retail space and opened multiple new opportunities for growth," Peyer summed up. "Consumer engagement in this space will continue to gain prominence as consumers spend more time outside of their homes and brands seek more unique ways to reach, learn about, and positively influence them."