Evan Schuman's StorefrontBacktalk

It’s 9:17 PM and customers in a Boston grocery store are wrapping up their shopping when some Blackberries and iPhones start vibrating the news of a key sports loss of the beloved local Red Sox against the rival New York Yankees. As frowns appear from frozen foods to the AAA battery endcap displays, all of the digital signs start flashing out messages of condolence, suggesting that shoppers commiserate with a case of Sam Adams. “We’ll get ’em next time,” the sympathetic store displays digitally declare.

Traditionally, in-store digital signage has been used for the mass-broadcast of commercials set by the chain and, sometimes, tweaked regionally. But why not make the content truly unique to a store, dictated by local weather, sporting events or near-time POS activity?, asks Michael Hiatt, who ran Wal-Mart’s in-store media program until last year.

In that Boston grocery store, had the local team won, a congratulatory message would have been queued up, suggesting a celebratory case of the same local beer. The next morning, a thermometer outside the store detects unseasonably hot weather and triggers an automatic store-wide commercial for Pepsi. An unusually cold morning chill, meanwhile, could push Folger’s coffee.

Or better yet, the store POS unexpectedly sees a huge run on giant red paperclips, far in excess of the norm and a trend not detected by regional counterparts. Turns out that it’s from a mandatory school-wide project at a local elementary school. Within minutes, an alert to the store general manager allows for digital signage to declare a 20-percent-off sale on the popular paperclips, on the rationale that it’s a nice loss leader that residents will appreciate. A different product and a different situation might have merited a price hike (quietly entered into the POS and on the shelf) and a digital campaign pushing the already-hot item.

(See related Wal-Mart stories this issue: Wal-Mart Digital Makeup Trial: It’s the Inventory, Stupid and Wal-Mart: “It’s Time For Chip-And-PIN In The U.S.” )

Some customized capabilities are within the reach of most chains, and it’s specifically something that Hiatt’s former employer can do, he said. “It’s embedded in the system. It just needs to be turned on. [Wal-Mart executives] are just waiting for the opportunity to make it work. With intelligent scheduling, you can go to a Coca-Cola ad anytime the temperature is above 85 degrees and, when it’s 50 degrees and raining, then Campbell’s soup wants to participate.”