Shopping Centres as Retail Media Networks: Monetising Common Area Screens

The Shopping Centre Media Opportunity

Shopping centres are among the most visited destinations in Australia, with major centres attracting millions of visitors per year. They host a diverse mix of retailers, food and beverage operators, entertainment venues, and service providers, all competing for the attention of a shared shopper audience. This environment creates a natural opportunity for a retail media network that serves both the centre operator and its tenant community.

The screens that shopping centres have deployed across their common areas, car parks, food courts, and entrances represent a significant media asset. When managed through a purpose-built retail media platform, these screens can generate substantial advertising revenue from national brands, local businesses, and the centre's own tenants.

The Three Revenue Streams of a Shopping Centre Media Network

Shopping centre retail media networks typically generate revenue from three distinct sources. National brand advertising is the largest and most valuable revenue stream. Major FMCG, financial services, automotive, and technology brands are willing to pay premium rates to reach the diverse, high-frequency audience that visits major shopping centres. The key to attracting national brand investment is the quality of the audience data and measurement capabilities the centre can offer.

Tenant advertising is a growing revenue stream as retailers within the centre recognise the value of reaching shoppers who are already in the building and in a purchasing mindset. Tenant advertising can be sold on a self-serve basis through an advertiser portal, allowing individual tenants to book campaigns without requiring manual intervention from the centre's media team. This democratises access to the media network and generates incremental revenue from smaller tenants who could not previously afford managed-service campaigns.

Centre promotional content is not strictly advertising revenue but is an important use of the media network that supports the centre's marketing objectives. Centre management can use the screen network to promote events, loyalty programme benefits, new tenant openings, and seasonal campaigns, driving foot traffic and shopper engagement.

Audience Data in the Shopping Centre Context

Shopping centres face a different data challenge than grocery retailers. While grocery retailers have loyalty programmes that capture individual-level purchase data, shopping centres typically have less granular data about individual shopper behaviour. However, shopping centre loyalty programmes are growing in sophistication, and even without individual-level data, centres can use footfall measurement, Wi-Fi analytics, and app engagement data to build audience insights that support targeting and measurement.

The most valuable audience data for shopping centre media networks is category-level footfall data: which areas of the centre attract which types of shoppers, at what times of day, and in what volumes. This data allows the centre to offer advertisers location-based targeting that reaches the most relevant audience for their campaign, even without individual-level purchase data.

Technology Platform Requirements

A shopping centre retail media platform needs to handle the specific operational requirements of a multi-tenant environment. Content management must support both the centre's own promotional content and advertising from multiple brand partners and tenants, with clear rules about content priority, frequency capping, and category exclusions. The platform must also handle the complexity of a large screen network spread across multiple buildings and floors, with different screen specifications and content requirements in different zones.

Integration with the centre's existing systems, including the tenant management platform, the loyalty programme, and the car park management system, can significantly enhance the value of the media network. For example, integration with the car park system allows the centre to reach shoppers as they arrive and depart, extending the media network beyond the physical screens inside the centre.