10-Figure In-Store Ad Deals Block Competitors for Years

News Corp.’s News America, which has contracts to sell shelf ads, floor ads, and instant-coupon machines at about 35,000 food, drug, and mass merchandisers, has had luck in selling some marketers complete control of ad space for up to two years at a time, AdAge reports. According to internal company documents obtained by AdAge, which include copies of signed retailer contracts, spreadsheets, and issues of an internal employee newsletter, the deals run as high as eight figures and have been bought by top CPGs including Proctor & Gamble, Kimberly-Clark, Johnson & Johnson, Unilever, and General Mills.

The complete control offered to these marketers means selling space to marketers across multiple four-week cycles whether the marketer intends to use the space during every cycle or not. Even when the space is not in use by the marketer who has contracted for it, competitors can be blocked from using it.

According to the documents, for example, News America has signed category exclusive deals with Unilever covering nearly all of the weeks in 2006 for hair care, deodorant, and hand-and-body lotion as part of an overall, $14.6 million in-store relationship.

Not all marketers use the space to block competitors, however. P&G allows News America to resell ads during the four-week cycles its brands don’t intend to use.

Industry executives and financial reports indicate News America holds a roughly 90 percent market share in its in-store media categories.

The information obtained by AdAge was confirmed by at least three marketers who had signed up with the program, according to the article, as well as one who had been “shut out” of it.