Generates New Revenue for Partner Stores and Enables Brands to Reach Shoppers at Point of Sale

Vibenomics, provider of custom streaming radio stations for retailers, today announced the launch of a Convenience Store Audio Out-of-Home™ Advertising Marketplace that will generate new revenue for participating stores and help shopper marketers target customers in-store with a new form of retail media. The Marketplace launches with 4000 convenience retail locations in the U.S. across 48 states and by year’s end, will grow to more than 9000 stores.

The C-Store Audio OOH™ Ad Market provides a share of revenue to convenience stores for each campaign that runs in their locations while relieving the cost of selling and managing ads, which is handled entirely by Vibenomics, giving c-store operators the ability to generate profit and an opportunity to offset the traditional cost of business music licensing.

“What had been a cost center for providing background music feeds, can now be a new revenue stream for convenience stores, with material effect on c-store margins,” says Brent Oakley, CEO and Co-founder of Vibenomics. “Convenience store operators appreciate the unique partner program we have developed that enables them to transform the legacy music providers into a new revenue generating engine for their business, and a disruptive new marketing tool for their vendor categories.”

Martin & Bayley Inc. (DBA Huck’s), operator of 123 large-format convenience store locations across Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri, and Tennessee, has beta tested the Vibenomics Audio Out-of-Home™ Advertising Marketplace resulting in significant sales lift and return on ad spend for its vendor category advertisers, including a 21% increase in sales for an energy drink product.

“At Huck’s, we are constantly looking to enhance the customer experience in each of our stores, while raising the bottom line,” says Jon Bunch, Director of Marketing Business Development for Huck’s. “Our category partners are excited by the new Huck’s Radio audio OOH advertising ability, and my team is pumped to be moving more product and creating a new profit center all while enhancing the in-store experience, thanks to Vibenomics.”

To better quantify the Audio OOH™ opportunity, Vibenomics leveraged location intelligence from SafeGraph alongside US census block insights to analyze visitor behavior and demographic characteristics across more than 150,000 individual points of interest in the convenience store industry. The results of this analysis are available to download as an infographic titled ‘Profile of a Convenience Store Shopper’.  When compared to industry averages, the Vibenomics C-Store Audio OOH™ Ad Marketplace locations had:

• 88% higher foot traffic
• 72% more unique visitors
• 9% higher visit frequency
• 9.5% more likely to have household income over $60k

The technology that powers Vibenomics enables brands to target the precise audience profile, behaviors, and locations that maximize conversions.  Advertisers can choose to provide their own creative assets, or rely on Vibenomics’ full-service sonic branding studio to produce custom audio spots as a value-add, for campaigns ranging from general use national spots to highly personalized hyper-local or retailer co-branded media strategies.

“With the innovation and explosive growth happening in convenience, this retail sector has emerged as a natural fit for Vibenomics that enables our audio out-of-home advertising to reach the majority of US consumers during those critical final footsteps along the path to purchase for a diverse range of product categories,” concludes Mr. Oakley.

Vibenomics, Inc. is a location-based Audio Out-of-Home™ advertising and experience company that powers custom radio stations for retailers, giving brands the ability to talk to shoppers directly at the point of sale.  With its powerful cloud-based technology, licensed background music library, data integration capabilities, full-service team of audio experience experts, and network of professional voice talent available on-demand, the company provides the right revenue-enhancing vibe for over 100 advertisers in more than 4000 locations across 48 states, reaching over 150 million people.

Delivered through flexible plug-and-play mobile tablet devices, Vibenomics dynamically broadcasts hyper-targeted, in-stream audio advertisements and curated playlists within any combination of locations across its swiftly growing national footprint, unlocking a powerful new shopper marketing channel for reaching consumers during the critical final footsteps along the path to purchase.  Through a first-of-its kind partner program, retailers can receive a portion of revenue for all advertisements sold by Vibenomics that play within their locations, giving them the ability to monetize their private airwaves and transform a legacy expense into a new profit center.

Founded in 2016 in Indianapolis as Fuzic, the company rebranded to Vibenomics in 2017 and is backed by $7.6 million in investments.