The cooler aisle at your local Walgreens may soon know what you want before you even open the door.
Chicago startup Cooler Screens announced Friday that it is expanding its partnership with Walgreens to bring its digital doors to thousands of new Walgreens locations. Cooler Screens has developed digital screens that replace traditional cooler doors at Walgreens stores to show shoppers what’s inside refrigerators and let marketers serve targeted ads to customers. The screens use cameras and sensors to determine the approximate age and gender of the shopper who's approaching the door, and then place ads on the digital screen based on what the shopper may be likely to purchase.
Founded in 2017, Cooler Screens officially began piloting its technology with Walgreens in early 2019 at six locations. After the year-long pilot, the startup is now expanding its digital door platform to 50 stores in the Chicagoland area. Cooler Screens says it then plans to bring the technology to 2,500 Walgreens stores across the U.S.
With the expansion, Cooler Screens expects that it will reach more than 75 million monthly customers.
“We are thrilled to be working with Walgreens to deliver our shared vision for the future of physical retail with hundreds of stores and millions of consumers across the country,” Cooler Screens CEO and co-founder Arsen Avakian said in a statement. “The opportunity is to not only delight consumers with new, safe, digitally-powered experiences but also to evolve the business of bricks-and-mortar retail."
Avakian, the former CEO and founder of Argo Tea, isn't the only high-profile name behind Cooler Screens. The startup is also co-founded by former Walgreens CEO Greg Wasson and Livongo Health founder Glen Tullman. The startup has raised around $10 million in funding from investors that include Microsoft.
Cooler Screens is among the first companies to bring digital ad targeting to physical retail spaces, giving brick-and-mortar stores the type of data online advertisers have had for years. For example, if a woman in her 20s approaches a cooler at Walgreens, Cooler Screens can present her with an ad for a product that’s likely to resonate with someone of her age and gender. The startup says that its data shows that purchases from Cooler Screens-equipped doors increase store sales and creates a new revenue stream by allowing brands to purchase digital advertising in-store. Brands that have joined the Cooler Screens marketplace include Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, MillerCoors and Red Bull.
However, digital cooler doors that use cameras to determine the gender and age of shoppers could be perceived as intrusive to some customers. But the startup says it never stores personally identifiable information.
