News & Trends

On 3 March 2026, Bonnier News began selling in-store advertising on behalf of Visual Art's new retail media network — described as the first nationally unified retail media network in the Nordics, spanning multiple retailers under a single platform. That is not just a press release milestone. It is a strong indication that the model works at scale, and that the screens you install are being repositioned as advertising inventory by the people who pay for them.

If you sell, install, or manage digital signage for retail clients in Europe, that shift is already here.

This is not about "screens are cool." Although they are, absolutely; it is a laser-sharp look at how signage stops being capex décor and becomes monetisable infrastructure.

Retail media has been a growing conversation in recent years. What makes this different is execution. Visual Art — now part of the Vertiseit Group — built a platform that aggregates screen inventory across retailers, structures it into sellable ad units, and hands it to a media sales team to monetise. That is not a signage company delivering signage. That is a signage company running a media network. The distinction matters because it changes what you are being paid to build, and what your client expects to get out of it.

Why Scandinavia got here first

Sweden’s leadership in this space is no accident. The Nordic region has been at the forefront of digital signage in Europe for two decades. Visual Art has operated sophisticated in-store screen networks for ICA, one of Sweden's largest supermarket chains, for over ten years. That experience gave them the data discipline, the CMS depth, and the retailer relationships to attempt something bigger.

The new network uses Visual Art's Retail Media Hub, part of its IXM platform, which runs on Vertiseit's shared infrastructure grid. The hub aggregates structured data on screen inventory, format, share of voice, and audience reach, then packages it into media units advertisers can buy. Bonnier News — part of the same Bonnier Capital group that is the main shareholder in Vertiseit — handles sales, using its existing commercial team and tools.

The commercial logic is straightforward. A single retailer's screen network is too small to attract meaningful advertising budgets. Combine several retailers into one aggregated network, and you reach the audience scale that makes brands commit meaningful spend. That is exactly how outdoor media works, and it is exactly what is happening now inside stores.

The scale ambition is real. Vertiseit CEO Johan Lind has said publicly that “five global platforms will dominate the industry.” Visual Art's Salling Group contract in Denmark — around 7,500 screen licences across Føtex, Bilka, and Netto — is another piece of the same strategy: build coverage, build reach, build the media business on top.

What retail media requires from your next signage build

Here is where this stops being someone else's strategy discussion and starts costing you money.

A signage build for a retail media network is not the same as a signage build for a retailer who wants better communications. The hardware spec may be similar. The software stack, the data requirements, and the governance model are not.

Retail media depends on structured first-party data. Every screen needs to be associated with a location, a format category, a footfall estimate, and a content-to-ad ratio. That data has to be clean, consistent, and machine-readable before brands commit spend. Visual Art is explicit about this: joining the network requires retailers to meet strict standards for data structure and quality, and each retailer is responsible for providing their own first-party data correctly.

That means that your installation documentation is no longer just a handover pack. It is the foundation of your client's media inventory. If you deliver screens without clean data models — location IDs that match the CMS, format metadata, reliable uptime records — your client cannot monetise them. They have an expensive communications tool. They do not have a media asset.

This is not a new concept in principle. AVIXA's guidance on how digital signage benefits retailers points to measurement, audience data, and sales attribution as the differentiators that turn screens into business tools. Retail media is that argument taken to its logical commercial conclusion.

The stack that makes a signage network sellable

Ask your client this question before you design the next retail signage job: Do you want screens that communicate, or screens that generate revenue?

Both are legitimate answers. They require different builds.

A communications network needs a solid CMS, reliable hardware, remote management, and a content update workflow. That is table stakes for any serious installation. A retail media network needs all of that plus an ad decisioning layer, first-party audience data integration, impression measurement, campaign reporting, and governance over content ratios — how much brand content versus how much third-party advertising runs on any given screen, at any given time.

The ad server does not live in your AV rack. It sits in the software platform. But it depends entirely on the network you build: stable uptime, reliable playback proof-of-performance logs, and content scheduling that can be overridden programmatically when a campaign fires. If your player does not log completed plays at the impression level, your client cannot bill advertisers. If your network goes dark for unplanned maintenance, your client loses committed revenue, not just communications.

The ISE 2026 digital signage trend analysis from invidis noted that retail — responsible for nearly half of all digital signage deployments — is accelerating investment in monetisable media platforms even as some brick-and-mortar retail faces pressure. That is counterintuitive until you understand the logic: a retailer under margin pressure needs new revenue lines, and a screen network that sells advertising is a new revenue line.

Data standards: where most signage builds fall short

Across Europe, more than 200 retail media networks now operate, according to Broadsign's in-store retail media analysis. Fragmentation is the central problem. Brands cannot buy efficiently across multiple networks if every network uses different formats, different measurement approaches, and different data models. Standardisation is what unlocks serious ad spend.

This is the problem Visual Art's Retail Media Hub is trying to solve at the Nordic level. By bringing multiple retailers into a single platform with shared data standards, they create an aggregated inventory that a sales team can package and sell to advertisers. That is the point: individual retailer networks are often too small and too fragmented to attract brands with proper media budgets. A unified national network changes the equation.

For integrators, the practical implication is this: which CMS platforms and player architectures support the data export and API integrations that retail media networks require? If your preferred stack cannot integrate cleanly with an ad decisioning layer or publish structured impression logs, you will not be specced on retail media builds. The technical selection conversation is changing.

What this means if you sell or manage signage for retailers

The shift from communications signage to retail media infrastructure changes the conversation at the design stage, the commercial stage, and the support stage.

At design stage: the spec needs to account for ad-compatible playback, structured metadata, network uptime requirements that reflect revenue obligations rather than just client preference, and governance controls over content ratios. If your client is selling advertising on their screens, they need to be able to prove delivery to brands. That is a different level of reliability than a corporate communications deployment.

At the commercial stage: managed services now have a clear business case. When screens generate advertising revenue, downtime costs real money on a schedule the retailer can quantify. An integrator who can offer uptime monitoring, content delivery verification, and planned maintenance windows is not selling added-on support. They are protecting a revenue stream.

At the support stage: the client's CMS admin team now has two masters — the marketing team who wants to communicate, and the media sales team who wants to advertise. Those teams have different priorities and different timelines. If the platform governance is not set up to handle both without constant escalation, you will get the call.

AVIXA TV's session on deploying large-scale digital signage networks at retail covers the operational scale challenges directly — and the retail media layer adds commercial obligations on top of every operational complexity it identifies.

AVIXA TV: Deploying a Large-Scale Digital Signage Network at Retail — Key Considerations

The European picture: who moves first and why it matters

Europe's retail media spend is projected to reach €31 billion by 2028, according to market analysis from Adtelligent — nearly doubling in three years, with growth driven by retailer infrastructure investment and advertising budgets shifting from broadcast television. The UK leads European adoption, followed by France and Germany.

The Nordic model Visual Art has built is one template. It works because Sweden already had a strong digital signage foundation and a sophisticated retail sector comfortable with data-driven advertising. Germany has comparable retail discipline and a large CPG brand ecosystem that spends serious money on trade marketing — the same budgets retail media networks are targeting.

The difference between markets is not appetite. It is infrastructure maturity. Retailers who already run managed digital signage networks with clean data and reliable uptime have something to sell. Retailers whose signage was installed five years ago run on ageing players and have no meaningful playback reporting. That gap is where integrators who move early will win the work.

Walmart's trajectory in the US — transforming from retailer to vertically integrated media company — is the far end of this shift. European retailers are not Walmart, but the direction is the same: screens that generate advertising revenue are more valuable than screens that only carry communications content, and the infrastructure that supports advertising has to be built deliberately.

My Verdict

Visual Art's national retail media network in Sweden is not a boutique product launch. It is one of the first proofs that aggregated in-store retail media works at a national scale in Europe, and it will not be the last.

If your retail clients are running managed signage networks with real audience traffic, they are sitting on unmonetised advertising inventory. The question is whether you help them see it that way, or whether someone else does.

The integrators who win this work early will be the ones who can design for data integrity from the outset, specify CMS platforms that support ad decisioning integrations, and sell managed services as revenue protection rather than optional support. The ones who wait will quote hardware into a market that has already moved on.

Retail media is not where signage is going eventually. It is where serious retail signage already is.