British consumers will be familiar with WHSmith as a staple of the high street, train stations and airports – selling stationery, holiday reads, food, tech essentials and more.
What they might not be aware of is that WHSmith is also a well-established presence across the pond in the United States, although it looks a little different there.
“What’s really interesting when it comes to WHSmith, as a predominantly UK brand, is that it shows up in a really different way in the US,” said Chris Goddard, Partnership Director for WHS Media and SMG North America.
“Over here, they don’t have ‘WHSmith’ over the storefront – it might be called Bowery Bay or Gotham News, all sorts of things – but the stores are given localised names, because landlords have specific requirements for the retail space to show up in a certain way.”
Originally from the UK, Goddard has been based in New York since October 2024, working on building out WHSmith North America’s retail media proposition: WHS Media. As someone with close to a decade of experience in retail media in the UK, Goddard is uniquely placed to speak to some of the differences between the UK and North American landscapes, as well as to the challenges and opportunities present in US retail media and the unique offering that travel holds for brands.
A localised store network
WHSmith North America has more than 330 stores across the United States and Canada, primarily in airports but also some resorts. A number of these are tech stores, under the InMotion retail brand, and WHSmith also has a select handful of high fashion stores selling apparel and accessories.
Most of the retail outlets sell a mixture of CPG and snack brands alongside gifts and souvenirs for the local area – ‘I <3 NY’ for New York, for example, or Liberty Bell motifs in Philadelphia – while the InMotion tech stores sell a range of gadgets and tech accessories, from chargers to headphones.
WHSmith North America’s approach of giving stores a localised name (rather than a unified WHSmith brand, as in the UK) enables consumers to feel they are shopping somewhere characteristic of the area, which can feel more personal than a large chain and is an advantage when selling travel souvenirs. However, it presents a hurdle when convincing advertisers to buy into the retail media opportunity.
“One challenge that we see is the lack of recognition in the market – when we’re talking to buyers and saying, ‘This is an opportunity within the WHSmith network’, they don’t necessarily know it in the way a UK advertiser would,” Goddard explained.
With that said, “One of the great things about this network is that you can localise the activity.
“Something we’ve been doing more and more is looking at how we can support local events in local markets and airports.” For example, Skullcandy partnered with WHS Media for the launch of a new pair of headphones, with the launch party hosted in New York City.
“They chose InMotion as the first retail partner to have the product available to buy in North America. So, we did localised activation: on the digital screens, calling out the new product and the fact that it was exclusive to those stores.
“As a result, anyone who had flown in for the event would see it as they were going through the airport – and could connect the dots better.”
Another advertiser is a drinks brand that timed its activation for a local athletics event – for which the brand was also an official sponsor – and ensured it had a presence in the airport as athletes and fans were flying in.
“We’re seeing that as a massive benefit to the reach that we’ve got,” said Goddard.
The opportunity in travel
“There are nearly a billion travellers in North America every single year,” said Goddard of the scale of the opportunity present in travel. “This has gradually risen to pre-pandemic levels and beyond.”
In addition to this wide audience, “The average traveller spends about 80 minutes in the travel pre-flight – which is a significant amount of dwell time that you don’t have, say, in grocery.
“You can have a far more in-depth, intelligent conversation with a shopper who has that amount of dwell time. I think that’s something that brands aren’t yet fully tapping into.”
Goddard also pointed out that there is a significant advantage to be gained from in tailoring messages to the traveller in the moment – “For example, what are the benefits of noise-cancelling headphones for a traveller?
“Hydration, in the travel space, has a really different message to the high street; so, tailoring the message and making sure it’s appropriate to the shopper is something my team and I constantly talk about when we receive a briefing.”
He also noted that the opportunity for retail media in locations like airports sits more towards the upper end of the funnel. “When you talk about headphones that might be $300 or $400 – with the higher dwell time, you’ve got an opportunity for people to trial them, but they may not necessarily buy there and then.
“It can depend on the brand we’re talking to, of course,” Goddard added. “For some, it will be more about sales through the till. But there’s definitely an awareness piece to what we’re doing.”
What makes the US retail media market unique?
From his time spent in UK retail media prior to moving to New York, Goddard noted that the UK retail media market is more mature in some areas, predominantly in-store.
“In the UK we are further down the road with monetising and maturing screen networks,” Goddard said, noting that this has been developing for the past 5 or 6 years in the UK, whereas many US retailers are only just starting on this path.
However, he noted that online capabilities and tech infrastructure in the US are more advanced. In addition, the US has more specialist tech suppliers, which can create a lot of fragmentation.
“As a result, US advertisers can face dozens of retail networks, each with different definitions, different buying processes, different data environments, and different reporting methodologies,” he said.
The United States’ more spread out geography also has a major impact on consumer behaviour and store formats. “Regionally, you see different brand strengths that make planning and execution far more complex,” said Goddard, noting that although WHS Media has a network of more than 700 programmatically-enabled screens, a large amount still depends on print – from aisle-level promotions and signage to endcap displays.
This makes execution much more complex when things can’t be simply ‘switched on’ from a central hub.
“Where we’re seeing the opportunity over here is to sophisticate the scale that America has,” Goddard concluded. “Data is a big part of that; proving results is a big part of that.
“My approach to this partnership with WHSmith will all be about making it more sophisticated – but simplifying it as well.”
Elaborating on the ‘balancing act’ between sophistication and simplicity, Goddard said, “The sophistication behind the scenes of a retail media network is so important – but it’s also key for it to be simple to invest in, simple to get good results from.”
