Cotswold Outdoor Group has put 149 advertising screens across 23 of its UK stores on sale to brand partners, according to a statement issued on October 6, 2026 by ad tech company Broadsign and systems integrator IUF. The till, shelf, totem, large-format and front-of-store displays now run on Broadsign's content management system and ad server, and connect to the outdoor retailer's existing online advertising through its retail media platform, Zitcha.

In Short

An outdoor clothing and equipment chain in the UK has installed screens in its shops and now sells space on them to the brands it stocks, such as HOKA, ASICS and Nike. That matters because brands can buy shop-floor ads in the same plan as ads on the retailer's website and elsewhere, which most retailers still struggle to offer. The companies say one HOKA campaign lifted units sold per store by 13 percent, but they have not shared how that figure was measured.

What was built

The network is small by the standards of supermarket chains. According to Broadsign, it "presently includes 149 till, shelf, totem, large format, and front-of-store displays across 23 stores." That averages to roughly six and a half screens per location, though the companies did not give a per-store breakdown or say whether every store carries every format.

The software layer is the Broadsign Platform, specifically its CMS and ad server. According to Broadsign, the platform centralises content management and network health monitoring, and handles screen monetisation "by scheduling ads, automating yield, and balancing complex campaign rules." IUF, a Bristol-based integrator founded in 2008, is responsible for deployment and ongoing support. According to IUF, it is now active in more than 30 countries across retail, stadiums, transport, live events and workplaces.

Speed is the figure the integrator chose to highlight. "This project went from tender to a live network generating revenue within twelve weeks which demonstrates the expertise of all of the technical partners involved," said Josh Bunce, chief executive of IUF. The statement does not date the tender or the go-live, so it is not possible to say from the release when screens first carried paid campaigns. Nor does it say whether the screens were newly installed for this project or whether existing displays were migrated onto Broadsign's software.

What is absent from the release is also worth noting. No financial terms were disclosed. There is no audience figure, no footfall number, no impression count and no pricing. The release also does not say how many stores Cotswold Outdoor Group operates in total, which leaves open what share of its estate the 23 locations represent.

The Zitcha connection

The more consequential part of the arrangement sits behind the screens. Cotswold Outdoor Group already runs a retail media network through Zitcha, which the release describes as the retailer's retail media platform. Broadsign has an integration with Zitcha, and according to the companies, that integration is what lets brand partners and agencies add in-store placements to campaigns that also run onsite on the retailer's own digital properties and offsite on third-party media.

Frank Vallenga, vice president of platform sales for EMEA and SEA at Broadsign, framed the integration as the point of difference. According to Vallenga, the Zitcha link has allowed Cotswold "to connect audiences across their various retail media channels, which is a challenge many retailers have yet to solve."

Zitcha has had little coverage of its own. When IAB Europe updated its retail and commerce media landscape map in October 2025, the company appeared in two of the map's categories: in-store retail media ad tech providers, and supply-side platforms and ad tech providers, alongside Koddi, Rokt, Moloco, Mirakl, Pentaleap, Magnite and TripleLift. The Cotswold release gives no detail on how the Broadsign-Zitcha integration works technically - whether in-store inventory is booked inside Zitcha's interface, whether reporting is merged, or whether audience data from online channels is used to decide which store screens carry which ads.

Broadsign has pursued this kind of bridge with more than one retail media platform. In June 2026, at the Cannes Lions festival, it partnered with Mirakl Ads on an offer of "one campaign brief and one point of contact" spanning e-commerce placements and in-store screens, with a full launch planned for the third quarter of 2026. The Cotswold deployment uses a different partner for the online side, which suggests Broadsign is positioning its in-store stack as something that can sit beneath whichever retail media platform a retailer already uses.

The HOKA figure

According to the release, the network "is already delivering measurable results for participating brands, like HOKA, ASICS, and Nike." One campaign is quantified. "Most recently, a targeted HOKA campaign combining onsite and in-store media placements delivered a 13 percent lift in units sold per store," according to Broadsign.

The number is vendor-supplied and comes without the context needed to evaluate it. The release does not give the campaign dates, its duration, the number of stores involved, the comparison period or control group, or whether the lift was measured against stores without screens, against the same stores before the campaign, or against a forecast. It also does not separate the contribution of the in-store placements from the onsite ones, even though the campaign combined both. A 13 percent lift in units per store could be substantial or modest depending on the base, and the base is not given.

That gap matters because measurement is the single most cited weakness of in-store media. In April 2026, US in-store network Grocery TV added third-party sales lift measurement through ABCS Insights, whose panel covers 41 million US households, specifically to provide results independent of any single retailer's data. Even there, PPC Land noted that the control group methodology behind headline results of 11.7x and 5x incremental return on ad spend was not specified.

Where the measurement standards stand

Industry bodies have spent two years trying to define what an in-store impression is. On September 18, 2024, IAB and IAB Europe released the first in-store retail media measurement standards for public comment, covering ad formats including shelf-edge screens and digital signage, store zone classification such as entry, checkout and aisle endcaps, and metrics including footfall, dwell time and sales lift.

A second version is now open. On September 17, 2026, IAB Europe published a 27-page draft that cuts the in-store impression calculation to six inputs: average daily store footfall, number of stores, number of days, number of in-store placements, aisle penetration and campaign share of voice. The draft makes store footfall the starting point for counting audiences rather than ad plays, and moves the pre- and post-campaign sales reporting window from 30 days to 28 days. Comments close on October 23, 2026.

Placed against that framework, the Cotswold release supplies only two of the six inputs - store count and, indirectly, placement count. Footfall, aisle penetration and share of voice are not disclosed. That is typical of a launch announcement rather than unusual, but it means advertisers cannot yet compare an impression on Cotswold's screens with one on a supermarket network.

Why buyers are watching in-store

The release opens with the claim that many retailers struggle to connect in-store networks to digital retail media strategies. Recent survey data backs the premise, with caveats. On October 1, 2026, IAB and Grocery TV published research showing that 43% of US retail media buyers say they underuse in-store media. Activation complexity and measurement limitations tied as the top barriers at 27% each, followed by a lack of creative resources at 23%. Inventory and scale ranked as the leading evaluation factor, cited in the top three by 59%. The sample was 100 US buyers, and Grocery TV, which sells in-store inventory, co-commissioned the work.

Scale is the obvious question for a 149-screen network. The release does not address it directly, but Vallenga's comments point to the answer the companies have in mind: aggregation through programmatic channels. "Together, we've designed a network that makes it easy for its team to add, manage, control, and monetize new screens and integrate programmatic trading capabilities down the line," he said.

Mary Antieul, head of commercial at Cotswold Outdoor Group, placed the emphasis on the brand partners. "At Cotswold Outdoor Group, we're passionate about helping people get closer to the outdoors - and that starts with creating inspiring moments. Our brand partners are a big part of that journey, and this collaboration with Broadsign and IUF offers a powerful new way to connect with our customers in-store, alongside our onsite and offsite media channels," she said. "It means we can bring the right messages to shoppers at the right moment, with less friction for brands and a more connected experience for customers. The early results have been really encouraging, and we're excited to build on that momentum as we expand the network and explore future programmatic opportunities."

Both the retailer and Broadsign describe programmatic trading as a future step rather than a current capability. No timeline is given.

The programmatic route Broadsign already owns

If Cotswold does open its screens to automated buying, the obvious pipe is one Broadsign controls. On November 25, 2025, Broadsign acquired Place Exchange, an independent supply-side platform for programmatic digital out-of-home, lifting its programmatically transactable inventory to 1.8 million screens and its combined workforce to 370. The release's boilerplate describes Place Exchange as "the largest independent SSP for Digital OOH."

Place Exchange has since added buying routes. In December 2025, it made programmatic guaranteed DOOH deals available in Google's Display & Video 360, with publishers including Simon Malls among the first. In September 2026, Broadsign's deal with Context Networks for gaming-venue screens across 14 US states followed the same template: run the screens on the Broadsign Platform, then offer eligible inventory to automated buyers through Place Exchange.

Small networks gain the most from that kind of aggregation, since few buyers will set up a direct relationship for 149 screens in specialist outdoor stores. The trade-off is that programmatic demand tends to buy on audience and price, not on the brand-partner relationships that Antieul's comments emphasise. How Cotswold balances endemic brands such as HOKA and ASICS against non-endemic programmatic buyers, if it lets the latter in at all, is not addressed.

A note on Broadsign's numbers

The boilerplate attached to the release states that "more than 3 million static and digital signs" run on Broadsign. That figure has moved quickly. Broadsign cited more than 2 million signs at the time of the Place Exchange acquisition in November 2025 and more than 2.8 million in April 2026, when it said it powered more than 35 in-store retail media networks globally. PPC Land recorded the move to more than 3 million in the Context Networks coverage in September 2026. Broadsign has not explained how much of the increase comes from new deployments versus the Place Exchange integration or a change in counting method.

Broadsign's retail run

Cotswold Outdoor Group joins a list of retailers on Broadsign's in-store software that already included Woolworths, Coles, Sainsbury's and Douglas. In April 2026, Australian electronics chain JB Hi-Fi picked Broadsign for an in-store network across more than 200 stores, with Criteo and Retail Media Works as named partners. By store count, that deployment is nearly nine times the size of the Cotswold one.

Competition for in-store retail infrastructure is busy on both sides of the Atlantic. In May 2026, Grocery TV brought in-store retail media to 208 Raley's stores across California, Nevada and Arizona, with a Raley's executive saying the network was stood up "in a matter of weeks." Deployment speed, in other words, is becoming a standard selling point, and IUF's 12-week claim fits that pattern.

The UK and European backdrop

The UK is one of the more mature retail media markets in Europe, though most of the measured money is online. IAB UK reported that online retail media reached GBP 1.5 billion in the first half of 2025, within total digital ad spend of GBP 18.7 billion for the period. Those figures do not capture in-store screen spend, for which there is no comparable published UK series.

Across Europe, IAB Europe put retail media spending at EUR 13.7 billion in 2024, up 21.1% year on year and roughly one-fifth of digital advertising, with forecasts reaching EUR 20.8 billion in 2026 and EUR 28.8 billion in 2028. The same research found that the share of brands working with four to six retail media networks rose from 10% to 24% in 2025, which helps explain why mid-sized specialist retailers are building networks at all: buyers are spreading budgets across more of them.

UK measurement of physical retail media is also attracting investment. In October 2025, Topsort acquired Phuzion Media, a UK firm that uses image recognition to make offline retail media measurable, with clients including Tesco, Waitrose, Boots, Marks & Spencer and Argos.

Why it matters

For the marketing community, the Cotswold deployment is less notable for its size than for its category. Retail media in the UK has been dominated by grocery and health and beauty chains with large loyalty datasets. A specialist outdoor retailer with 23 screen-equipped stores selling shelf and till placements to sportswear brands shows how far down the retail ladder the model is moving. For brands such as HOKA, ASICS and Nike, it adds another point-of-sale channel that can be bought alongside online placements, though for now through the retailer's own platform rather than open programmatic markets.

The unanswered questions are the ones that determine whether such networks attract budget beyond trade marketing allowances: audited audience numbers, a measurement method that aligns with the IAB Europe draft, and a route to scale. Broadsign and Cotswold have described the last of those as a future step. The first two were not part of the October 6 announcement.

Timeline

Summary

Who: Cotswold Outdoor Group, a UK outdoor clothing and equipment retailer; Broadsign, a Montreal-based out-of-home and retail media technology company; IUF, a Bristol-based digital signage integrator; and Zitcha, the retailer's retail media platform. Named spokespeople are Mary Antieul (Cotswold Outdoor Group), Frank Vallenga (Broadsign) and Josh Bunce (IUF). HOKA, ASICS and Nike are named as participating brands.

What: An in-store advertising network of 149 till, shelf, totem, large-format and front-of-store screens across 23 stores, running on the Broadsign CMS and ad server and connected to Zitcha so brands can buy in-store placements alongside onsite and offsite media. IUF says the project went from tender to revenue in 12 weeks. Broadsign reports a 13 percent per-store unit lift for one HOKA campaign, without disclosing methodology.

When: The collaboration was detailed on October 6, 2026. Programmatic trading is described as a future step with no date.

Where: 23 Cotswold Outdoor Group stores in the UK. The release was datelined Montreal.

Why: The retailer wants to sell shop-floor media to its brand partners as part of the same campaigns it already sells online, and Broadsign is positioning its software as the in-store layer beneath existing retail media platforms. For advertisers, the deal adds a specialist-retail channel, but audience figures, measurement methodology and programmatic access remain undisclosed.