As mobile devices move to the center of a consumer’s shopping activities, publishers are exploring ways to activate purchases at retail. One area that shows promise is grocery shopping, where consumers are using their mobile devices to look up recipes to plan their shopping. And Meredith and Reader’s Digest both announced deals today that aim to put their brands at the center of a shopper’s food-buying activity.Meredith acquired Grocery Server, a digital marketing platform that serves up branded offers at local retailers based on a users’s location. Terms of the deal were not released. The acquisition will be primarily positioned against Meredith’s Allrecipes brand.
Readers Digest in a very similar strategy, but not via an acquisition, has partnered with mobile ad technology platform Crisp Media to activate the Taste of Home audience at retail.