Peapod Takes Virtual Shopping to Events

CHICAGO — Online grocer Peapod, based here, is launching a promotional campaign featuring “mobile billboards” on the sides of delivery trucks where consumers can shop for groceries using their smartphones.

The trucks will be featured at summer gathering places such as ballparks and concert venues in Peapod’s markets along the East Coast, where it supplies the Giant and Stop & Shop banners of parent company Ahold USA, and in Chicago. The campaign also features coffee-cup sleeves with scanable product, in addition to the mobile billboards.

Users scan a QR code to download a free PeapodMobile app, and then can begin shopping from the mobile billboards.

The campaign mirrors an effort Peapod rolled out last year involving scan-and-shop billboards in commuter bus and train stations at more than 100 locations in its markets.

Read more: Peapod Expands Virtual Stores

“When we piloted the virtual stores last fall, we found that the advertising stopped people — it engaged them, and we saw mobile app downloads as a result,” said Mike Brennan, chief operating officer, Peapod. “This go-round, we’re exploring new, hyper-local platforms to communicate our convenience message of ‘Shop Anywhere, Anytime with Peapod.’”

There are 23 products featured on the mobile billboards – six from Coca-Cola, six from Campbell Soup, six from Reckitt Benckiser and five private-label items, a Peapod spokeswoman told SN. The digitized content rotates. The coffee sleeves feature one product line – either Lysol products from Reckitt Benckiser, or Campbell’s Go Soups.