A 30-store in-store digital board program: I cut roughly $3M of content scope, replaced the vendor platform with an in-house CMS, and delivered a ~5% sales lift on select campaigns.
Role
Sr. Project & Product Manager, PMO Leadership
Client
Publix Super Markets
Business Owners
VP of Marketing · Omnichannel Director
Team
Creative (Creative Director, Art Director, Copywriter, Producer, Animation Designer) · Department Brand Managers & Buyers · Stratacache, then Publix Technology · Publix Installation Team · Store leads
Where the boards lived
Illustrative store layout, not a floor plan
Deli
6 screens
Pours
Beer · Wine · Coffee Bar
2 screens
Seafood & Meat
2 screens
Cheese
1 screen
Pharmacy
1 screen
Phase 1: 30 stores · 12 screens per store
In context
Build vs. buy
Planned
Stratacache platform
~$3M in requested creative for a year-long roadmap
Day-parting and real-time deal alerts
Shipped
In-house CMS built with Publix Technology
Scoped content roadmap
Day-parting and real-time alerts paused
Stratacache contract cancelled
Stratacache stayed live for 30 days after cutover as a fallback. It was never needed.
Project scope
Publix launched in-store digital boards in a 30-store Phase 1, with screens in the deli, cheese, seafood and meat, Pours (beer, wine, and coffee bar), and pharmacy zones carrying menus, video, and promotional messages throughout the day. I owned the program as its project and product manager. When business-owner content requests pushed the year-one roadmap toward roughly $3M in new creative, I cut the scope, paused day-parting and real-time deal alerts, and moved menu management off the Stratacache platform onto an in-house CMS built with the Publix Technology team, cancelling the vendor contract to lower ongoing cost.
How I approached it
Cut roughly $3M of requested creative from the year-one roadmap and paused day-parting and real-time deal alerts to lower content cost
Chose to build an in-house CMS with the Publix Technology team and cancel the Stratacache contract, reducing ongoing platform cost
Kept Stratacache live for 30 days after cutover as a fallback. It was never needed; post-launch work was mainly training teams on the new CMS
Worked with 7 Brand Managers on their lines of business' content, with the VP of Marketing and Omnichannel Director as business owners
Worked on site with the Publix Installation Team during installs and co-owned network and hardware setup with the technology lead
Invested in a large product photoshoot (20 fish, 50 Pub Sub combinations, chicken wings and tenders, and sides), run with a dedicated Producer, that gave Creative and an Animation Designer room for general and promotional boards with custom visual effects; the library was later shared with other teams, saving them additional photoshoots
Set up store-level support: in each store, the Store Manager, Assistant Store Manager, and 2–4 trained associates could flag outages and tech issues to me and the corporate team