What: Orange Advertising, the advertising arm of the French telecom operator Orange, has launched a retail media offer built on operator data, starting with digital screens in Orange's stores in France.

Why it is important: By opening store screens to its marketplace sellers, Orange uses physical traffic to promote an online assortment, a model department stores running marketplaces could replicate.

Orange Advertising has launched a retail media offer built on the data and audiences of Orange's 25 million customers in France. The offer extends the marketplace Orange opened on 22 September 2026, whose partner sellers can now buy visibility.

Orange counts 570 stores, 38 million store visits a year and 31 million monthly unique visitors on its digital assets and partner sites. More than 80% of sales of its phones, high-tech and entertainment products are made in store.

Screens are being installed in the highest-traffic zones, with about 285 stores equipped by the end of November 2026. One-minute loops generate up to 75 opportunities to see per visit, based on an average 25-minute stay, and 36% of visitors belong to higher socio-professional categories.

The Perion ad server targets campaigns with operator data such as geomarketing personas, transaction history and sales by product segment. They can be combined with SMS and RCS messages to 5 million opt-in customers, triggered through the telecom network within 150 metres of a store without GPS. Impact is measured by comparing sales trends in exposed and unexposed stores.

A late-August pilot covered about 100 stores, and several advertisers have booked year-end campaigns.

IADS Notes: Orange follows the route Simon Property Group took when it opened its US destinations, loyalty programme and digital channels to advertisers through a media network built on first-party data and closed-loop attribution, creating revenue beyond its core business (WWD, September 2026). The comparison of exposed and non-exposed stores addresses the objection that keeps in-store media marginal: more than 99% of European retail media spend stays online because brands invest where they can prove effect, while "opportunity to see", the metric IAB Europe is now standardising and one Orange still leads with, estimates who walked past a screen without showing whether anything sold (Inside Retail, September 2026). Under GDPR a screen cannot recognise the shopper, which makes the link to CRM, loyalty and app data the condition for relevance and proof of impact (Journal du Net, October 2026); Orange's version of that link is operator data combined with opt-in SMS and RCS messaging. Among members, John Lewis Partnership uses ROPO measurement to connect online ad exposure to in-store purchases through loyalty card activity (Retail Times, June 2026).

In France, Orange launches retail media in its stores