STRATACACHE CEO Chris Riegel explains why the physical store is cluttered with “Paper Tigers” — static, costly signage that the human brain is evolved to ignore — and how digital media provides the “evolutionary cheat code” to recapture shopper attention.
Key Takeaways
In this provocative keynote from the “What’s In Store for Retail Media Networks” event at NRF 2026, Chris Riegel shifts the conversation from the “Sleeping Giant” of retail media to the “Paper Tiger” of traditional in-store marketing. With the average supercenter containing more than 280,000 visual indicators, the competition for attention is staggering. Riegel argues that traditional paper signage has become both everywhere and nowhere — a massive labor and carbon cost that fails to drive modern shopper behavior.
The session dives into the “evolutionary cheat code” of digital media: the human limbic brain. Because we are hardwired to track motion as a survival instinct, digital displays trigger a “lizard brain” response that static paper simply cannot. Riegel outlines how retailers can leverage this biological trigger to focus attention, drive conversion, and finally bring accountability to the physical aisle through integrated sensors and AI-driven conditional messaging.
Expect a deep dive into the benefits of moving from static to dynamic — including labor savings, real-time compliance, and the ability to use “hedonic” triggers and weather-based data to influence decisions in real-time. This presentation is a call to action for retailers to stop providing information that gives nothing back and start building a digital theater that tracks, learns, and converts.
Speakers: Chris Riegel – CEO and Founder, STRATACACHE