United Pacific, a convenience-store chain based in Long Beach, California, has developed a retail media experience that leads customers from the fuel pumps into its stores, focusing on not only presenting strategic offers but also introducing fun into the shopping experience.
- United Pacific is No. 14 on CSP’s 2025 Top 40 Update to the 2024 Top 202 ranking of U.S. c-store chains by store count. Watch for the full 2025 Top 202 ranking in the June issue of CSP magazine and in CSP Daily News.
“I didn’t just want to have video that was rolling inside these gas pumps,” Todd Bowers, senior manager of beverages at United Pacific, said Wednesday during a panel discussion at CSP’s Retail Media Network Forum in Dallas. “I wanted to do something that was different in nature.”
After benchmarking against the industry, Bowers brought in talent to film videos that play after the ads in an initiative called Rocket Engage. In the video, someone knocks on the screen and jumps up and down to get the customer’s attention. They tell the customer that in addition to the promotion the ad just offered, they can get another deal by clicking on a button that prints out an extra coupon.
“The idea was to make sure that we had a transaction that we could measure,” he said.
United Pacific guides its customers with a retail media journey leading up to and throughout the store, too.
“The idea is to monetize, but also to convert gas-only customers into the store,” Bowers said.
The chain places small screens with videos in various parts of the store, which are only about 6 inches by 20 inches, he said. The videos aim to guide customers through categories with bundle offer add-on purchases. Once the customer reaches the sales counter, they are prompted with loyalty offers and suggestive selling by employees.
- Learn more about retail media networks from CSP’s RMN coverage.
Members help make our journalism possible. Become a CSP member today and unlock exclusive benefits, including unlimited access to all of our content. Sign up here.