E23 Retail on transforming travel retail with data-powered engagement solutions
E23 Retail CMO Giuseppe Maria Ardizzone (left) with E23 Founder & CEO Alessandro Le Piano at this year's TFWA World Exhibition in Cannes
Global media tech leader E23 Retail is making waves in the travel retail sector through its innovative solutions tailored to enhance audience profiling, engagement and in-store conversion rates.
According to Alessandro Lo Piano, E23 Founder & CEO, the platform is set to redefine how brands connect with high-value traveler personas in the travel retail, whether in-flight, in front of an airport billboard, in-store or on the go.
Founded in 2023, E23 Retail describes itself as a “pioneering media tech company that leverages a range of comprehensive data sources to unlock actionable insights for brands, media agencies, travel retail operators, and programmatic digital out of home media owners”. “By integrating official travel data with proprietary data and AI algorithms, E23’s platform offers a full-spectrum view of consumers behaviors from origin to destination, passengers profiling and predicting traveler intent to optimizing media engagement across key aviation touchpoints,” Lo Piano said.
Data Collection and Analysis
E23 gathers and analyzes extensive, privacy-compliant datasets, including flight schedules, origin/destination traffic, Lidar data at terminal-level or even SKU-level, and in-store video recognition. Through strategic deployment of advanced Lidar technology in major aviation hubs, E23 captures and analyzes complex passenger behaviors, creating a sophisticated pattern recognition system that scales across the global airport ecosystem.
E23’s wide-ranging processing approach handles data streams from several sources across the global airport network and beyond. Its sophisticated infrastructure enables both real-time optimization for advertisers and deep analytical insights, while the AI algorithm gets continuously fine-tuned as the platform scales to serve increasing numbers of airports and advertising partners.
“The easy to use platform leverages unmatched coverage of the global duty-free ecosystem, processing data from approximately 68% of worldwide travel retail operations,” Le Piano added. “Through real-time analysis with one-minute granularity, and access to exclusive data on over 45 million unique shopper profiles, the system provides unprecedented insights for brands and retailers across both major and minor international aviation hubs.”
Example of E23’s Traveler Persona profile matching, based on demographic and travel-related core features
With solutions tailored to industry needs, E23’s client stakeholders are:
- Programmatic Digital-out-of-Home Media Owners: For digital out-of-home (DOOH) media owners, E23 enables data-driven audience segmentation that enhances the relevance and impact of advertising. E23’s platform integrates audience insights with campaign data to provide a measurable approach to DOOH placements, maximizing reach and resonance in high-traffic airport areas.
- Travel Retail consumer Brands and Media Agencies: E23 helps brands and agencies connect with audiences by providing refined targeting solutions that consider traveler profiles, airport/airline scoring, and in-store purchasing behaviors. Brands can design personalized media campaigns, using E23’s output to optimize engagement and drive conversion rates among high-value travelers.
- Travel Retail International “Duty Free” Operators: E23 supports retail operators in maximizing conversion within duty-free spaces by delivering real-time shopper insights and predictive analytics. Operators can track engagement for each of their brands and products in portfolio, adapt store layouts, and curate product offerings based on precise audience data to enhance the shopping experience and increase sales.
Le Piano pointed out that E23 had a revenue growth of +20% in 2024 with commercial margins of 96.3%. The company has planned a solid growth for 2025 that will target +900% of growth and assess the commercial margins at 60% - due to the high scalability of the system in the travel retail industry.
