Klépierre hands its mall screens to an operator to 2034
Klépierre has renewed Cityz Media's DOOH concession across 38 French malls for eight more years, with the network growing to about 750 screens. Three weeks after Simon launched its own media business, a landlord of similar ambition chose the opposite route.
On 16 September 2026, Klépierre renewed Cityz Media as the operator of retail media across its 38 French shopping centres for eight more years, to 2034. The renewal came after a competitive tender, and the two have worked together since 2011. The network grows to nearly 750 DOOH screens, totems and giant screens, more than 150 above today’s estate, and the totems along the shopper route are being replaced with 75-inch 4K screens mounted at eye level. Klépierre puts the 38 centres at close to 300 million visitors a year.
Alongside the renewal, Cityz set up Cityz Retail Media, a 30-person business unit, and signed with Ocean Outdoor, which uses the deal to enter France. Three weeks ago we covered Simon Property Group launching its own media network. Klépierre faced the same question and gave the opposite answer: it keeps the audience and hands the media business to a specialist for a decade. For a salon or clinic chain deciding whether to run its own screens, that choice matters more than the screen count.
What happened
Mall landlords have always had the audience. What Simon and Klépierre show is that “monetise the audience” splits into two separate decisions. Simon’s is to own the media business: its own brand, its own data layer (loyalty, opted-in location signals, licensed purchase data), its own sales story. Klépierre’s is to concession it: keep the venues and the visitor count, and license the right to sell them to an operator with a national footprint, then re-tender when the term runs out.
The details of Klépierre’s deal show what a concession actually buys. The operator funds and runs the estate. It brings a sales force that already sells the top French malls as one national package, a new retail-media team to answer measurement questions, and now an international partner that can bring campaigns in from other markets. None of that exists at the landlord unless the landlord builds it. The financial terms of the concession have not been published.
What it means for beauty
- Own or concession is the same question a salon chain faces, at smaller scale. A chain can run its screens itself or hand them to an operator. Our build vs buy vs partner guide sets out the routes. Klépierre’s choice is the partner route: a large landlord with plenty of resources decided that selling media is a specialist job.
- Concessions win on sales reach, not on screens. Klépierre’s 38 centres matter to buyers because Cityz can package them with the rest of France’s top malls. One chain’s screens rarely reach a national buyer on their own. That is why fill rate dominates the payback timeline: an operator with existing demand can fill inventory the owner could not. The revenue-per-screen model shows what that fill is worth once you run the numbers.
- Owning keeps the upside and the data. Simon’s route keeps the whole margin and the identity layer. For a beauty chain that layer is the booking system, which is arguably worth more than the screens. A concession usually hands the selling relationship, and often the audience data, to the operator. Put that trade in writing before you sign.
- Eight years is an earned term, not a starting term. Klépierre signed for eight years after fifteen years of working with the same operator and a competitive tender. Our venue partnership agreement guide advises short, non-exclusive first terms with exit rights for good reason: long exclusivity makes sense once you have proof of play and a paid history, not before. How to choose an operator covers the vetting you should do first.
The caveat that keeps us honest
This is a renewal announcement. The visitor figure and the top-25 and top-50 coverage claims are company-reported. The concession fee, the revenue share, the capital commitment and the split of the 750 screens by format have not been disclosed, so nothing here tells you whether the concession pays Klépierre more than running its own network would. Malls also differ from salons in scale and dwell pattern. The lesson here is about structure, own versus concession, not a benchmark to copy. Nothing beauty-specific is asserted beyond what the linked Research supports.
Related: The mall landlord becomes a media owner · Build vs buy vs partner · The network payback model · The revenue-per-screen model · How to monetize your salon with screens · The DOOH consolidation map