Until recently, retailers have had to accept an information bottleneck, which has hampered the ability to deliver and communicate the full power of targeted rich media messaging to consumers, when and where it counts most, in the store.

To compound matters, sales tools like promotional videotapes or DVDs, which were intended to persuade and set the tone for a sale, needed to be manually fed by a sales clerk into a combination TV/VHS system or DVD player, which cut into precious time helping and interacting with customers. With physical media like DVD and VHS tapes, content was fixed. It could not be adapted and packaged based on regional interests, lifestyle trends and buying patterns of a particular market. The result was a generic message void of any feeling of a one-on-one connection with the shopper.

Similar to the challenge faced by bandwidth providers delivering digital content to people where they live, how do retailers bridge that “last mile” to reach consumers where they shop?

Traditionally, rich messages reached consumers almost everywhere, except where they made the bulk of their buying decisions—in-store. At the moment of truth, for the

With a digital signage network, or an in-store TV channel if you will, the possibilities are endless for capturing and focusing the consumer’s attention. With the creation of a retailer’s in-store TV channel, marketers, store managers and brand manufacturers can capitalize on a powerful new tool—an in-store content channel.

Customizable, tailorable and automated, a digital signage network can deliver rich promotional messages featuring graphics, text and moving images, helping the retailer connect with consumers on both an emotional and needs level, persuade and, ultimately, move them to make smartbuying purchases based on the timeliness and relevancy of content displayed. The beauty of such as a system is the flexibility to stream
eye-catching content and refresh it, virtually anytime, anywhere.

This power translates directly into increased retail sales. Point-of-Purchase Advertising International research shows that specific brands advertised on digital signs can see a 30 percent increase in sales, while overall store sales can increase as much as 12 percent.

Given the sales uptick, retailing digital signage is enjoying explosive growth. Dollars invested in this emerging advertising and marketing venue are expected to more than double over the next 24 months— to $1.5 billion by 2005. Savvy retailers can earn significant sums from marketers willing to pay handsomely to increase their exposure with such in-store advertising.

ENHANCED SHOPPING

Digital signage is far more than just the endpoints visible in-store. Impressive display technology has been available for some time. But the limit here has been isolated content, usually videotapes and DVDs, which play the same content over and again. The real power of this emerging medium comes from combining electronics, entertainment and communications. The result is a digital signage network that allows retailers to connect directly with consumers, increase their brand awareness and generate a new revenue stream from the sale of advertising in this media to manufacturers and brand marketers.

In the broadest sense, the idea is to deliver personalized message regardless of the scale of the store. Think of it as emulating the engaging style that sharp shopkeepers have always used to show their wares. Walking with prospect in tow, they educate and entertain, cajole and compel. Browsers become buyers under their influence.

A digital signage network creates a signature retail experience that is personal and persuasive. Return visits offer a deeper relationship that yields fresh discoveries as the system updates to deliver new angles and insights based on the customer’s interests. This mirrors the value-add brought when an engaging salesperson establishes rapport with a customer. No two trips they make through the store together are the same. Repeat visits deepen the relationship and the experience becomes richer, more rewarding. The edge this affords is a sharp contrast to environments that allow potential customers to drift through a static store anonymously and detached. Already, the top tiers of U.S. consumers’ buying decisions are driven by the quality of the shopping experience. This will expand rapidly through all segments of the market as digital signage makes such enhanced retail experiences scalable.

Imagine the impact of engaging interactive visuals at the point-of-purchase targeted to specific, personalized consumer interests served up instantaneously across a digital network. The messaging is precision targeted to time of day, day of the week, store location, current weather conditions—whatever is key to connecting with customers at that place and time.

For example, a retailer can show full-motion video of a new line of bathing suits, rotating the suit to show it from all sides. It may also help create demand by screening video or graphic footage of accessories like beach towels, sunglasses and sunscreen, cooler or other related items. Similarly, a specialty retailer selling designer clothes can display an

Other implementations emulate the role of a disc jockey at discothèque. By observing the crowd at a retail location through remote cameras, a content controller operating from a remote location can focus on the audience to gauge their receptivity and reaction to the content being shown. By extension, store managers and marketing managers at a retail chain can monitor and measure the effectiveness of the content by synchronizing with their computer system to see what impact it had on sales. Here, the boundaries between shopping, entertainment and infotainment dissolve into a new kind of retail experience. Here, this “enhanced shopping experience” comes to focus exactly where and when customers make impulse buys.

TARGETED MESSAGES

Another way to look at the digital signage network is to understand it as a natural evolution and extension of tried-and-true retail strategies as they become powered by digital technology. Already, in-store music creates an upbeat mood for shoppers. Typically, the same, single channel of music is piped throughout the space. The overall effect is non- specific. Take the same concept and translate it into a visual medium programmed with digital exactness. Highly targeted messaging keyed to precise in-store locations directs shoppers through the day turning them into buyers.