“Creating a shopper-centric context within retail”

The future of digital signage is moving toward mobile interaction for consumers to communicate between digital signage and their mobile phones. Content can now be introduced to the viewer in an entirely new way that requires participation and ultimately produces an experience for the viewer. Mobile integration is revolutionary in the digital signage industry as QR codes, audio recognition and SMS can be used for more cost-effective, efficient and enjoyable-to-deliver targeted messages. This presentation will describe the benefits of the mobile trend in the evolving digital signage industry.

The words Context and Relevance are inseparable when it comes to media.  Long form media such as TV dramas create a contextual relevance for the viewer through a developing storyline and character development.  Even lives that you are not remotely associated with such as the PBS TV show Downton Abbey, the writer, director and actors work together build a context and you feel a relevance to the story.  That connection is a prerequisite to engagement.  For Downton Abbey engagement is measured in viewership delivering to PBS its highest ratings since 2009.

How does digital place-based media as a “glance” medium, create relevance with content that flashes before your eyes in 3 – 5 seconds.  A big part of the answer is again context; however in this situation the context is the physical space in which the digital sign is located.   Successful retail brands understand how to express their brand contextual during a shopping visit; this is especially evident with fashion retailers such as Hollister, Prada, H&M, Nike, and Victoria Secret.  Also Apple, arguably a form of fashion, is iconic in their ability to create a contextual branded shopping experience.  When you walk into any of these stores, you feel a connection with their brand.  You have a context in which messages, typically promotional in nature, are interpreted and acted on. More and more of that connection is being aided by in-store digital media in the form of digital signs, video walls, large projection displays, touchscreens and in-store audio that wraps the shopper in the brand.
 
Now enter the quick adoption of smartphones and tablets.  A study conducted by the Pew Research Center showed that 58% of cell owners used their phones for recommendations, reviews, or price comparisons in a physical store this last holiday shopping season.  Stop, how dare they interrupt this finely honed branded shopping experience with the intrusion of their own private media?  Perhaps retails should block signals or make sure that there is no Wi-Fi available within their stores.  No, quite the contrary these devices represent the “voice” of the shopper giving the retailer the opportunity to complete the contextual brand picture by putting the shopper in the center. 

Effective shopper engagement lies in the intersection between the brand and the shopper.  We refer to this as “connected experiences.”  This now happens regularly on-line where ecommerce retailers know the shopping behavior of opt-in consumers and can individually reward to drive larger transactions and loyalty.  How can this be facilitated when it comes to brick-and-mortar environments? 

Picture a couple entering a large department store.  They are loyal shoppers of that retailer and there is some excellent CRM data about their purchases, but the retailer has no idea that a high value shopper has just entered.  The mobile phone is the link that places the shopper in the middle of the context. Either through a QR code or increasingly through NFC (near-field communications), they let the retailer know they are in the store.  Now the magic happens.

This session will demonstrate tools and techniques to use in-store digital signage, mobile and social media, and illustrate where it is all heading.  From wayfinding and special “handpicked” promotions to linking with social media and gamification of content, retailers and shoppers can engage in a two-way interaction that delivers high shopper satisfaction, increased spending, and increase the likelihood of them being brand loyal. 

In a retrospective moment I decided to pull out an article that I wrote in early 2008 called Merchandising 2.0. In this article I predicted the following:

“If the remote control has spelled the death of advertising on television, then the cellphone ushers in the re-birth of advertising — as information — at retail. The cellphone is the new remote control of marketing, and this time it is our best friend.”

I go on to point out that the (now-called) smartphones will serve as a just-in-time information resource and support transactions anywhere, anytime for the shopper. As much as I was directionally correct in the influence of this technology on retailing, my predictions fell short of what today’s technology is capable of and how retailers are already reinventing the in-venue shopping experience. This piece attempts to examine how in-venue media is being used to drive positive change for both the shopper and the retailer. 

Let’s start with a high-level view of digital signage within the retail store. 

The “digital signage” moniker implies static and passive communications that has no precise contextual awareness. While the name has stuck, most everyone understands that the ultimate power of the digital sign is in delivering the right message, at the right time, at the right place. In other words, effective digital signage needs to be relevant to the viewer. You have to earn their eyeballs through the content before you can get any shopper mindshare. The watchwords to achieve that are relevance and recency. Just like there are differences between a cellphone and a smartphone, we can differentiate between a network with a standard playlist on the screen versus a network that employs software and methodologies to pinpoint messages to a specific screen location at a specific time of day … digital signage versus smart signage. 

With that in mind, if you are planning to invest in digital signage, make sure you look for a CMS (content management system) with the following list of “smarts” to make your network a success.

• Automatic placement, what we like to call non-deterministic programming of a unique playlist supported by content and location attributes (meta-tags). This, with a set of business rules, enables content to automatically find its way to specific locations with very few people managing the scheduling and publishing of content.
  
• Generate real-time content by utilizing open APIs (application programming interface) to feed various data in and out of the CMS to create content on the fly. A sampling of these sources includes external cloud-based data such as weather, news, sports, and shopper-generated information from mobile devices; and retailer enterprise data such as ePOS, inventory, pricing, merchandising and additional shopper loyalty data.
  
• Conditional playback functionality that can utilize the above data feeds to intelligently alter the playlist by adding or removing content in order to enhance relevance. For example, if a product on promotion becomes out-of-stock, then remove that promotion on the screen in that store. Or, if the local sports team makes the playoffs, then display “congratulations” and promote party foods or the purchase of a new big-screen LED. You get the idea.
  
• Utilize selective store staff to display relevant messages that drive incremental sales. A CMS should allow you to empower your store to manage the on-site messaging based on their experience and knowledge in connecting with the community, employee of the month, local sponsorships and charities, etc.

As I mentioned earlier, smartphones are a game changer, particularly in the retail industry. However, applications can be either a friend or foe to the retail store. Pricing and consumer report apps can turn a retailer into a physical showroom for the shopper as they touch and feel products that they will ultimately buy elsewhere. We need to know how to best utilize the smartphone so it’s no longer a foe. How can this ubiquitous device help you drive conversion, transaction size and loyalty?

First we must understand how smartphones are currently being used among shoppers and where our greatest opportunity lies. According to research done by both comScore and Forrester, four out of five consumers use smartphones to shop and an average of 22% of smartphone owners have used a shopping application in the past three months. Add to that, a fact uncovered by the CMO Council: 54% of North American consumers would consider ending their loyalty relationships if they were not given tailor-made, relevant content and offers. These statistics show that smartphones have a significant presence with shoppers yet phone apps need to be more targeted and offer greater incentives to encourage engagement.

Retailers should look for ways to interact with shoppers through web-generated applications that come up instantly versus downloadable apps that creates a barrier in adoption. Also, don’t rely too heavily on information or the novelty factor to earn high adoption among shoppers. The incentive or the entertainment factor needs to be significant enough to prompt shoppers to take out their mobile devices and engage.

If done correctly, smartphones can be an important and valuable point of in-store engagement between the shopper and the retail brand. To get there, let’s look at the potential interplay between the smart sign and the smart phone. 

Demand shopping is an interactive in-store experience that we have developed. Many retailers are talking about it and I believe it is a good example of what is possible in retailing. We are all familiar with the model. We have seen it used successfully in some of the biggest shopping brands such as QVC and Groupon. At its most basic level, it is the promotion of an item where there is a finite inventory that gets counted down both in units and time. When implemented in a store the promotional price can be driven down based on the number of shoppers opting in. Imagine a designer handbag is displayed on a smart sign with the starting price of $80.00 for the next 40 minutes. The shopper is instructed to scan the QR code, triggering a web-based app to appear on his/her mobile phone. The app prompts the shopper to sign in directly on a mobile web-page or they can connect through Facebook or Twitter. Once signed in, the shopper can tag the handbag which in turn drives down the price and sends a redemption code to their phone. Further, her friends can view the purchase and inspire a wave of similar purchases. As the number of shoppers who opt-in increase, the cost of the bag will decrease. Of course, the shoppers need to buy the item before the inventory or time runs out. As the image illustrates, items can be selected to be displayed on the smart sign based on a planned promotional calendar, end of season items or by flagging over-inventoried items.   

Other brand reinforcing experiences can be voting, trivia quizzes, and games. We have done all three and have inserted a few screen shots to give you an idea of what they can look like.







The last idea I want to touch on is taking a standard fixture in fashion retailing, the mirror, and changing it to create a more efficient and interactive experience with the customer. We have launched a product called DelayMirror that “reflects” an image back to the shopper with a three-second delay. In reality it is a digital screen with a mirror-like feel and a digital video camera mounted in the bezel; a media player controls the images. The shopper steps out of the dressing room in a new outfit, walks up to the DelayMirror, spins around and sees himself or herself in that outfit from the front, sides and back. Meanwhile, the “mirror” can then display accessory ideas such as handbags, shoes, and jewelry alongside the shopper. The shopper can then capture the image on her smartphone and share with her friends on Facebook, or any other social media site to get their opinions and feedback on the outfit.



This short piece has touched lightly on several areas, however I hope it triggers some thoughts on the power of convergence when smart signs, smart phones and social media come together in retail. The technology enables retailers to create experiences for shoppers that foster a dialogue between the retail brand and its customers, a dialogue that promotes loyalty, increased conversion and increase transaction size. 

No, I’m not referring to an obscure version of the Chinese calendar (by the way this is the Year of the Rabbit), but rather looking at what aspects of digital out-of-home (DOOH) will be emphasized this year. An emphasis on content is nothing new; we've heard it for years that "Content is King" and that content relevance is an absolute requirement for effective digital signage. So why do I feel that 2011 is unique and not just an echo off the industry walls from years gone by?

First, there is the huge wave happening with mobile and social media. Can you imagine what it must be like to be Mark Zuckerberg? I can’t. Facebook, as with social media in general, is a phenomenon that is reshaping human interaction and defining relevance down to the individual level; when you couple that with the mobility offered by smart phones and tablets (the two big buzzes at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show) you have an incredibly rich communication medium that is with you wherever and whenever you want it. This undoubtedly extends to digital signage, where viewers’ eyeballs, and more importantly, their attention will be gained by content that understands their need state and overall state of mind. Digital signage networks that do not deliver relevance to the viewer will be ignored and not deliver on any viable business model.

Second is the maturing of digital signage technologies. The leading DS software providers are offering sophisticated yet easy-to-use systems that intelligently target content to the right place at the right time, based on who is watching. Sophisticated back-end systems will utilize meta-tagging, location attributes and business rules to automatically distribute content, target its display and generate playlogs and performance analytics. In addition, these providers realize that digital signage is part of a DOOH ecosystem as they create very smart ways to integrate it with mobile and social media applications.

This “targetability,” or narrowcasting as it is often called, brings about a huge demand for everything from original and licensed content to dynamic content driven by RSS or other data feeds (like POS, inventory and loyalty programs) and viewer-generated data such as SMS and interactivity (touchscreens, QR codes, etc.).

So will we see agencies develop content using a traditional creative and production process? I don’t think so. I believe that a new breed of content design and production will emerge that takes into consideration the soaring demand for highly targeted, quickly produced and cost-effective content. Examples of such companies include AccuWeather, CustomWeather, Eventful, Locamoda, Never.no, Saddle Ranch Productions, Screenfeed and others. Please forgive me if I left anyone out, and I welcome your comments below to help create additional awareness.

I have been generally disappointed with the lack of leadership from content design and production companies in this space. With some notable exceptions, this group has been relatively silent and willing to ride along without putting their hands on the wheel. Most of the thought leadership in this area has come from software providers, network owners and consultants.  

Well, 2011 is your year. Get involved. For starters, if you are not a member of the Digital Screenmedia Association, join today. If you are and you are not actively involved, then start having a voice. Also, this spring at the Customer Engagement Technology World (CET World) show in San Francisco there will be a dedicated pavilion for content companies to show their wares. These are low cost mini-booths equipped so you can just show up and plug in your content. There is limited space, so make sure you sign up quickly.