Vital Signs – Digital Signage News and Views from the Experts

If you’re one of the booming number of retailers, dealers and service facilities who have caught on to the value of in-store TV, chances are you’re using it exclusively in one of two ways: to entertain your customers (maybe you have the channel tuned to the big game or the news, or you’re showing a sports video), or to advertise your brands, services and special promotions. (And if you’re not already embracing digital in-store technology, keep reading for why you should be.)

The Case for Advertising:

Marketers and digital signage experts will tell you that using in-store TV solely for entertainment is a lost opportunity to reach your customers at a key point in the decision-making cycle: when they’re physically in your store and primed for purchase.

To an extent, they’re right. The purpose of digital signage is first and foremost to sell. A recent digital signage study conducted by InfoTrends found that digital in-store advertising has 47.7% effectiveness on brand awareness, increases the average purchase amount by 29.5%, creates a 31.8% upswing in overall sales volumes, generates a 32.8% growth in repeat buyers and generates 32.8% more in-store traffic. It’s hard to argue with those numbers.

The Case for Entertainment:

But in many cases, the view that digital signage is for direct selling and direct selling alone is short-sighted. What many retailers, dealers and service facilities already know is that there is indeed value, both short- and long-term, to entertaining customers by showing the broadcast content they want to see, not just what we, as sellers, want them to see.

Keeping clientele happy and occupied with the big game or breaking news while they wait or shop benefits your bottom line in ways that are more subtle than overt advertising, but arguably just as valuable. It makes customers’ wait time pass more quickly and their overall shopping experience more enjoyable. It turns your store into a place where people feel comfortable and like to be. And happy customers come back, spend more, and recommend you to their friends.

It’s About Time: The Best of Both Worlds

It’s true that both entertainment and advertising are valuable uses for in-store TVs and digital displays. But historically, these two use cases have been mutually exclusive by necessity. Limitations in technology meant you had to pick one over the other; either televise the race so your customers don’t have to miss a minute while spending time in your store, or promote your wares with non-stop looping marketing messages.

That’s why our engineers developed dB TV™—to provide dealers and retailers with a way to capitalize on the best of both worlds. dB TV displays a retailer, dealer or brand’s customized product and service messages alongside live TV programming of the retailer’s choice, so you can televise the game while still reaching your customers with unobtrusive yet effective marketing messages.

It’s an ideal solution for use in waiting and retail areas for automotive, motorcycle, power sports and outdoor power equipment dealers and aftermarket providers.

Learn more about dB TV and watch a video of how it works here: www.whiletheywait.com/m/dbtv

By Ben Stagg, Director of Research & Development, Vital Media, Inc.

As a connected society, we are constantly barraged with information. E-mails, texts, calls, pop-ups, advertisements and conversations all vie for our limited attention most of the day. Our brains have a limited capacity for the consumption of information flooding in from our senses. Our brains are adapting to filter out the irrelevant. Ray Carlin, vice president, Retail Solutions Global Business Unit, HP, asserts that “to remain competitive and profitable in today’s connected society, retailers must be able to engage with consumers at all points of service throughout the shopping experience with real-time, personalized information.” The bar has been raised for what shoppers are willing to let pass through the filter and the only way to remain top of mind at POP is to maximize the relevance of our messaging.

Relevant and timely content creates engagement

We must first pass the relevance test in order to reach the next gate of the in-store relationship: engagement. Technology allows brands and retailers to personalize messaging using shopper insights for better targeted communication, focusing on shopper-specific criteria such as demographic intelligence. This intelligence is driven by time of day or environmental conditions including daily weather or seasonal sales windows. The ability to market products or features such as tire chains in a snowstorm or windshield wiper blades during a rainstorm is not just conceptually possible, but a reality based on current technology.

One of the major benefits of dynamic digital messaging is that it is able to receive various sources of information and tailor appropriate content, embodying hyper-relevance. It is then able to go a step further and truly demonstrate feature and benefit claims using images, animation and full-motion video. Because we are still in the central, primitive area of the brain in our attempt to prove relevance, anything we can do to inspire trust is valuable.

In a June 2010 Internet Retailer survey, nearly 64% of respondents reported watching a user-generated video review, and more than 75% of that group said it helped them make a purchase decision — either for or against a product or brand. The integration of dynamic messaging with other third-party applications such as Facebook, Twitter or YouTube promotes relationship building by allowing (moderated) locally-generated content. When technology is enabled with two-way communication it can multiply the relevance on screen by merging video demonstration and user reviews, offering the shopper a powerful marketing message with a near-zero production cost.

Relevance is more than just a way station on the road to influence — it allows for engagement. Engagement is sustained when shoppers feel “heard”, and relevance must be sustained in order to maintain engagement and enable influence. The longer and deeper the relevance, the longer and deeper the engagement can be held.

Digital in-store technology allows shoppers to personalize messaging and offers a closer version of a one-to-one conversation. Utilizing current technology such as day-parting and camera-based real-time audience measurement, brands and retailers are capable of delivering extremely targeted, demographically-relevant content to shoppers nearly automatically. An example could be personally-targeted messaging conveyed by an interactive kiosk application which ties to a login, loyalty program, e-mail address, phone number or even just your face!

About the author:

Ben Stagg, Director Research & Development, Vital Media Inc. (www.vitalmedia.com)

A Digital Signage Certified Expert, Ben Stagg is responsible for the technology solutions and deployment infrastructure that keep Vital Media digital signage solutions ahead of the curve. With a history of fierce curiosity coupled with a keen intellect, at 14 Ben was the youngest freshmen ever at Mount Vernon Nazarene University. At 18, Ben joined the Air Force where he continued to immerse himself in challenging technology, ranging from the nuclear Cruise missile program to top-secret classified projects. After leaving the Air Force, Ben focused on network design before starting his own digital signage company in 2004. Selling the company in 2007 Ben joined the Vital Media team, where he continues to work his magic, ensuring that the industry can look to Ben and Vital Media for the latest in platforms, applications, and media that will keep digital signage technology an essential element of today’s and tomorrow’s retail POS environment.

By Ben Stagg, Director of Research & Development, Vital Media, Inc.

When it comes to fostering engagement at the point of decision, conventional and digital point of purchase (POP) have some obvious similarities and differences. Similar to conventional POP marketing material, content is delivered to the shopper at the crucial moment where interest, means and opportunity come together. Unlike conventional POP, digital in-store POP has the ability to do more. This is important as the digital universe becomes more mainstream and shoppers’ perceived benchmarks for how and what information they choose to digest escalates and they begin to expect more from marketing communications.

By delivering multiple messages per shopper and full-motion video support of the advertising message, digital in-store is better able to capture and retain viewers. One of the more compelling reasons to use digital in an informative capacity is the ability for full-motion video to reduce the mental effort required to learn complex mechanical concepts. Too much information, no matter what its value, can become cumbersome, overly technical and written essentially from one PhD to another. Educating a shopper on the topic can be a hurdle most efficiently overcome with the use of animation and video.

The marriage of technology and shopper adoption of technology has provided an avenue to educate and inform shoppers like never before. True interactive applications such as kiosks and touch-enabled devices allow the shopper to select the most relevant information and continue the engagement by giving shoppers control. No longer do they feel like they are being pitched, but instead informed and educated on their terms during their shopping experience.

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As the path to purchase continues to evolve, information and informational transactions are the catalyst to purchase. Shoppers are better informed than ever, thanks in large part to well-executed multi-channel marketing strategies. Despite the near constant state of flux surrounding the “mediums” through which brand messaging is delivered, the end goal remains the same: Demonstrating to the customer why Option A is a better purchasing choice than Option B.

While the significant components of the path to purchase remain the same, the stops along the way are evolving, with significant and growing influence from digital mediums:

• 65% of consumers report a digital brand experience has changed their opinion of the brand. 97% report a digital experience influenced their purchasing decision. (Razorfish Digital Brand Experience Study, 2009)

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Bridging the Communication Gap in the Digital Age

Digital in-store mediums, such as digital signage and kiosks, are changing the way brands and retailers are able to communicate with shoppers. Digital signage utilizes technology to provide captivating and informative marketing messaging to shoppers. Digital in-store applications are enhancing the relevance of marketing messaging, fostering engagement with shoppers and strengthening the influence of marketing initiatives utilizing two-way communication.

So given what digital in-store can do, what does that mean it can be? It can be an advocate, it can be a point of reference, it can be a trusted advisor and it can be an educational tool. Essentially it can be a full-time virtual salesperson. A stark reality of our current financial environment is that everyone, brands and retailers included, are trying to do more with less. A well-executed digital in-store program can bridge the gap in brand stewardship in the retail environment because it doesn’t take breaks, doesn’t get sick, has the most current product information, and doesn’t get spiffed by other manufacturers.

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As we look ahead to 2012 and as multi-channel paths to purchase grow in popularity and use, we consider how technology, specifically digital in-store technology, is working to bridge the communication gap.

Digital in-store programs attract shopper attention and continually get better at combining the divergent channels of the path to purchase to initiate relevant, engaging and influential communication with shoppers at the point of purchase (POP).

So how does digital in-store do this? Technology makes it possible. According to Alan Brawn, principal, Brawn Consulting, “When application, technology and price converge, an opportunity is created.” Today computing and playback devices are smarter, faster, cheaper, greener and better built than ever. As confidence grows and risk shrinks regarding the viability of the digital in-store concept, adoption will naturally increase and give us even more component options in the future. And that’s just hardware.

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The holiday season is quickly approaching — which means seasonal retail and brand messaging is already here. Digital signage is the perfect venue for these hyper-relevant, constantly updated messages. So, how do you pass the relevance test?

Technology now allows brands and retailers to personalize messaging using shopper insights for better targeted communication. Brands and retailers can then focus on shopper-specific criteria such as demographic intelligence driven by time of day or environmental conditions, including daily weather or seasonal sales windows. The ability to market products or features such as tire chains during a snowstorm or windshield wiper blades during a rainstorm is not just conceptually possible, but a reality based on current technology.

Read More »

Vital Media is moving! On Monday, September 26, 2011, we’ll officially be in our new office space in Uptown Charlotte’s historic Cotton Mills building. We’ve been growing our business and our company and the results are exciting.

Our future location in Uptown Charlotte at 508 W. 5^th Street’s Cotton Mills building will provide a central location for us and our growing employee base. Charlotte’s Cotton Mills building is said to be one of the most historically significant of the city’s industrial past. The building, Charlotte’s first cotton mill built in 1880, represents the innovation that Vital Media stands for today.

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We’re all aware of the digital revolution — most of us are a part of it. We also all know that the Internet has hugely changed the path to purchase. Unlimited information at consumers’ fingertips has shifted how considered purchase goods are researched. Add smart phones into the equation and the shift increases. Consumers are more empowered than ever and traditional point-of-purchase displays (POP) do not have the power they once had.

When it comes to POP, why is digital the new path to purchase? There are so many reasons, some consumer based and some retailer or brand based. Here are the top five reasons we’re convinced that digital point of purchase (dPOP) is the new path to purchase.

1. It’s effective.
Digital signage is an effective, uncluttered, technologically up-to-date way to convey brand messaging. From web to smart phone to the point-of-sale, maintaining a dynamic digital presence is the future of brand advertising, and digital signage provides a vital link in the digital message chain.

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By Wil Putt, president of Vital Media

I’ll start with an admission, a disclosure so to speak. I am in the digital signage business. In fact, my company has been associated with the deployment of around 1,000 digital signage solutions into independent retailers all across America. So I do know a fair bit about the industry, and all the claims we make about how digital signage is overtaking print-based POP, etc. But recently, while going out to buy a replacement battery for my wife’s car, I experienced the power of digital signage again.

Entering the store (a typical auto parts and aftermarket chain outlet) on a busy Saturday morning, it was clear I was going to have to wait before being served. Wandering back to the battery department, I couldn’t help but notice the 46” Samsung monitor placed right over where I would be searching for the right replacement battery. With almost comically serendipitous (spooky) timing, the monitor displayed “Looking for a replacement battery? Try our new battery selection kiosk” with a large, animated arrow pointing down. My eyes followed the arrow down and there it was, a sleek kiosk labeled BATTERY FINDER. I shortly discovered the intuitive interface and in seconds had located the exact battery for my wife’s vehicle and placed it in the cart.

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