A good retailer has a story to tell, which is conveyed through the store's design, displays, signage and merchandise. Now technology is enriching that messaging by adding multimedia presentation to the mix. Dynamic video displays, including plasma screens, customer display terminals, kiosks, fuel pump displays and electronic signage, can be coordinated with printed signage, receipt messages and direct marketing through a single data engine to help retailers generate interest and convey information about their products and brand. Messages can even be customized by location or consumer. The result is increased sales and heightened customer loyalty to a store they can get excited about visiting.
Wal-Mart Television Network, for example, provides content to TVs in 2,620 of the retail chain's stores nationwide, delivering 44,857 gross impressions per store during a four-week period between April and May 2004, according to Nielsen Media Research data released by Premier Retail Networks. The in-store network broadcasts product information and advertising that reaches consumers while they shop. It has impressive results. The Nielson studies report average brand recall of 65 percent among the commercial audience.
Retailers are just beginning to embark on the path toward centrally controlled customer communication systems that enable them to electronically deliver product information and promotional messages to their customers. Thanks to the proliferation of multimedia devices, prices for devices and bandwidth are coming down and consumer acceptance is growing, enabling retailers to experiment with in-store multi-media marketing - what some call 'glass-based publishing.' That means content can be delivered thoughtfully to in-store devices -- screens, printers, and so on -- customized according to the area, the store, the department it's in, or, by tapping customer databases, even as the customer is viewing it.
L.L.Bean Promotes Outdoor Lifestyle
Generating awareness and excitement was on the minds of executives at L.L.Bean when they deployed multimedia displays themed to educational offerings.
"We're promoting the L.L.Bean outdoor lifestyle and the L.L.Bean Outdoor Discovery School's courses, trips and schools," says John Connelly, manager of Outdoor Discovery Schools. "We're committed to doing this from a branding perspective."
Special viewing areas in five stores involve a 42-inch Samsung plasma TV linked to a Real Digital Media Neocast Player, as well as a Web-access device, a telephone linked to a call center and printed material about the school. These enable viewers to immediately ask questions or enroll. L.L.Bean marketing pros create content, primarily vignettes of outdoor sports and activities, at a studio in Portland, Maine. The content is delivered by Real Digital Media from its facility in Orlando via L.L. Bean's intranet.
Response has been "very favorable. People are stopping, it's getting their attention and pulling them in," Connelly notes. Sales impact is hard to quantify, he says, but the test has resulted in increased awareness of the school, and the displays will likely be expanded to additional stores.
Lube TV
The ability to tailor and remix content for the local audience is one of the advantages of today's digital content management systems. That was among the capabilities sought by Petro Lube for its travel plaza-based lube shops. "We wanted to educate drivers about our products and services, enhance employee testing and do video conferencing," says Jon Salter, manager of administration for Petro Lube. Previously these were handled through printed materials and conference calls. "Our goal was to inform customers, and we've started to increase staff knowledge as well."
Waiting areas in five Petro:Lubes were outfitted with 23-inch or 30-inch Dell LCDs for a two-month pilot, supported by Dell PowerEdge Servers in managers� offices. Initial content produced by Petro Lube offered a mix of information and advertising, and was a fast success: "In our first installation in Las Vegas, we put the video on and five minutes later we had our first sale from a customer," says Salter. The success of the pilot led to implementation in 31 more corporate locations beginning in January 2005.
Content is streamed over T1 lines from corporate headquarters, and can be dynamically tailored for each region, such as manager specials at individual stores. Petro Lube uses Reflect Systems, ReflectView software, which will also be used to deliver employee communications and training. Launching a multimedia network at Petro Lube involved a learning curve. "For us the biggest concern was the bandwidth on the network, if there is too much content too fast it could bring down the network, so we researched that thoroughly," Salter says.
Today, Petro Lube content is interspersed with paid advertising from vendors, helping to fund the system. ROI was also fueled by reducing use of training DVDs and brochure printing. "All the information we put in the video is done in a shorter timeframe and with more impact than print," says Salter.
The Holy Grail for retailers is a cohesive multimedia communications program that can render appropriate messaging to any device from a single source, offering consistency and coordination in content while customizing it to the viewer at hand. Retail innovators, particularly in the top tier, are feeling their way along the pathway to this future vision of retailing, learning from today�s deployments to shape tomorrow�s. Market observers expect many pilots in 2005, leading to large deployments in 2006.
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