HSBC France rolls out digital signage

I had heard some rumors about more regional bank branch signage activity by HSBC, and Teller TV seems to confirm it's true, at least in France. According to their post,

"HSBC, and its subsidiary Societe Marseillaise de Credit, have
embarked on a networked digital signage rollout to their 160+ offices
across France. HSBC's premier banking offices in Paris will be the
first to receive the networked solution, and the remainder of the
network will receive treatment as branches are built and/or renovated.

"SMC
has long maintained an in-branch TV network, distributing bank
advertising content via dvd's to screens located behind the teller
counter. According to an SMC marketing manager, the decision to move
forward with a networked solution was made based on the continued
reduction in technology costs, the need to simplify distribution, and
the desire to feature more time-sensitive information such as branch
events."

It's encouraging to know that they've decided it's worthwhile to upgrade an existing DVD-based network, since it implies they understand the incremental value to using a networked and centrally-managed solution. I'm looking forward to learning about the types of time- and location-specific messages they plan to send out, since there has been a lot of interest in the financial sector lately, yet nobody seems to have a clear idea of how to most effectively use in-branch digital signage for marketing and merchandising.

Tags: digital signage, bank marketing, retail marketing

Ikea wins award for in-store signage

Ok, it's not digital signage news, but it is signage news in general, and the fundamentals are the same. As this article from the Boston Herald (brought to my attention by this post at AdverLab) notes, Ikea won the highest award from the Massachusetts Association of Retailers thanks to their innovative and creative use of signage to communicate with customers:

Swedish retailer Ikea, which has a Massachusetts store in Stoughton, manages to keep the shopping experience surprisingly intimate for a store that measures 346,000 square feet.

Much of that intimacy is created through Ikea’s omnipresent signage, which starts outside in the parking garage and continues throughout the store, from the entrance to the checkout lines....

“They’re eons ahead of any other retailers in communicating with their customers via interior signage,” said Rick Segel, a retail sales consultant, association member and judge, and author of “Retail Business Kit for Dummies.” “They’re communicating in a way that’s not just a hard sell. It represents an educational point of view and an entertaining point of view.”

The retailers association’s award to Ikea marks the first time that its advertising and promotion honor was given for interior signage, according to Segel.

“It’s a different approach, and something many other retailers can learn from,” he said.

My list of "many other retailers" starts with Home Depot and Wal-Mart, where I have a hard to very hard time finding what I'm looking for a good two thirds of the time. Ikea, on the other hand, is generally quite easy to navigate, though I still have a hard time pronouncing the names of most of their products (though it's fun trying :)

Tags: Ikea, signage, retail marketing

More digital signs are using sound, says Pro AV Magazine

Pro AV Magazine, as its name implies, tends to focus on the nuts-and-bolts aspects of all sorts of high-tech projects, and digital signage has been no exception. In a recent article, John McKeon took a look at the use of audio in digital signage projects, primarily from the angle of the common problems that arise from many audio installations, and the solutions that people have come up with to solve them. For example, audio fatigue, one of the most commonly cited problems with in-store audio, can obviously be remedied with very long audio loops that don't repeat. But for the technically minded, one could also install highly directional sound via hypersonic speakers or sound bells, which can allow audio to be delivered to specific locations without constantly annoying the staff.

As one might expect, much of the article features insights on speaker types and placements, and comments from various industry experts about different ways to solve the audio conundrum. Mixed into it, though, was this quote from Kari Mettala, CEO of the Finnish loudspeaker company Panphonics:

"Right now we are on the verge of a boom concerning audio in digital signage networks.

"The driving force is content. Content is king. It’s expensive to produce, and advertisers would like to use the same content as they use in other electronic media.”

One result, says Mettala, is a call for "all aspects of the content to be on the same level, meaning you need to have a TV-like experience in the grocery store, including the sound."

While I agree that content is the most important element of a digital signage network, that's very different from saying that merely reproducing an existing medium like TV in the retail environment is going to produce good results. In fact, if there's anything that we know at this point, it's that using TV-oriented content at retail for the purpose of advertising is not going to work very well. Re-use branding elements. Re-purpose existing messages and premises. But don't pull a spot from your TV lineup, run it in a store, and expect it to do anything. A shopper's modus operandi at retail is very, very different than at home, so expecting her awareness state and media consumption habits to be the same in both places is a major mistake.

I'm sure that Mettala was simply trying to drive home the point that a multi-media experience utilizing both sight and sound can have a pronounced effect on the impact of a digital signage system, the "re-use old assets" mantra is still common in our industry, and needs to be approached with an understanding of the differences between in-home and out-of-home advertising media.

Tags: digital signage, out-of-home advertising, retail marketing

When does TV become digital signage?

On Friday, Advertising Age ran an article about the Taxi Entertainment Network, the latest new-media experiment from Clear Channel Outdoor. This network debuts in New York City under the name NY10, and will appear on screens inside more than 5,000 taxi cabs. NY10 will feature local and international news, weather, sports and entertainment content from WNBC, NBC News and NBC Entertainment, and has a projected reach of over 14,000,000 consumers a year. With all of this network-supplied content comes advertisements, which can be day-parted and geographically targeted. While Clear Channel is billing the NY10 as a new advertising medium (and selling the spots accordingly), the content will be decidedly more TV-like than what you'd typically see in an out-of-home advertising project. This raises an interesting question: at what point does a content network really become an advertising (or digital signage) network?

To be fair, that's something of a loaded question, since television has been a commercial affair for quite some time. While early attempts to use broadcast technology for educational purposes largely failed, commercially-sponsored news and entertainment was quick to become TV's killer app. So in some ways, TV has been both content network and advertising network since the very beginning. For out-of-home advertising networks like digital signage systems in retail chains, the primary intent has typically been more obvious: advertise products sold in the store. But even in the digital signage world, networks use different types of content and different ratios of ads to news and entertainment depending on the environment and the target audience.

Read the rest of the article at: When does TV become digital signage?

Tags: digital signage, out-of-home advertising, retail media, in-store media, advertising, retail marketing