Digital signage and large screens in shopping centres

Steve Montgomery investigates the use of large format public displays and digital signage applications in shopping centres.

One of the downsides of the boom in online shopping is that high streets and shopping centres are losing trade to internet businesses as consumers shop for each and every commodity; whether electrical goods, fashion items or groceries from the comfort of their armchair. Customers do not need to travel to the shops and trade, and consequently revenues, of shop owners is falling.

However these alternatives are not necessarily regarded as an ‘either-or’, as Jane Hollinshead, partner at law firm Addleshaw Goddard said: “The recession and move to online shopping clearly meant both retailers and shopping centre landlords were forced to change their approach. But companies need their customers to interact in a hands-on fashion with their brands. New technology takes this to a whole new level and what we’re seeing is a genuine blurring of online and offline shopping.”

An approach used by shopping centres is in making their complexes more ‘experiental’. The large malls of today are owned by landlords who rent out the retail spaces to individual chains and stores. In conjunction with lease-holders they are deploying all the digital tools that are on offer to attract, entertain and engage the customer; attracting them back to the retail location and turning it into a venue for a day out, rather than simply a shopping destination. They do this by creating a ‘multifunction mix’: integrating entertainment, restaurants and leisure facilities with stores to encourage shoppers to spend a full day there.

Chief amongst the tools deployed is digital signage displayed on large public displays. Placed in areas of high footfall and visibility they are often the first stage of interaction experienced by visitors, their role is one of primary communication: establishing first contact between the shopping centre and visitor and then maintaining that contact throughout their passage through the centre. This requires an integrated strategy across the multitude of screens of varying shapes, sizes and positions throughout the site; each capable of delivering messages that are appropriate, not just to the local vicinity, but to the overall offering of the centre as well as the time-of-day.

Westfield Statford City, one of the largest centres in the UK, is adorned with over 350 digital signage screens installed by Esprit Digital. Included are twelve double-sided wafers, four inside and six out, four wall mounted 55in digital posters, ten 12 screen bulkhead video walls above each of the main concourses, a 5×5 screen array in the Vue Cinema foyer and two, 27 screen walls, one above the other outside Marks & Spencer. Its crowning glory is the centrepiece, 5 tonne, 102-screen double sided video wall outside the John Lewis store: the largest LCD video wall in Europe.

The integrated digital signage network is used to display in-house interactive marketing messages and centre and store information, as well as information about events, exhibitions, dining and store and centre offers. “The on-going inclusion of digital signage is now seen as a fundamental component of shopping centre operations,” says Westfield Marketing General Manager Myf Ryan, “and is vital in enhancing the shopper’s customer experience by educating them on product offerings, brand awareness and reinforcing a positive shopping experience at the mall.”

Content is crucial to the success of the communication. It must be relevant and timely, which, at its most basic level simply means running content that relates to brands or amenities on the site and that is scheduled to meet the demographic of the audience and their likely interests at that moment: techniques that are well understood and simple to deploy with digital signage. Opening the systems up to local viewer input and the use of data analytic processing linked to a variety of sensors and external triggers arms them with a far greater level of ability to communicate with the audience.

Visitors and advertisers can influence the content of a display directly using social media tools, such as Twitter and Facebook, leaving personal messages on the screens or updating them with highlights from external events: images from live fashion shows for example. Both techniques add to the immediacy and personalisation of the displays, making them more attractive and relevant to shoppers.

Another technique that has evolved recently is in the use of audience recognition, using facial detection tools, such as NEC’s FieldAnalyst, to analyse the audience using a video cameras. “Facial detection was used in malls last Christmas to identify the gender and ages of shoppers,” explains Richard Malton, marketing director of Ocean Outdoor. “There were a lot more men on Christmas Eve than other days but a marked absence at lunchtime when they were in the bars, which recovered mid-afternoon as panic buying of last-minute Christmas shopping began. Content for the large display was then selected to help them choose presents was automatically triggered on head counts when they were in the mall.”

Digital signage plays a key role in delivering the dynamic experience crucial to enticing visitors to shopping centres. Its role is evolving and will in future expand even further as it becomes even more integrated with digital technology throughout the centre, including interactive wayfinding, product browsing, virtual changing rooms, customer identification and personalised voucher delivery. The goal is, as Peter Millar, chief operating officer for Westfield UK and Europe points out: “To use digital technology to provide a seamless shopping experience from web to mall which are focussed on core shopper needs.”

Useful links
NEC Displays – Retail and Signage Solutions
Retail’s Digital Future report, by Addleshaw Goddard

Published on: 14/10/2014