Category: News

The retail environment is in a transient state. Traditional brick and mortar stores are adapting to the emergence of e-commerce and the growing integration of digital seen through the popularity of online shopping. To stay relevant, retail environments need to remain on the front foot. They need to ensure they are offering an in-store experience that lives outside the digital space but also can’t afford to be afraid to push digital boundaries, integrating the digital and physical elements to elevate the customer experience to a whole new level.

There is no sign that the evolution of the online market is slowing down, and there are a multitude of benefits in providing consumer goods through the Internet as people actively seek out the variety and convenience available through online retail (e-tail). However, there is still a place for a physical shopping experience. Understanding the customer journey and delivering a brand experience unique to the physical channel, as well as being inherently aware of the omnichannels, is important for brands as they navigate this new landscape.

In-store technology can be used for;

• Campaign integration,
• Visual merchandising,
• Store aesthetics,
• Branding,
• Wayfinding,
• Store information, and
• Collecting customer data

Digital tools including video walls and digital screens, social media integration, interactive touchpoints as well as virtual and augmented reality are all available to enhance the in-store experience and the emotional reactions associated with the physical purchase.

Video Walls / Digital Screens

Bringing your omnichannel campaigns to life through internal digital screens and video walls allows an engaging brand extension in your physical retail environments. Moods, colors, lifestyles and stories can be told through screens that display different content or combine to deliver large-scale videos and visuals. Take your product off the shelf and deliver images and videos of how customers can interact with your offering to build real desire around its potential place in their lives.

Social Media Integration

Integrate online platforms into your physical space through interactive photo walls, uniquely integrated brand uploads and hashtags. Let your customers be the star of their experience through customized brand filters, personalized messages, product information and the ability to share across social networks.

Interactive Touchpoints

Customers love having information at their fingertips, allowing them to feel empowered in the physical retail environment. Offer your customers wayfinding and product identification, or link products of interest through preference by following similar algorithms to online retail. Have an exclusive brand app or story? Bring it to life through interactive touchscreens and journey mapping by providing customers with digital access directly on your shop floor.

Virtual and Augmented Reality

The future is here with the growth of virtual and augmented reality. Leveraging VR and AR into the retail space allows a range of opportunities for further customer engagement, increased personalization and constantly changing environments, injecting a digital edge into your in-store retail experience. Purchasing a snowboard? Take your customer to the slopes. Looking to paint the walls of your kitchen? Experience the color coming to life in your space. The opportunity for retail brands in this space is truly exciting and will see a whole new world in relation to the customer experience.

Our recent visit to the PWC Chair in the Digital Economy on Retail 5.0 highlighted a shift from customer relationships towards proactive retailing and the future of customer managed relationships where the power within a physical environment lays in the consumer’s hands. The merging of physical and digital presents the ‘phygital’ retail space where the unique elements of environment and digital possibility find harmony.

Top 4 digital retail stores to pin on the Inspo Wall

As featured on Digital Signage Connection.

As part of the Retail Food Group, Pizza Capers is a franchised pizza store with over 70 outlets within Australia. Pizza Capers has continued to evolve since its inception in 1996 as it brings a fresh pizza product to the competitive market, continuing to challenge on taste and customer experience.

With the expansion of digital technologies and the rising value of the customer experience within the QSR industry, Pizza Capers have begun the transition to digital menu boards. After successful trials at three stores, Pizza Capers have selected national digital technology and media solutions company CV Media & Design as the official supplier of digital menu boards.

Sunny Olak, Pizza Capers General Manager, said: “We chose CV Media & Signage for their one stop shop approach to our digital menu board needs. Having a dedicated team to support our business is priceless – nothing is impossible with Wayne Randerson and his team. We are very satisfied with the results and highly recommend the services of CV Media & Signage.”

The technology allows all of the screens to sync together and alternate through traditional menu content, animations and displays of new products and special offers. CV Media & Signage provide Pizza Capers with the complete digital solution including the development of new art works and animation by their in-house design team.

The choice to go digital not only allows Pizza Capers to cut printing costs but will also ensure consistency across franchises. Digital menu boards will be installed as each store becomes due for refurbishment and for all new Pizza Capers stores as the digital screens become a compulsory part of new store layouts.

Featured on Digital Signage Connection.

Digital signage, whether this be in the form of LED, video walls or interactive kiosks, is breathing life, energy and attractiveness into pubs & clubs. Cutting edge technology is transforming ordinary sporting spaces into exciting environments that are elegant and unforgettable.

Placing digital signage throughout a venue is a brilliant method to improve customer engagement, lengthen customers stay times and in turn, increase sales. With the ability to update content instantly through a cloud based content management system, digital signage provides pubs with complete control of the venues displays. With the capability to easily add photos, videos, live websites, hashtags, RSS feeds, news tickers and social media feeds – screen content is unique to the venue, remains relevant and offers something fresh and new.

With an ever-evolving calendar of events and promotions, digital signage not only provides more compelling marketing over traditional static signage, but is a cost-effective solution. Let’s go through a handful of the potential options below.

LED 

LED signs can provide unique opportunities to attract attention and build ambience within a venue. Outdoor LED, whether it be placed on a building or within a pylon sign, has been rapidly increasing in popularity as it engages passing traffic resulting in increased walk-in customers. Indoor LED can add ambiance and functionality to venue entrances by displaying welcome messages, high impact animations, promotions, announcements and directions.

Digital Screens

Placing digital screens around the venue offers entertainment whilst improving branding with stimulating images and videos. The options are limitless with digital screens – whether you choose single screens or combine multiple screens to create a video wall. Each screen can function independently to display different content or can combine to boast that special image, video or promotion on an enormous vivid, vibrant digital screen. Perfect for a club venue, this enables the venue to display multiple live sporting events whilst also promoting upcoming events, specials, raffles and happy hours.

Digital Menu Boards

Unlike tired-looking static boards that crack and fade over time, digital menu boards enhance the customer experience through the combination of products with full-motion video along with the ability to up-sell and promote new items instantly. With menus that usually comprise of breakfast, lunch and dinner, digital menu boards can ensure venues don’t overwhelm customers through the use of day-part scheduling. Update menu items and change promotional content remotely and seamlessly with an easy to use cloud-based content management system.

Interactive Kiosks

Give your customers the ability to engage with your venue by offering a touch-friendly experience with an interactive kiosk. Our kiosks have an ultra slim design enabling them to fit seamlessly within any location and provide a wide range of functions including way finding, web browsing or self-service. Within large venues, wayfinding directories are essential to ensure a positive customer experience. Perhaps you could make the kiosk multi-functional and allow customers to browse through and purchase tickets to upcoming events; or display bus, train and taxi information – the opportunities are endless.

Motivated through enhancing overall experience, the progression into digital for pubs & clubs can be executed well when it remains customer focused. Understanding what drives customers to your venue then enhancing that through digital experiences could be key in ensuring their return business. Access to more sporting events, elevating music experiences or showcasing unique aspects of the club would assist in the overall social atmosphere. Digital platforms would allow for an easier integration and interchange between these customer draw cards. Service elements made more accessible through digital will also enrich customer experience from wayfinding, transport, location information and other promotions.

Going digital can open many new avenues to increase footfall, upsell your food and drink, promote upcoming events, and become the most entertaining venue in town.

As featured on TheShout.com.au

The approach to safety for companies across varying industries is seeing a shift in delivery. Safety professionals are continually seeking to evolve their training and culture as an integral part of their systems and processes. Safety is a number one priority, but often employees feel disengaged from the content and the platforms in which it is being delivered. Although the management of team member safety is a legal obligation, companies also feel a moral responsibility for ensuring that everyone arrives at work and returns home from work every day.

A number of key priorities can be seen emerging in which safety teams are seeking to eliminate paper work and embrace digital media for onsite safety messaging, training and overall integration of safety programs.

Digital Safety Signs

Removing the over saturation of safety signage, digital options present a cost effective and engaging alternative to traditional static signs. With the ability to layer changing content, companies can deliver a number of safety messages whether it be

• Safety alerts
• Important site information
• Safety non-negotiables / Golden rules
• Safe to home messages
• Weather information

Digital offers the opportunity to explore different content mediums and the capability to layer static, animated and video material to deliver more effective messages.

Internal Safety Messaging: Corporate Communications

Incorporating safe work and safe to home messaging into corporate and company communications can be made easy through digital platforms. With varying technologies and content opportunities, companies are embracing technology to maintain ongoing communication channels with their teams as digital messages are viewed as a more integrative part of the surrounding environments in contrast to emails or pushed memos.

Using digital can heighten the awareness of corporate communications and allow for ease of updating and changing messages in accordance with circumstantial and environmental factors.

Safety Procedures and Processes

To eliminate paper work, moving procedures and processes to video platform can allow for a more refreshing approach to mandatory safety communications. Visually representing, through video format, safety non-negotiables such as wearing PPE, pre-start stretching and maintaining hydration, team members are provided an ongoing visual reminder that is more effective than static alternatives.

An increasing trend amongst companies is the link between safety and the safe to home messaging, humanising the realities and importance of staying safe at work. As a human issue – video platform lends itself well to this level of communication as the visual stimulation has a much stronger connection with people’s emotions. Developing well thought video content for safety messages for your company can aid in teaching, improve understanding and elevate accessibility.

Wellbeing Initiatives

Health and wellbeing initiatives are becoming a more common element to the overall safety programs of many companies. Often these programs encompass team members mental and physical health and how that is impacted from work and home stresses. These programs can utilise digital platforms for a number of key benefits including; keeping key health and wellbeing messages front of mind, celebrating team member successes to foster a positive working environment, reminding teams about health and wellbeing activities or events, and integrating different content to break up the constant work focus.

Interactive Mapping

Site based workers are often exposed to changing environments and need to understand scheduling, upcoming works, crossover of trades, permit information and project progress. Utilising touch screen technology, interactive mapping would allow supervisors on site to deliver their pre-start information with visual cues and then have ongoing access to that information throughout the day. Utilising digital site maps would provide supervisors to continually update information and have it on hand for ongoing communications.

CV Media & Signage have had exposure and experience in delivering digital safety signs and have the capability and capacity to cater solutions in accordance with your company’s needs.

As featured on Digital Signage Connections.

Health care facilities can be mystifying and unpredictable. Digital signage within the health care sector is a critical tool to drive the improvement of the patient, visitor and staff experience. Whether it be digital screens to reduce perceived wait time in the waiting room or interactive kiosks to provide navigation around a confusingly large hospital, keeping visitors and patients informed using digital signage significantly improves their overall experience. Below are just five examples of how.

Waiting times

Health care facilities are notorious for making patients or visitors wait, whether this be a matter of minutes or hours. In the book “Psychology of Waiting Lines”, David Maister says “unexplained waits feel longer than explained waits.” Placing digital screens which include queue-management information such as estimated waiting times in waiting areas can help lower anxiety, alleviate frustration and reduce the perceived wait time by as much as 35 percent. With the ability to display multiple forms of content, digital screens are not only informative but also provide a more enjoyable wait. Healthcare facilities can entertain patients and visitors through engaging news, shows, relevant health information or facility updates.

Wayfinding

Navigating as a patient or visitor through a large facility such as a hospital can be confusing, frustrating and stressful. Put simply, wayfinding is the information systems that guide people through a physical environment and enhance their understanding and experience of the space. In a high stress environment, such as a hospital, an interactive wayfinding kiosk can give your patients and visitors an enhanced sense of well-being, safety, and security. Providing a detailed map with physician directories and step-by-step directions will allow your patients and visitors get to their destination faster and more easily.

Promotion

Not only can digital signage improve the patients and visitors experience, but it can provide healthcare facilities with an additional revenue opportunity. Digital screens effectively inform and promote products, services and events to visitors without being seen as pushy. By selling advertising space to third parties healthcare facilities can enhance the sales of services or products.

Safety and directional

Most importantly for the healthcare industry, digital signage can act as an emergency alert system, raising awareness throughout the facility and delivering essential health and safety messages. Through a centrally controlled system, critical messages can be pushed out to all digital screens in the facility improving the ability to respond to any type of situation.

Staff can also be informed about safety procedures and events which could limit the accessibility of certain areas through the display of safety schedules.

Staff communications

Digital screens can be placed throughout staff break rooms for the same reasons as you would put them in waiting rooms – to engage and inform. Replace old static notice boards or whiteboards and instantly update your staff with new work policies, procedure changes, new treatments, safety alerts, training opportunities and other notices through a cloud-based content management system. This cost effective and flexible solution can be implemented across multiple locations, providing a solution to communicate with any number of employees quickly and efficiently. Digital signage can also be paired with technology to enable content to be pushed out directly to staff’s phones.

The health care industry is a natural fit for digital signage due to the constantly changing nature of its facilities and the dynamic nature of the healthcare sector. The ability to centrally update content ensures real-time messaging of critical information allowing any healthcare facility to provide staff, patients and visitors with the most current and accurate information at any time. Much faster, more impactful and eco-friendly than paper-based static signage, digital signage ensures a reliable, streamlined source of communication. From a small general practice, to a large bustling health care facility hospital, digital signage delivers a strong return on investment for any health care facility.

As featured in DigitalSignageToday.

As the first touchpoint with your business, it is essential to eliminate the frustration that often accompanies finding a parking space. Research by Columbia Business School has proven that a relaxed and happy customer is willing to spend more money and more likely to become a repeat customer. Avoid making potential customers irritable through focusing on creating an easier and more convenient parking experience.The growth and universal impact of digital technology is the key to engage with, entertain and monetize customers in the modern world. Not only can digital technology play an essential role in providing the seamless parking experience that customers now expect, it can also create insights to drive the future direction of businesses and the services it provides.

Key to creating these insights is the implementation of a very important sales channel; an online booking system. Not only can businesses request general, vehicle and payment details, but loyalty incentive programs can develop a reliable customer base. Execution of an online booking system will allow for a streamlined customer experience as customers can reduce the hassle of searching for a parking space. Over 65% of Australia’s population shops online for a quick and effortless service, and the parking industry needs to reflect this norm in their offering. How?

1. Better Facility Management

Dynamic digital parking signage allows businesses to run facilities unattended using enhanced graphic displays and instructions to guide customers from entry to exit. A key benefit to this technology is the cloud based content management system allowing businesses to easily modify the content anywhere, anytime. Operators can also collate and analyse data of car park usage and trends, allowing the business to improve engagement with customers, create targeted digital marketing activity, plan capacity and implement dynamic pricing.

2. Reduced Traffic Congestion

Number plate recognition software will eliminate the need for drivers to stop and collect a ticket whilst linking dynamic digital signage solutions with intelligent sensor systems will provide real time space availability. The combination of this technology will optimise the traffic flow and help to ease congestion at the car park entrance and throughout surrounding areas.

3. Increased Security

BPA research shows that after location, security is the main concern when choosing a car park. Intelligent sensor systems and CCTV can be synced with LCD video walls to create a centralised command centre to provide a safe customer service experience. Centralised command centres enable staff to speak to customers, quickly address any security and traffic management issues and raise boom gates.

4. A Better Customer Experience

Digital parking technology provides a unique communication tool to manage crucial brand touch points and enhance the customer experience with customised, engaging content. By improving the ease of entry, payment and exit along with the implementation of a loyalty incentive program, customers will be more inclined to park at the same location more frequently.

Not only will your business improve your customers parking experience through the implementation of digital technology, the advertising capability of dynamic digital signage provides the opportunity for increased revenue by engaging with nearby businesses or through the promotion of car parks specials, car wash and valet options. Incorporating dynamic pricing is also a powerful way to instantly increase revenues and the bottom line.

As featured on Parking Australia.

Digital signage is a powerful communication tool; its ability to attract, engage and retain audiences of all types is incomparable. It creates endless opportunities to deliver personalized, effective marketing strategies and increase your customer engagement. It’s main feature? The content.

The aim of digital signage is to enhance your customer’s experience and without spending time on getting the content right this isn’t going to happen.

Firstly your digital signage content needs to suit your objectives, branding, target audience and the surrounding environment.

Plus you need to make sure that your content works in the digital screen format. You’ve chosen your hardware. You’ve picked your media player. It’s all been installed and you’re ready to go. But hold up, the content is warped, stretched, or perhaps it’s skewed all over the sign. How do you make sure that this does not happen to you?

To make sure you get the most out of your digital signage the starting point is great design – and specifically content that is designed for the digital format. A key advantage of digital signage is its ability to branch out from static images. Including a combination of images, animations and films allows you to entice, entertain and retain the interest of your audience.

Holly who heads up our Design & Animation team, has compiled her Top 5 design tips for creating effective digital content;

• COLOUR: Keep colours harmonious and minimal. The correct use of colour is vital to establish a clear understanding of the message and effective design.
• TYPOGRAPHY: Choose legible fonts to compliment the communication style. Ensure the number of font styles are kept to a minimum as an over-indulgence will confuse and spoil the design.
• LAYOUT: The arrangement of content needs to be considered carefully to guide viewers logically through the design. Alignment, placement, size and space are all factors to be mindful of when creating any layout of content.
• SPACE: Determine the size of the area you have to work with to help establish the amount of content you can use. Excessive information and images crammed into a space will make the design incoherent and unprofessional. Negative space is necessary to convey a clear message and appeal to the eye.
• KEEP IT SIMPLE: Unnecessary design elements can clutter content and spoil the design. Keep these to a minimum and ensure they compliment your message and design rather than over-power it.

Our greatest tip though? Get in touch with the CV Media & Signage team.

Walking into a quick-service restaurant these days often means seeing a row of digital displays behind the counter, as LCD screens rapidly replace static back-lit posters.

With an estimated 50 to 70 percent of QSR sales occurring in the drive-thru, taking digital menu boards outdoors is the next logical evolution for the industry. A report by Futuresource Consulting in 2014 suggested that only 1 percent of the potential market for outdoor displays had so far been tapped.

As a reminder of why the drive-thru is important, much of Australia’s eastern seaboard recently copped an unseasonal lashing from the weather gods. As the rain pelted down, the number of drive-thru QSR customers surged as they avoided the drenching that comes from the 100-meter parking lot dash.

Making it easy

The drive-thru customer experience is all about speed and convenience. Having the right menu and message at the right time is important. In the past, business owners had two choices: Display all menu items — breakfast, lunch and dinner — on the one menu board all day long, or use two-sided menu boards that could be flipped during the day. Talk about overwhelming the customer.

The National Restaurant Association’s 2015 Industry Forecast showed 41 percent of the critical 18- to 34-year-old target demographic says technology is an important factor when they choose a restaurant, and the next age bracket — 35 to 44 years — wasn’t far behind at 39 percent. The NRA’s research found that technology improves speed and convenience for consumers. Are drive-thrus and technology the perfect combo meal then?

Let’s go through a handful of the top reasons outdoor digital displays go hand in hand with drive-thrus.

• Enhance customer experience through content
  Digital menus can be adjusted and scheduled to change according to the time of day. For example, a breakfast menu can be scheduled to only appear between 5 a.m. and 11 a.m., being replaced by the all-day promotion for the remainder of the day. It can also offer greater flexibility for promotions and help unclutter visually busy menu boards, which can accelerate order-taking and improve order accuracy.

• Less printing. More marketing.
  A simple price change or menu switch-out for static menu boards would take businesses weeks due to the graphic design time, approvals, printing and shipping. Going digital allows updates to be made in a matter of minutes, including being able to be responsive to the market conditions. Digital also allows for centralized control, with no need for the head office to rely on franchises to changeover static signage.

• Increase sales
  Digital signs can respond to orders as they are placed, so upselling can be an automatic, simple process. The screen can display complimentary items as the order begins to be inputted into the point-of-sale system. A high-resolution screen also allows businesses to tempt customers with eye-catching images of the menu.

Is digital up to the challenge?

But how will outdoor digital displays withstand the vagaries of unpredictable weather, I hear you ask? Rain, snow, heat and cold have for a long time made leaving digital screens out in the elements (i.e.., a drive-thru lane) a costly, complicated and unpredictable proposition. However, the barriers that limited how digital screens could be used outdoors and in direct sunlight have been tackled, making it possible to place high-impact, dynamic messaging in front of customers in nearly any situation.

Outdoor digital displays are now been designed to work flawlessly, for years, despite extreme high and low temperatures, heat from full days of direct sunlight, rain, frost, dirt, dust and fumes, to unpredictable things like power spikes and vandalism. Most notable is the Samsung OH series, which has all the engineering and design needed for ultra-bright, high-reliability, high-durability displays.

The digital edge

QSRs that embrace the opportunity to engage their customers through digital will not only outperform their competitors but will also differentiate themselves from other operators who have not changed the way they do drive-thru business for decades. By combining the influential capabilities of digital menu technology with outdoor digital displays, QSRs can drive sales increases, improve the speed of service and create happier, and hence, more loyal customers.

Is now the right time for you to install outdoor digital displays?

 

Featured on DigitalSignageToday.

Digital technology is driving rapid change in the car-parking industry — electric cars, driverless cars, car sharing, app-based searching, booking, digital payment systems — the list could go on. The two key areas where digital technology is changing the car-parking industry landscape are the use of Big Data and the use of digital screens to enhance the customer experience.

Big Data

The development of Big Data has provoked great expectations for those who manage parking facilities. In plain terms, Big Data collates data from different sources to reveal patterns and trends associated with human behavior. This data can then be used to help create personalized and engaging digital signage customer experiences. The car-parking industry is data-rich, comprising integral data points, such as payment transactions, occupancy data, sensor data, length-of-stay data and more.

Making use of Big Data and analytics can help parking managers to optimize pricing and parking availability based on factors such as the weather, special events or flight schedules for airport parking. Potential takeaways from data could be to create a dynamic pricing strategy — similar to Uber — based on demand and even offer promotions to attract customers.

Digital screens

The parking facility is often the first touch point for the customer journey but can frequently be overlooked in terms of the overall customer experience. The use of digital signage within parking facilities can not only inform customers of parking-related information, but also display safety and journey information as well as providing timely and targeted promotional messages from nearby retailers or businesses.

Integrated approach

Let’s go through a few ways parking companies can use digital technology to improve the customer experience;

• Book online — An online reservation system allows for a more streamlined customer experience as visitors can pre-book a parking space to reduce the hassle of driving and searching. Companies can collect data through this system by requesting general, vehicle and payment details.
• License-plate recognition — If the customer has registered and pre-booked a space online, the car can be recognized via license-plate recognition, allowing quick entry. If payment details have been registered, the parking costs can be calculated and charged to the customer’s account on exit. This is much easier than having to remember to pay before making their way back to the car.
• Digital parking signs — Located at the entry of parking facilities, digital parking signs can integrate with license-plate recognition software. Once data has been gathered about a customer, the digital sign can display customized and tailored content. This content can include welcome messages, pricing information, available parking spots, car wash and valet specials, and promotional messages from nearby retailers or businesses.
  To help manage supply and demand, parking operators can also quickly and easily adjust parking prices. With a traditional, static parking sign, a price change would entail a minimum two-week turnaround time with approvals, printing and shipping. Digital parking signs allow parking managers to alter pricing within minutes due to cloud-based content management systems.
• Digital video walls — Digital video walls can be based anywhere and everywhere within a park facility. Similar to digital parking signs, these can be linked to license-plate recognition software, allowing video walls to be used for directions — if the customer has an allocated parking spot — or relevant promotional messages.

The Brisbane Airport Corporation in Brisbane, Australia is a great example of innovative parking facility management. The company began their digital disruption with an installation of a video wall above the parking pay machines. Accessible through a cloud-based content management system, BAC can instantly update or schedule content, ensuring no promotional opportunity is overlooked. Digital parking signs have also been installed at the entry and exit of the state-of-the-art AIRPARK allowing the ability to dynamically manage pricing changes and promote parking specials.

Digital technology is a critical enabler in creating the seamless end-to-end experience that customers now expect. Enhancing the parking experience with the clever use of digital technology will help parking operators attract new customers, grow market share and increase revenue. Most importantly, though, digital integration into the delivery of parking services will help generate data and customer insights, allowing parking operators to proactively manage and improve the customer experience.

Featured on DigitalSignageToday.