Our very own Vanessa Walmsley features in this month’s A1 Retail magazine. She shares some recent news, talks about her favorite project at the Guess flagship store in London, and gives her perspective on the future of in-store media.
You can read the article online on pages 30-31 of the issue of A1 Retail.
Banks need to improve their in-branch ‘ambiance’ if they are to attract customers in off the High Street, according to a recent study by Mood Media Corporation.
In a nutshell, the study of the financial services industry – carried out in association with YouGov – found only 9% of bank customers like the ‘ambiance’ of their local bank, disliked long queues and didn’t feel it educated them enough on the services and products it offers, which is why 63% prefer to do their banking online rather than in branches.
For banks, the risk behind the migration to online banking is that sales of financial services – everything from savings and loans products to brokerage and insurance services – will fall as customers lose contact with retail banking staff.
In turn, Mood Media pointed out how in-store visuals such as LCD screens can increase product sales, raise general awareness of additional products and services, and reduce perceptions of queue time if they are used in an informative and entertaining way. Not only that, but music and some smart sound engineering in branches can increase the sense of privacy, which is important to establish when customers are sharing personal financial matters with bank staff.
In an article entitled ‘Scents and TV coming to a bank near you,’ banking correspondent for ThisisMoney.co.uk Dan Hyde commented that “a fresh feel could revitalise face-to-face banking, which is dying a slow and protracted death in the UK now that 22m Britons use internet banking.’
The story was also picked up by the popular Financial Services Technology magazine and Business Bank Accounts website, stalwart retail and digital signage websites such as Daily Dooh and Digital Signage Expo, and was spotted in the e-mail newsletter Van Etten’s clippings.
Recognition is gaining that financial services needs a more welcoming, enlivened, and modern approach to retail, especially given its failings and setbacks in the recent past. Whether it is engaging visuals and audio for building societies with a large family-based clientele, classical music for the distinguished interior of private banks or cutting edge, holograms, QR codes and touchscreens aimed at a technologically savvy, young demographic, the opportunities are endless.
Let’s see who will follow in the footsteps of our client ING bank in the Netherlands and be the first to take a pioneering step in the right direction in the UK.
It appears banking customers are in the mood for a change.
Digital signage, digital out of home, out of home advertising, call it what you will, but the market self-defines around hardware, and to a lesser extent software.
We have always felt that the hardware is there to surface content, and it is the content that will ultimately impact retail customer behavior. We aren’t suggesting that hardware, content playback and management, and infrastructure aren’t important, obviously they are. But we question why technology tends to dominate coverage and discussion in the space.
A screen on its own isn’t going to increase dwell time or drive promotions. You can make it thinner, increase the resolution, decrease energy consumption, make it IP-addressable, but it is still a screen waiting for content.
We like to start with the business goal. What do we want to achieve? Then we consider what visual content will lead to us reaching that goal. Then we consider what technology will allow us to optimally place and manage that content.
We don’t manufacture our own displays, which is pretty liberating. It frees us to put in place the technology that best meets our objectives. For one client we might use Christie MicroTiles. For another client NEC, Sharp or Samsung hardware might be appropriate. Our designers aren’t under pressure to push any one piece of hardware because we have a backlog of inventory.
We do have our own proprietary software to manage content, called TeamCo. It allows us to target essentially any device with any type of content, and it allows for zoning, multi-channel broadcasting, and complex scheduling. The kind of power and flexibility the software provides is critical, but once again retail success lies knowing what messages to send to what locations and when to send them. It is all about the content.
Our announcement that we intended to acquire Muzak was big news, and not just inside the in-store media industry. The story broke in the Wall Street Journal, which noted that Mood Media “hopes to use Muzak’s U.S. footprint to introduce more digital services, such as screens that allow customers to check merchandise in stores.”
Under the headline “Markets Shrug Off Geopolitical Events & Rally On Week,” Stock Market Weekly said “Merger and acquisition news including some big names hit the wire this week with news of Muzak, known for its calming music played in elevators, buildings and stores, striking a deal to be bought by Toronto-based Mood Media Corp. for $345.”
The merger was news in Canada, where the National Post noted “set to become the global king of background music after reaching a deal to acquire rival Muzak Holdings LLC.”
“Fort Mill had some good news last week” was how Ronnie Bryant of the Charlotte Regional Partnership greeted the news in the Charlotte Post. “The purchase will give Muzak a broader foundation, and its U.S. headquarters will stay in Fort Mill.”
Within the industry, outlets such as Billboard.biz, the industry news channel for Billboard magazine, covered the announcement, as did Deepak Sharma at the Retail Technology Blog.
