Some months ago, I wrote about an informal survey of dealerships in North York, Ont. and how many were just not geared up to greet and engage the digital customer’s attention. Recently, I did some more mystery shopping at retail malls and at a number of car dealerships. I was looking specifically at how digital signage or communication is deployed in different retail environments and what impact it had on the way I felt as a prospective customer.
The biggest contrast I felt between auto retailers and those of other goods and services was the lack of colour, emotion and energy in the former, especially when it came to the showroom.
In new dealership designs, have we focused so much on austerity, functionality and technology to the detriment of emotion? It was almost like watching a movie in black and white and then one in colour.
COLOUR EQUALS VIBRANT
By contrast, retail stores in malls vary greatly from heavy use of digital signage and communication, to very little or no use at all. At the one end of the spectrum were Apple and Microsoft. Their store designs are very simple and basic in many ways, but the use of intensely coloured digital communication dominates and gives the stores a very classy, vibrant and hi-tech feel — exactly as intended. Your pulse rate goes up when you walk in — and for the right reasons! They are not alone. Some of the clothing stores are making excellent use of digital media to reinforce their brand and to provide the desired image for their stores. Many of the displays are engaging as well as informative. Next time you’re in the West Edmonton Mall or in Toronto around the Yonge/Eglinton area, take a look at how digital signage is being used by sports equipment retailers to capture the emotional benefits (real or perceived) of the merchandise they sell. Even department stores like The Bay are extensively using digital signage.
When you walk through a mall and see the difference between stores that use digital signage well and those who don’t, the power of the medium becomes obvious.
INFORMATION — TRANSFORMATION
I’m a firm believer in simplicity and one of the simplest and most accurate descriptions of how advertising (and any piece of communication) works is that there is a continuum, along which you can place the particular piece to better understand how good it is at doing what it’s supposed to do. See the chart for a very simplified representation.
The information side is just that — communication that purely provides information, like a classified ad or a service pricing board. Not much emotion there!
The transformation side is where you’ll find perfume and some beer advertising (what can you say about Bud Light? It’s all about the image). Essentially, these advertisers are trying to transform the experience of using the product, drawing on emotion.
In a retail context, emotion is the piece of the puzzle that can tie everything together to engage the customer and make them feel good about your store, its products and services. Digital media in the dealership can effectively convey information, but why shouldn’t it do more than that?
Take a look on the web at two stunning examples of how digital signage and communication can indeed transform an experience and capture consumer emotions.
- http://www.smart-monkeys.com/lax-new-tbit
- http://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/campaigns/bmw-i-window.html
Although these are likely extreme examples, the lesson here is that size, colour, content and sound are all important elements in making the medium work. The old adage is very true — if it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well.
An interesting case revolves around a retail client of the JC Williams group, a global retail marketing and consulting firm. Through the deployment of digital communication, this client has seen significant sales increases in their store versus retail outlets where there was no form of digital communication.
Granted, this was not an auto retailing environment, but this sporting goods and apparel store has many high-priced items (over $1,000). John Williams, of JC Williams, notes three important outcomes of well-designed and deployed digital communication in a store:
- It arouses the customer’s interest;
- It demonstrates both rational and emotional benefits of the product;
- It will increase sales.
YOUR FUTURE CUSTOMERS WILL EXPECT SOMETHING DIFFERENT
Don’t think about digital displays as being for information only. Today’s technology opens up so many options for the creative use of digital signage and communication in a retail environment. “Hyperlocal” digital can be used to match messages and images to the customer profile (through biometric recognition, where the display can discern the gender and approximate age of the viewer) to systems that match content to the weather (being deployed by Ford in the UK).
Automotive retailers need to see themselves more as part of the mainstream of retailing and be ready to adopt these tools in shaping the customer experience. Car buyers of the future will certainly bring those expectations into the showroom. They want to be wowed when they walk in — not just by the design of the facility, but also by how you capture their attention and engage them while they are there.
