ve agencies, to find out what’s trending in digital signage this year. Increasingly creative content While many budgets are still focused on flashy monitors and interactive technology, some retailers are starting to look more closely at what’s actually playing on their screens. Kirsty Dollisson, GM of TorchMedia, which works with liquor chain BWS, says there’s a renewed focus this year on digital signage content that draws attention to the product. “The creative used in the liquor space is becoming so much more eye catching. The reality of digital signage is that it’s all about the creative,” Dollisson says. Retailers should focus on content that brings to life what a brand personifies, like that displayed in the shop windows of Australian stationary chain, Smiggle. “Smiggle uses digital signage to draw in young customers off the street. It’s all about the creative: it’s simple, beautiful, clean, and uses the colours that represent the brand,” she says. Paul Wilson, CEO of Blocks Global, which works with Australian retailers Bedshed, Bunnings, and bakery chain, Puckles, agrees that content is becoming more important in 2013. “Content was an afterthought in the past. It was more about installing signage and then talking to the agency,” he says. “Australian retailers have got to catch up [to international trends]. I think they’re now realising this is the year to adopt more engaging instore experiences.” Sometimes it’s simple ideas that make for the most fun and entertaining content, demonstrated by a campaign installed ahead of Christmas at Australia Post’s GPO Brisbane concept store last year. Knowing customers would get fed up with long queues during the busy festive period, Australia Post asked Blocks Global to come up with engaging content to entertain them. The result was a series of 20 second animations, screened on 42 inch monitors, conveying fun facts about Australia Post, such as the creation date of the first ever Christmas card (that’s December 9, 1842). Over the years, food retailers, from McDonald’s through to KFC have increasingly been using digital signage to display more engaging content about their menus. Quick service chain, Fasta Pasta, was this year the latest to jump onto this trend, installing digital menu boards at its new Adelaide flagship in Rundle Place. Fasta Pasta’s signage is able to remotely update and changes automatically to match the time of the day, meaning that customers will always see the correct breakfast, lunch, or dinner menu. Screaming to be played with Interactivity has been a big overarching trend in digital signage the last two to three years, and it’s unlikely the hype will die down anytime soon. As flagship technology continues to improve, retailers are increasingly experimenting with features such as facial recognition technology, heat mapping, and touchscreens. Responsive digital flooring and projections is one trend building overseas, with the expansive German retailer, Metro Group, a market leader. “They’ve been trialling projections on their shop floors which are interactive and involve sensors,” says TorchMedia’s Dollisson. “The content interacts as you walk across the visual area. For instance, you walk across a picture of a bottle of water and the bubbles inside it move.” While interactive sensors haven’t arrived here quite yet, TorchMedia has been trialling floor projections for consumer brands, Tim Tams, Pepsi, and Rexona, in Australian supermarkets. Blocks Global’s Wilson says the most impressive example of interactivity in the last year is a vending machine campaign by Coca- Cola installed in Pakistan and India. The soft drink company’s idea was simple: connect two separate machine’s digital screens via a film camera, allowing two customers in different countries to engage with each other. To do this, the customers were asked to solve a collective puzzle or complete an action in sync. If they worked successfully together, they were rewarded with a free can of cola. “This was all about using technology to incite emotion. I thought it was a great way of letting people seamlessly engage with technology,” says Wilson. Locally, shopping centre group, AMP Capital, has also been experimenting with interactive digital signage, as part of its “Design Your Dream Fashion Mall” campaign. The temporary iPad kiosks, installed from May in various AMP centres, ask shoppers to curate their favourite brands and publish this on screens for others to judge. Belinda Daly, head of marketing at AMP Capital Shopping Centres, told Inside Retail Magazine the concept is about letting the shopper have fun via gamification. It will also allow the landlord to gain new shopper insights, with data about customers’ favourite retailers sent to AMP’s leasing agents. Mary Giugni, exhibition manager of digital signage trade show, Integrate, in Sydney this month (August) says Sportsgirl and Woolworths are other local names leading the interactive pack. “Interactivity is becoming a key consideration as consumers become more accustomed to this type of digital signage technology,” she says. Best practice examples are interactive mirrors, as installed last year by Sportsgirl, and the ongoing use of QR codes, implemented in Woolworth’s flagship virtual store in Sydney. Overseas, innovative retailers are pushing the envelope even further, such as the Japanese clothing chain, Vanquish, at its Tokyo store in Ikebukuro P’Parco. Vanquish’s digital installation connects product to a range of brightly lit screens hanging over its clothing racks. When a customer picks up a piece of clothing from the rack, video screens shows the item being modeled along with suggested accessories. “It’s incredibly eye catching and very clever,” says Michael Day, regional retail sales manager of ADT Security Australia, which produces interactive signage. Closely linked to the booming interactive digital signage market is an ongoing focus on omni- channel, social media integration, and everything e-commerce. Integrate’s Mary Giugni says this is being driven by the threat of showrooming, with bricks and mortar retailers increasingly realising they have to bring the online to the physical to survive. “Stores are beginning to integrate web-enabled digital signage solutions to create a personalised and interactive experience, which is often lacking from standalone online stores,” Giugni says. One notable part of this trend is digital signage that lets customers buy or interact with product via their smartphones. A Google campaign by oOh! Media uses a mixture of QR codes and Near Field Communications (NFC) to target travellers at Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane domestic airports. Passengers tap or scan the side of the billboard using a smartphone (only Android, of course) to have content, such as free music, appear on the device’s screen. “Back in 2002, when Minority Report featured a scene where billboards talked directly with individual consumers, this was only the stuff of science fiction,” says Warwick Denby, group director of business strategy, oOh! Media. While it’s an older trend, retailers and consumer brands are also increasingly using email and social media, such as Instagram and Facebook, to connect shoppers with the outside world. Consumer brand, Magnum, which opened a pop up concept store in July at Westfield Sydney, is asking shoppers to share its brand via instore touchscreens. After creating a customised ice cream, The Magnum Pleasure Store shopper is encouraged to take an artistic photo of the final product via the tablet and send it to friends over email. International retailers have admittedly been onto this trend for years, such as the UK’s New Look, which put digital signage in its changerooms in 2011, allowing customers to share outfits on Facebook. Local hardware providers are now driving this trend in Australia, such as ADT Security, which has launched an OmniMirror system that connects a retailer’s online and social media presence. The LCD display features an interactive mirror that allows customers to share photos on social media, as well as watch videos, join loyalty programs, or give feedback. “What is interesting, particularly in Australia, is that customers want a back and forth relationship with the brands they love,” says ADT’s Day. “They want to be able to connect with the retailer in all the mediums they use, be it on the mobile, instore, or online,” he says, adding retailers who do this are the ones “really soldiering on” amid the downturn. Integrating e-commerce and point of sale (POS) to signage is another ongoing trend, as used by the restaurant chain, Wagaya, which allows Sydney diners to order straight from its kitchens without waiters. The chain’s touchscreen menus are a talking point for Wagaya customers, and make ordering Japanese food fun to the point of almost over ordering. Not hip to be square While digital signage is very much focused on interactivity and creative content in 2013, that doesn’t mean innovative hardware is being sidelined. Technology isn’t just getting brighter, bigger, and more colourful, developers and electronics providers are literally thinking outside the box. “A lot of our customers are now looking less to the square and more to a broken screen format or elongated screens,” says Richard Soussa, CEO of LED Signs. This trend is being driven by loud and proud international retailers, notably Burberry, which has become known for its staggering instore digital signage installations. Concepts currently being marketed by LED Signs, which works with Just Jeans, Aldi, and Caltex, include flexible screens wrapped around pylons and an impressive staircase of monitors. The latter concept debuted at Melbourne’s designEX this year and featured five flights of stairs that played video of a waterfall, giving the illusion of moving water. Other innovations trending overseas, primarily in less regulated and tech-focused Asian markets, include LED screens made of thick yet flexible materials. Several retailers and brands are hanging these screens in store windows or even off the side of buildings for impressive light shows at night. “The advantage is that you can put them in your store windows to play video, but street light will still come into the store through the material,” says Soussa. He says the next year will see some exciting news from innovative Australian retailers, with LED Signs currently working with one big name on fragmented design. This story originally appeared in Inside Retail Magazine’s August/September 2013 edition. The October/November issue, featuring Inside Retail Magazine’s annual 50 Most Powerful Retailers List is available now. For more information, click here.