Don't Send a Boy to do a Man's Job

There is an old proverb that says that sending a message by the hand of a fool is like cutting off your own feet.

This is equally true when you blindly trust your messaging (digital signage content) to whoever, delegating to a third-party service or a lower-level employee, leaving that all-important strategic job to someone with no vested interest or motivation for the profit-producing necessity of your message.

Your message is what people will think of you.
Your message is all people know about what you want them to do.
Your message (including your display) is the primary information a prospective customer has, in order to make a buying decision!

Why would you delegate that?  The classic thing business people do is to neglect their message, in favor of "getting things done".  Well, you ain't gonna get much done without customers buying, and they're not going to buy unless you convince them with your message in all its facets.

When I walk through a mall, or surf online, I want to know why I should buy.  I want to know what you're offering.  I want to know what's better about your product, or offer.  I want to know if you know what you're doing or if you're fly-by-night.  I want to know what kind of value I'm getting.  I want to know what's in it for me.

Too often, when you delegate your company messaging, those questions don't get answered, and then you don't sell as much, or make as much, because you delegated your messaging to someone who doesn't understand or value your priorities.

Digital Signage ISN'T ABOUT THE HARDWARE, the screens, the software, the brightness, etc.  Those are all important, but only in that they are a part of delivering YOUR MESSAGE effectively!  If you use DS or DOOH, then watch your messaging carefully, measure it, and revise it, hone it, until it performs.  Watch it like a hawk, and use it to produce measurable results!  Devise a method (I'm not telling you to run out and buy more equipment or software) for tracking, measuring, and understanding the results of your display system.  DS and DOOH are money-making machines when properly implemented.

Your DS messaging is a job that, if you do delegate it, you must oversee carefully and demand a result from.  DS and DOOH are extremely powerful tools, but make sure they are used to the effect you desire.

We advocate a direct selling proposition and call to action, the result of which can be tracked exclusively to your DS or DOOH display, and measured.  For example, if you provide a text coupon, be sure that it is tracked accurately.  Don't just throw a video loop on there and forget about it.  Make sure that message looks how it is supposed to look, gets where it is supposed to go, and does what you intend it to do.

Retail Window Displays

OK, I admit it: Messaging is my personal hobby horse.

But it's so totally justified, because I just don't see people doing a good job with it. Either they don't create compelling messages, or they don't know how to target, or they don't target correctly, or they don't understand their own target, or they don't know how to motivate the target.... ad nauseum. There are so many ways to message poorly.

But rather than talk in generalities, let's focus on one very important thing: How to message effectively with large-screen lcd, or better yet, with Window Video Systems (WVS).

To define even further, let's talk about clothing retailer's need to display and message to people passing by their mall store. What people do now is dress up mannequins and place them in the window, and perhaps add posters, signs, or an lcd. The posters/signs might give pricing or promo info about specific product, but it can only do that in a blanket way, (Everything 20% Off!) or a specific way (Shoe Sale). But you can only do so much, usually one thing, at a time. And then you have to live with it for a while or replace and reprint constantly. And the LCD is usually used simply for ambience like music videos or fashion-show looking loops.

What the customer wants to know is, "what do you have for me, why is it better for me, and how do I get it (for less)?

Window Video Systems, displaying the Digital Mannequin, allow the store to display clothing on a "live" looking model, front and back, with pricing or promo offer, along with any other important product info (i.e., "It's Green! Made with only Organic Recycled Hemp, Domestically Grown, with a Negative-One Carbon Footprint, Endorsed by Al Gore!")

Ok, sorry for the sarcasm, but you get the point: that's a lot of very specific messaging AND display info that you can get out of one system in a very short period of time. And THEN, Digital Mannequin enables the store to go to the next ensemble and do it all again with new information. Or not. They could just repeat. Or go to a different type of info, or mini-campaign.

The advantages are numerous:

1. Better display capability
A. life-size,
B. multiple poses,
C. multiple views,
D. multiple ensembles with multiple articles
E. different or changing backgrounds
F. different presentations - stills, motion, video
AND

2. Better Messaging capability
A. multiple messages,
B. multiple offers,
C. variable appearances - colors, size, motion
D. faster changes in messages/campaigns - even to the day or days, or daypart,
E. no changing out of posters,
F. no waste

That's a LOT of improvement in your messaging! That's a lot of flexibility and potency with which to improve your message to your target customers!

And to think you can do that for a comparable price to a large LCD? Fuggedaboutit! Who do I call?!

Call Looknglas. We'll hook you up.

The Window of Opportunity is here.

LCDs - TV on the Ceiling. So What?

That is what the customer thinks when they see an LCD in your business. I have no doubt about this, because I make it a point to observe people when an LCD is present in a retail business. Most people ignore them. Even in lobbies and waiting rooms, usually they are ignored.

That is because someone is failing to make them relevant or useful to the customer!

Dick Morris is famous for his line to Bill Clinton when running for the presidency: "It's the economy stupid!"

Well, I have a modified take on that, which is the key to selling and buying digital signage, whether DOOH or in-house.

It's not the hardware; IT'S THE CONTENT AND USAGE!

Technological hardware will never achieve anything or solve anything or improve anything if you don't use it effectively. This is what's wrong with so many lcd installations. We just pitched a company who has edgy, hip, imagery, product, and branding, but they haven't even integrated their retail store lcd deployment, and they aren't using them for messaging.

LCDs as a medium have to work that much harder to overcome the unspoken but manifest bias in customer's minds that they are just TVs (and not even as good as the one at home.) Much better to jolt that viewer with a Window Video System (WVS) and then message them into doing what you want them to do. Ideally that should be something sales-related, or at the very least, something trackable. But always lean toward selling. Otherwise you run the risk of lapsing into that grey area where business justifications start to veer away from dollars, sense, and profit.

LCDs - Problems with DS

So much of Digital Signage (DS) is focused on LCD screens, and LED types of boards. Much of the implementation is kinda clunky. It seems that the DS Industry is dominated by techies, and even the people who plan advertising campaigns are often not real swift at creating compelling ads or playlists.

Further, many retailers have installed LCD screens, but are merely streaming television or just a limited playlist loop. I think of a restaurant chain here in Southern California with a beach theme; they play surf videos non-stop. Neat-o. (But I thought they wanted to sell more burgers?!!!) Many clothing chains have LCD screens playing music videos. As if that has something to do with selling clothes.

I don't know; I guess I'm not sophisticated enough to realize how useful that is. From my point of view, I would rather spend 5 minutes selling than 5 weeks entertaining. I think, ideally, the retailers would too, but the ad industry and their own in-house marketing people probably have them bamboozled into thinking they have to do this.

Or then there's "Walmart TV". Large LCD's hanging in Walmart stores playing who knows what. Sound on, blah blah blah, some fake tv show. I have never observed anyone standing there watching those things. I think it's because the content is pretty useless relative to making a buying decision right now.

So Looknglas works with clients to create and mnanage content designed to sell, to cement their relationship with their customers, to motivate them to buy something else, RIGHT NOW. Or to cross pollinate with the client's web-based strategies. Or to get the customer to use their mobile phone to get a promotional benefit, offer, coupon, whatever.

Because of this lack of focus in the use of LCD's, Looknglas now offers integration and management of existing LCD's. A chain with standalone LCDs in their stores can now have a network that runs company-designed playlists, updated as often as everyday, with new, fresh selling messages.

So now companies can leverage their existing investment into something a lot more powerful and effective. A few low cost digital control devices installed, and Voila! Instant retail POP network prodding customers to buy more. Yeah!!! Use technology to make more sales and more money?! What a concept!

Looknglas - Window Video Systems, and LCD System integrators. The Window Of Opportunity is Here.