Digital journey in retail: how to win the customer

On 8th of June 2017 international conference “Digital Signage – no alternative!” was held for the 7th time. This year for the first time the conference was organized in new format as a part of the Russian Retail Week.

Today business doesn’t need explanation what for it needs Digital Signage. On the conference was discussed how to get maximum effect from Digital Signage projects. Compared to previous events this time speakers focused on practical issues: statistic, case-studies, advises about implementation.

Special guest from marketing association POPAI UK, Phil Day opened the conference. According statistic he showed in the presentation 70% of shoppers plan to shop in stores as much as they did last year whereas active development of on-line shopping. However 76% of customers would like to use touchscreens. How to create Digital Signage that will solve business problems? On the example of UK retailers projects (Heinz, Unilever, Vodafone, Boots and others) Phil Day gave practical tips to the conference’s visitors for each step of Digital Signage project: planning, execution and measurement stages.

Digital Signage end-users presented their projects on the event. Moscow jewelry factory shared its experience in using Digital constructions in store interior. According Egor Vaganov, CMO of Moscow jewelry factory, LED columns in its new flagship store helped to increase visitor’s traffic to the store thus increased conversion.

Andrey Ushakov, Digital Marketing & E-commerce Manager McDonald’s Russia, presented how Digital solutions helped the company brought to life its new concept “Made for you”. Now in McDonald’s each order starts to cook only after its sending. Moreover the client can change the ingredients of the dishes, for example to take off the onion from its burger. With using Digital Signage the company improved the quality of its products and services while cut the dwelling time, increased sales and re-organized staff’s work more effectively.

New approach to navigation and visitor’s flow control in shopping malls showed Nikolay Alaev (LG Electronics) and Dan Polonskiy (CEO of Horizont shopping mall). They demonstrated new navigation system with using ceiling digital signs implemented in Horizont shopping mall. The solution doesn’t only catch the visitors’ attention but also helps to show information about special offers in different stores.

Presentation of Denis Sologub, Executive director of Azbuka Vkusa, caught special interest. In its presentation he explained why the company didn’t want to install Digital Signage.

About nuances and pitfalls of Digital Signage projects which are clients very often didn’t take into account spoke Damian Frunza (Eutron, Romania) and Stefan Pittl (easescreen, Austria). They stressed that Digital Signage project must be flexible, scalable and had wide functionality. Digital Signage project in the main Romanian bank was shown as an example. In 523 branches was installed more than 900 displays which are successfully run for more than 2,5 years and the project is still developing.

Representatives from Intel shared their view on retail technology trends. IoT is developing very fast and provides unlimited opportunities for personalized and target communications with a client.

Gamification and interactivity become trends in Digital Signage projects. All speakers in some way told about interactive solutions for retail: interactive shopping windows, augmented reality, touch kiosks etc. About the possibilities that such technologies give to retail spoke Dmitry Schklyar, Screemo (Israel).

All speakers agreed that any Digital Signage project would be waste of time and money without right content. How to keep the balance between branded and advertising content, take into account all features of different Digital constructions and get the attention of visitors told Alexey Panfilov, Commercial  director of WorldMirrorGroup on the example of realized project in Oceania shopping mall.

Electronic shelf labels, touch kiosks, LED constructions, innovative OLED displays, digital signs and other technologies speakers were talking about the visitors of the conference could see in live. From 6th till 8th of June on the Russian Retail Week the exhibition of Digital Signage technologies was held where all the main industry players were presented.

“We were thinking about what to do with the conference, because we consider that for several years it outlives it selves. And we found such a great partner as Russian Retail Week, which suggested new format. Also thanks to our partner we could gather interesting speakers for the event.  From our point of view this conference is one of the best due to interesting and useful information for business”, – told Vladimir Kozlov, CEO of DigiSky group and the founder of Digital Signage Moscow conference.

We would like to thank our partners and sponsors for their participation in the 7th international conference “Digital Signage – no alternative!”: LG Electronics and easescreen (Platinum sponsors), Intel (Gold sponsor), SES-Imagotag, CTC Capital, iiyama, Софтинг, Addreality, LOOK, Shuttle, IMS, АМС, Nexcom, BenQ, initium (Silver sponsor), Viosobox (Partner).

You will find more information on the conference’s web-site.