Highlights From the Top Entries for Best/Most Creative Use of Content
Mediavation for Mark’s Work Wearhouse, Mark’s Digital Signage Rebrand.
Best Digital Signage Content, Merchandising
• Scala and Signature Digital Menus (SDM) for SSP, the company that runs Burger King’s operation in the UK. Burger King uses dynamic content on digital menu boards to increase sales. Real-time data is mined. After analyzing data from SSP, SDM developed a specific content strategy for increasing the value of each sale by a small amount. By doing this, over time and with the thousands of sales that go through each week, SSP is able to see a real impact to their bottom line.
■ WINNER John Ryan Performance, Inc. for PNC Bank. Innovation Station/ Product Demonstration. The purpose of the installation was to provide branch associates with a tool to familiarize students with the benefits of Virtual Wallet money management product. Virtual Wallet is a break-through interface. This Innovation Station is located in a bank branch within the student center of the University of Cincinnati. It is a small footprint facility reflective of student preferences for ATMs, mobile, online, and other alternate channels. PNC uses John Ryan’s “Messaging Manager” content management software to target content to each of PNC’s 2542 sites. Additionally, John Ryan created and produced all content displayed on the network.
• Digital Display & Communications for Rogers Communications Inc., Sony Style Kiosk. This interactive installation is intended to educate consumers about Rogers’ Sony phones and wireless services while shopping in the Sony Style store. Viewers can explore phone options, wireless plans, and other services offered by Rogers while in a decision-making environment.
Best Content, Advertising
• Alpha Creative Services, a division of Alpha Video & Audio, Inc., Grand Victoria Casino Elgin, Casino Digital Signage Installation, Prime Video Wall. Grand Victoria Casino Elgin wanted to build brand awareness and tantalize passersby with the exquisite burgers and cocktails selection at the Prime Burger House. To accomplish this, they installed a fourscreen video wall just outside of the entrance to the restaurant. The video wall consists of 46-inch LCD screens in a 2x2 configuration. The intended viewer is a person passing by the restaurant or that is waiting to be seated. The viewer experience is to build brand awareness and promote the restaurants premier entrée items.
■ WINNER Mediavation for Mark’s Work Wearhouse, Mark’s Digital Signage Rebrand. Mark’s Work Wearhouse is a popular Canadian retail chain long known for selling men’s work wear that recently invested in this digital signage installation as part of a rebranding test phase. The content is being shown through installations at 18 Mark’s Work Wearhouse retail stores in Winnipeg, Manitoba; Edmonton, Alberta; and Ottawa, Ontario. Each Mark’s Work Wearhouse store is organized into different “worlds” such as men’s, women’s, and work wear. In each world, a flat-screen display highlights the type of clothing and accessories available to the consumer and showcases these products’ innovations and unique selling points. X2O Media worked with Mediavation, one of the ad agencies for Mark’s Work Wearhouse, to bring to life the agency’s creative concept of presenting product innovations as part of dynamic “faux newscasts” — creative, quirky “newscast” or weathercasts that highlight Mark’s Work Wearhouse clothes for wearing in different weather conditions.
Best Content, Ambient (A non ad-based content model — content was to create branding, mood, not sales lift)
• Alpha Creative Services, a division of Alpha Video & Audio, Inc., for Harrah’s Cherokee, Casino Expansion. Content is for the video wall screens that are installed behind the two Total Rewards players desks. This content is used to entertain and share some of the cultural lore of the Eastern Cherokee Indians with the guest as they wait in line. These screens are installed as part of a large digital signage deployment that will encompass over 700 displays when all phases are completed. The overall installation brings awareness of the amenities at the property, promotes special offers and events at the property, advertises casino winners to guests, entertains guests while waiting in queues throughout the property, and announces instantaneously when a person wins a jackpot on the casino floor through content that interrupts the normal play list when triggered through the software.
• Computacenter with AMX for O2 Joggler Product Promotion. Located in the front window and inside 350 stores across the UK and Northern Ireland both on street fronts and within shopping centers, this digital signage solution is an extension of O2’s current in-store printed point of sale. The animations on screen are tailored to attract not only those who have set out to visit an O2 store, but also those walking by an O2 retail store. The signage attracts foottraffic into stores with visually engaging animations displaying offers and products in an enticing way. AMX provided animation expertise, tailored the content elements for signage in the design package, and advised on viewing distances and dwell time on screen and font sizes
■ WINNER Digital Display & Communications, Rogers Communications Inc., Labatt Summer Contest. This installation is a merchandising POD that holds cases of beer while content related to the merchandise plays on a screen above the cases. It is intended to drive sales of specific SKUs, focusing primarily on monthly promotional offers and contests. PODs are placed in highly visible areas of beer and liquor stores and intended to grab the viewer’s attention, entertain, and entice to buy. Monthly loops are made up of the promotional contest and special offer SKU, as well as brand spots and a store owner template intended to allow the store owner to communicate messages targeted directly at their customers.
Best Content, Corporate Communications (Nonretail; digital signage for corporate campus)
ConnectedSign LLC for Agnico Eagle Mines (AEM).
■ WINNER ConnectedSign LLC for Agnico Eagle Mines (AEM). Intended users are every single member of the Agnico-Eagle workforce. Their digital signage allows them a more personal look at their own division as well as a look at corporate goals and the focuses of other divisions worldwide. AEM’s digital signage is deployed in multiple countries worldwide and are displayed in indoor employee congregational areas. ConnectedSign took care of all aspects from content design to deployment. The project was designed to be used with Four Winds Interactive software. Hardware install was taken care of internally by Agnico-Eagle Mines.
• Converge Networks, GlaxoSmithKline, GSK Campus Communication. Through this installation, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) wanted to effectively convey information to their staff on a daily basis in a manner that heightened their employee’s awareness and attention to the messages. They were interested in building their corporate identity via consistent branding throughout their office. It was also important that the solution had the ability to create, manage, and distribute content from one centralized location. AMX used their own in-house design team to create custom content for GSK.
• Black Box Network Services for Joy Mining. Joy Mining’s original objective was to install welcome screens in lobbies of nearly each of its 55 facilities worldwide. Once employees and executives saw the appeal and versatility of the displays to present content, however, requests for other strategic uses began pouring in. Human resources, marketing, engineering, and especially manufacturing all had ideas. Within months, a massive rollout took place, resulting in literally hundreds of screens either installed or planned for warehouses, manufacturing facilities, sales/service locations, and corporate offices located everywhere from Poland and Russia to China, India, Australia, the UK, and the United States. The original lobby screens, installed in 2009, display customer information, facility news, safety/operational metrics, news/stocks/weather feeds, all driven by the Black Box iCOMPEL content management system (CMS).
Best Content, Interactive
■ WINNER Four Winds Interactive, Royal Caribbean International. Guests in search of step-by-step directions to their stateroom can access an interactive mapping feature, similar to the directions produced by popular online mapping solutions, on any one of the 46 touchscreens in which it is offered. Royal Caribbean tapped Four Winds Interactive (FWi) to design an unprecedented digital signage network for Oasis of the Seas. With 55 interactive touchscreens and 156 passive displays operating off of the FWi digital signage network, the system provides realtime data that offers a guest experience like no other. Wayfinding technology enables guests to obtain directions to their destination, gauge restaurant options, interact with the daily Cruise Compass to get information on the day’s events, and find answers to common questions. Knowing that the ship plays host to guests from around the world, FWi developed the digital signage content to enhance guest communication and assist passengers in their native language, whether it is English, Spanish, French, Italian, German, or Portuguese. The installation is located in over 200 locations throughout the ship.
• Inwindow Outdoor for Zenith/FOX Studios, Avatar Digital Face Morphing Exhibit. As shoppers approached the screens, their image was captured and transformed in real-time into a Na’vi, the blue-skinned species from the future made famous in the movie Avatar. Once the morph was complete, users were able to enter their email address via touchscreens and be sent a video of their transformation along with information on where to purchase the Blu-ray disc. The signage used cutting-edge facial recognition technology developed in-house by Inwindow Outdoor.
• Monster Media for CoverGirl “Easy, Breezy” Inspirational Monster Storefront. Monster Media and MediaVest teamed up to create an extremely engaging, touch interactive experience for CoverGirls’ Queen Collection, which asked consumers for their thoughts. At end of the four-week campaign, the video player was triggered over 15,000 times and over 2500 people took the time to share their personal inspirations.
