VlIgin Megastores aims to be as trendy as the stars it attracts,so to walk into its restyled, tri-Ievel Times Square location andhave the Nirvana baby "swimming" at yOurevery move should-n't seem all that unique.

Retailers - always balancing consumer whim and tight oper-ating margins - wrestle with finding ways to spur excitementand sales.Los Angeles-basedVirginEntertainment Group, whichoperates the global Virgin Megastores franchise within the busi-ness empire of British tycoon Richard Branson, believesit may have found that edgein the deployment of interactive marketing through a digital signageapplication withvendor partners Epson America and Canadian software inventor GestureTek.

Virgin Megastores tests interactivedigital signage that drives store traffic

BY M.V. GREENE

With its cadre of CDs and DVDs, apparel, elec-tronics, games, books and other entertain-ment-culture products, Virgin Megastores iswhere hip people want to be.

'At the Virgin store on Hollywood Boulevard in Los Ange-les several months ago, fans screamed as Mariah Careyput in an appearance to celebrate the re-Iaunch of ''TheEmancipation of Mimi: Ultra Platinum Edition," her top-sell-ing CD. That same week, at the Virgin store in New York'sTimes Square, reality TV personality Nicole Richie held abook signing for her first novel, "The Truth About Dia-monds."

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Digital signage is a fast-comingaudio-visual application that isserving to augment a retailer's tra-ditional means of static in-store

print and display advertising andmarketing by leveraging comput-er technology to present dynamic

content to consumers.

To date, the use of digi-tal signage in retail set-

tings has largely involved placingvideo display terminals nearcheckout areas to disseminate in-

formation and images as captivecustomers wait in line to make

their purchases. Virgin and itspartners are taking the signageconcept to a new level of applica-tion by projecting the contentthroughout the Times Squarestore and allowing customers tointeract with images.

"The key to this is interactivityand getting the customer engagedto stay longer in the store," saysJohn French, strategic businessmanager for digital signage at Ep-

son, which is providing the projectiontechnology via its PowerLite family ofcommercial class projectors.

Display hangingsigns and changethem dynamicallyProject fashionsonto mannequinsand other objectsProject full-motionvideo onto glass andwindow displaysCreate digital menuboards to featuredaily specialsRun video featuringselected projectsfrom in-store kiosksIncorporate trainingand corporate initia-tives

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DIGITAL SIGNAGE

Virgin Entertainment Group chiefmarketing officer Dave Alder, findingthat buzz around a promotion that mar-keters covet, says the signage has creat-ed quite the "talking point" in the store.

"It's rare today to find an entertain-ment store that actually entertains itscustomers," he says. "Unlike many oth-er entertainment retailers, we work hardto add value to the shopping experienceby adding a true sense of fun. The digi-tal signage marketing initiative is a sig-nificant part of this experience."

The baby "swimming" along the floorof the Times Square shop is an imagefrom legendary grunge band Nirvana'sgenre-defining "Nevermind" album,first releasedin 1991 and re-packaged in

VincentJohn Vincent. But the idea of itscoming alive and being interactive real-ly allows it to be much more attractive- and attract a lot more attention."

The Epson-GestureTek application al-so gives retailers the ability to display"hanging signs" throughout the storeand change them dynamically, projectfashions onto mannequins and other ob-jects, project full-motion video ontoglass and window displays, create digi-tal menu boards to feature dailyspecials,run video featuring selected projectsfrom in-store kiosks and incorporatetraining and corporate initiatives.

"A lot of people are looking at digitalsignage to re-purpose advertisementsand promotions that provide some sort

of livelyimage to at-tract somebody's at-tention," says BarryWise, Epson's strate-gic business manag-er on the VirginMegastore install."We feel that digitalmarketing really be-comes that last bas-tion within a retailstore to automate.. .and to reach out andtouch that customerin a number of dif-ferent ways."

Virgincustomers, Alder says,have been intrigued at the sightof the image of the swimmingbaby chasing the dollar bill as

depicted on the original album cover. "Itcertainly helps to set us apart and en-ables us to live up to the expectation ofVirgin as a creative brand experience,"he says.

One of Virgin's objectiveswith the sig-nage application is to drive businessthroughout the store. As customersmove along with the baby's image, theyare being led toward under-visitedareaswhere sales could use a boost.

Vincent calls the signageapplication a"way-finding" system."It will sort of di-rect you to go in this direction to findthis particular product and move trafficflow deeper into the store," he says.

Digitalinteractive

marketing sets

Virgin apart

from the pack.

DVD format in 2005 as part ofa classic album series. Virginsought to make a splash topromote the DVD release,anddigital signage is the medium it chose.

"The baby featured on the [album]sleevemovesaround in itspool and bub-bles emerge as it does so," Alder says."It's a perfect use of the technology."

Toronto-based GestureTek suppliesthe software and content manipulationthrough its GroundFX system,which al-lows customers to "control" the adver-tising as they encounter it.

, .Billboara on the floor

"You're taking the same concept of abillboard that might be up above peo-ple's heads or on the wall and putting iton the floor," says GestureTekpresident

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Walk this wayTo deploy, a video camera, projector

and computer device are ceilingmount-ed; content isprogrammed into the unit.As the camera views the projection, it is

2. able to differentiate between the personwho is stepping into/interacting with theprojection and the image itself, gaugingspeed and angles. The reaction to theprojection is different for each personwho walks by becauseof unique individ-ual movements.

"Things will move around in conjunc-tion with the nature of how people actu-ally interact with the graphics, as op-posed to just triggering something that'stouched," Vincent says.

GestureTek initially developed itsGroundFX system in the 1980s for usein corporate promotions, entertainment,museums and science centers where the"camera would look at you, grab yourimage and put you into the graphics," hesays. "People loveto interact with it.Thefact that nobody ever touches anythingis one of the better points in the retailspace. Youcan have people veryinterac-tive and you don't have to worry aboutsomething breaking down because ofthe way people are using it."

French says Epson is working with re-tail customers to measure return on in-vestment for the application, but muchof that depends on what the retailerwants to achieve from visual merchan-dising. Virgin's Alder says part of thepayback for Virgin Megastores will bemeasured in the impact it will have onwidening the Virgin brand.

Retailers increasingly are embracingthe concept of digital signage, and Wisebelieves the Virgin Megastore applica-tion will be like a shot across the indus-try's bow.

"What I see retailers doing is makingshopping more exciting by identifyingwho the customer is and connectingthemessage that's being delivered to thatparticular place in time." StORES

M. V. Greene is an independent writer

and editor based in Owings Mills,Md., who covers business, technologyand retail. .

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