More than 50 pages longer than the previous edition, Sign Gallery 6 presents recent Signs of the Times competition winners, honorable mentions, and others in this expanded edition of electric ...
Decline of conventional, instore signage predicted
Nikki Baird, a researcher for Forrester Research Inc. (Cambridge, MA), wrote that firm's newly announced "How Digital Media Transforms Instore Marketing" report. Forrester, an independent technology and market-research company, provides technology-based-information business reports. Operational for 22 years, the company has offices in 13 countries
Nikki has an M.B.A. from the University of Texas and a B.A. from the University of Colorado. At Forrester, she focuses on "retail operations and the emerging technologies that affect instore retailer/consumer relationships." She analyzes hi-tech methods that trigger instore buying — the very purpose of retail. She prepares a good analysis, is notable in the industry, and, certainly, her MBA training shines through.
She pens such things as: "Those that embrace the disruption stand to benefit the most," which, I believe, means that business people can profit by adopting these new display technologies.
This, of course, isn't always true.
A declined system
In my February 2006 EDS column (see page 65), I wrote about Jungle Jim's grocery-store (Cincinnati) EDS installation where, after testing, the store chose to discontinue using the four, 40-in. plasma display screens installed in a joint-test agreement by ComNet Software (Miamisburg, OH) and Jaap-Orr Advertising (Cincinnati). ComNet, after having borrowed the plasma screens from NEC, worked with the grocery-store executives and Jaap-Orr to develop content and analyze sales data.
In that column, I wrote, "At test's end, Jungle Jim's was to decide if it wanted to buy the system and content services. It didn't. The screens have been removed." Clearly, Jungle Jim's management was disappointed with the electronic digital signage (EDS) project's results. They didn't see a noticeable improvement in sales throughout the testing period, nor were they impressed with the ROI projections.
I also explained how philosophies differed between Jungle Jim's store marketers and the content creators. Further, Jungle Jim's had hoped for vendor assistance — prepared content or cash contributions — but, because of the store's "limited exposure," these didn't materialize. Sarah Baumann, the store's manager of creative services, said, unlike Wal-Mart or Kroger's, Jungle Jim's wasn't big enough to "strong arm" its vendors. This loss of projected income affected the ROI predictions.
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