Case Study-Tracking ROI Progress Part1
Case Study
Tracking ROI Progress
Where Does Digital Signage Fit?
The companies that traditionally measure ad impact, such as Arbitron and A. C. Nielsen, have added digital signage to their portfolios and conducted some broad studies. One report from Arbitron and Edison Media Research looked at digital signage networks in shopping malls. The study found shoppers three times more likely to look at billboards with motion than at static signs. Digital signage also raised the average recall for advertisers by 18 points. The organizations also looked at a specific project that one major national store launched in California and found overall sales of advertised Father’s Day items were 37 percent higher in stores with the digital signage than in those without. The researchers did not identify the California store, nor does Lou Giacalone, president of CoolSign Media in Burlingame, CA — although his company’s national mall network was the general subject of the Arbitron/Edison report — and CoolSign has recently worked on just such a pilot project for Federated Department Stores (Macy’s) in California.
Giacalone says Macy’s is using digital signs to replace the hanging posters typically found in such departments as cosmetics as a way of cleaning up the look of the area. They’re also useful in creating an environment conducive to sales in many other departments. For these purposes, CoolSign has largely used 42-inch plasma displays from LG Electronics, coupled with smaller LCD panels adjoining specific product displays and conveying sales information.
Macy’s is keeping its specific sales results confidential, but CoolSign has cited more than 2 percent sales lifts across the entire store — and as high as 25 percent sales increases in specific categories.
Giacalone stressed immediacy and flexibility over measurable sales results in evaluating a digital signage system. “Timing is everything,” he says, adding that the ability to react to the marketplace and make changes in real time is the most important advantage.