Gail Chiasson, North American Editor
Inwindow Outdoor, innovator of interactive storefront and mall advertising, has unveiled what it considers the future of digital signage technology as part of a pilot program taking place at five mall and hotel locations across the country.
The company worked with Intel to design and create Experience Stations: 7’ tall, free-standing kiosks featuring 70” high definition screens and a number of immersive technologies that allow brands to connect with engaged users in a fun and memorable way.
Each Station features a number of elements designed to offer the most enhanced consumer engagement experience possible through digital signage, including gesture interaction, multi-touch screens and Near Field Communication capabilities to allow consumers with NFC enabled phones to conduct transactions at the site.
“It all comes down to delivering something special,” says Steve Birnhak, CEO of Inwindow Outdoor. “We’ve taken the enjoyment of the iPad and Kinect and created an experience that melds beautiful hardware with an intuitive, engaging interface. For brands, the Stations can serve as a highly valuable marketing platform, serving up ads targeted to the user and delivering valuable usage metrics to allow the advertiser to understand the effectiveness of the campaign.”
The Stations use Intel Audience Impression Metrics Suite (Intel AIM Suite) to measure the effectiveness of a campaign by analyzing the time a user spends interacting with an advertisement. The Intel software can determine the age bracket and gender of its audiences, enabling advertisers to provide consumers with more relevant, customized content.
“Consumers today are bombarded with irrelevant advertisements, while companies wonder if their messages are reaching the right audiences,” says Jose Avalos, director of retail and digital signage segment, Intel Corporation. “Intel AIM Suite reduces the excess noise, allowing advertisers to deliver personalized messages to the right people at the right time while maintaining privacy.”
The Stations also include Signclops, real-time monitoring technology to gauge the performance of the campaigns and immediately detect any abnormalities.
When users approach Experiences Stations, the left three-quarters of the 70” screen features an interactive advertisement, not unlike the types of interactive campaigns Inwindow has executed using vacant storefront windows and mall store locations. Each ad will have some component that utilizes either the touch screen or the 3D gesture camera to encourage user participation.
The right quarter of the screen features a menu of applications the user can access via hand movements. For the pilot program, apps will include a directory of the mall or hotel, weather information, a virtual photo booth, movie trailers and show times, Foursquare integration and a series of daily deals that allow mall shoppers to enjoy special savings at selected retailers.
The Experience Stations can be seen at malls in the Philadelphia, Atlanta, Dallas and New York markets as well as at The Hilton New York. HTC mobile phone company is the lead advertiser participating in the pilot program. Inwindow and Intel expect to roll-out additional Experience Stations to locations across the country in 2012 and beyond.
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