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Interactive digital signage at Target helps shop for videogames
Target Corp. is expanding its Channel Red in-store screen media network by rolling out large interactive touchscreens in its electronics departments.
Target Corp., the U.S. big-box retail chain, is currently expanding its Channel Red in-store screen media network by rolling out large interactive touchscreens in the videogame section of its electronics departments.
The touchscreens are clearly designed to assist parents who are shopping for videogames for their children. To discourage children from using the touchscreens, they do not offer demos of videogames to sample on the displays.
According to a Target corporate-level insider, the rollout of the interactive screens (one per store) has reached the stage where a majority of Target's 1,150 stores in the United States have now installed the new vertically-mounted screens. During visits this week to three stores in the Cincinnati area, I found that an interactive screen had been installed in two of those three stores.
As per Minneapolis-based Target's normal corporate practice, the company does not plan to formally announce the rollout of this enhancement to its digital signage network. Channel Red was launched in late 2005, when Target rolled the network out nationwide in time for the holiday shopping season. Channel Red primarily serves the electronics department at Target stores, as well as the physically adjacent areas where recorded music, movies and videogames are sold.
Screen provides mission-critical information on out-of-stocks
With this new deployment, it appears that the retailer's in-store network may have crossed a corporate information technology (IT) threshold at Target by allowing store shoppers to view data on screen that tells them whether a product is in stock or out of stock. Retailers consider this digital tracking of "in-stocks" and "out-of-stocks" to be a proprietary and "mission-critical" IT question, whereas they don't usually consider in-store customer-facing screen media networks to be mission-critical.
When Target shoppers use the new touchscreen to request information on a particular videogame or videogame accessory, the screen will inform the shopper whether that item is in or out of stock at that store. The screen also informs the shopper if that item is in stock at other Target stores which are located in their geographic area (i.e., "three or more in stock at the Springdale location" or "four or more in stock at the Milford location").
The network also offers additional options:
- Connects shoppers to consumer-written product reviews of videogames that are posted on Target's e-tail portal. Shoppers can sort these product reviews three ways: "highest rating first," "lowest rating first" or "newest rating first." Note that shoppers are not able to use the Channel Red touchscreens to compose videogame reviews on their mobile phones and then download them directly to Channel Red.
- Allows shoppers to e-mail or text-message product information to themselves. Using the interactive screen, I selected two different videogame products — a videogame and a videogame accessory — and had that information e-mailed to my home e-mail account. That e-mail provided a link to the page on the target.com website where detailed product information and photos were visible. When information of this type was text-messaged from the Target screens, it provided just 20-30 words of text listing the product name and product number. This feature also allowed me to e-mail myself the street address (text only) of another store location where a product is in stock. However, when received, that e-mail did not provide a web link to maps and other more detailed information about that store location. Target posted this privacy guarantee about the e-mail/texting capabilities of Channel Red: "Target will not store, retain, access or otherwise use the information you entered [via an on-screen keyboard image] once this message is sent." Before the e-mails and text messages are sent, the touchscreen queries the shopper if they are aged either "13 or older" or "under 13."
- Allows shoppers to request personal assistance by paging store salespeople.When I touched the "Get Assistance" button on the interactive Channel Red screen, a Target salesperson walked over within ten seconds to offer assistance. The "Get Assistance" function on the Channel Red screen had activated a message to the pager device which was attached to the Target associate's belt.
- Sorts videogames by price, quality ratings, age-appropriate ratings, A-Z and Z-A. In many ways, this feature mimics the sorting options which cable-TV operators offer today for their video-on-demand services. For a parent shopping in a hurry, it would enable them to quickly narrow their search to videogames appropriate for Early Childhood (EC), Age Ten or Older (E10) or Teen (T). Although the interactive Target screens offer the option of selecting "Mature" (M) videogames, it did not appear that Target carried any of the M-rated videogames at the three Cincinnati area stores. Also, during our final visit to a Target store, this option of narrowing the search based on age-appropriate content was not working when viewing available Nintendo titles.
The attractor loop and printed POP signage are very effective
The attractor loop playing on the touchscreen when it is not in use is very effective in attracting attention. This attractor loop, which rotates three background colors (red, green and blue) and features a static silhouette of a woman interacting with the screen, displays four lines of large font text:
- "Find the right game for your family,"
- "Read custom reviews and ratings,"
- "Browse hundreds of games and consoles," and
- "Touch to begin" (displayed in larger text which pulses to attract attention).
The vertically-positioned white-on-gray point-of-purchase (POP) signage, which is positioned to the left and right of the screen, says, "The Learning Center: all the details on any game at your fingertips, touch the screen to begin," and, "Look for: ratings and reviews, what's new, special deals and promotions, out-of-stocks and games at another nearby Target."
How is Target monetizing the network, and what needs to be improved?
At this stage of the touchscreen rollout, it is not clear whether Target has started to monetize this new enhancement to Channel Red. Because the POP signage attached to the touchscreens promises (but does not currently appear to offer) "special deals and promotions," one would assume that Target plans — for a price — to offer premium placements to the videogame makers such as Wii and Nintendo (owned by Nintendo Company, Ltd.), PlayStation (a Sony property) and Xbox 360 (Microsoft) who dominate this industry.
However, because the Target network only features products sold by those three vendors, perhaps this corporate videogame troika is funding this entire project at Target. Only Target knows the answer to this question, and they aren't talking.
Generally the touchscreens responded quickly to inputs; however, one time that I touched the "Start Over" button, the screen froze up and remained frozen for at least three minutes. During the course of those frozen three minutes, the Target touchscreen asked several times "Are you still there. Please press Yes to Continue." When I responded by punching the "Yes," button, the screen remained frozen. However, when I failed to respond to the question, the touchscreen actually did start over. Go figure. Maybe it was time to leave.
Bill Collins is principal ofDecisionPoint Media Insights, which produces custom audience research for digital signage networks and digital place-based advertising. Collins can be reached atbill@decisionpointmedia.com.
(Photo courtesy of Bill Collins)
