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Digital signage meets up with social & mobile in Sin City

MGM Resorts' VP of Multimedia talks about the intersection of digital signage, social media, mobile on the Strip.

August 14, 2012 by Christopher Hall — w, t

MGM Resorts International has gone digital in a big way in its Las Vegas properties, deploying hundreds of digital signage screens across the Vegas Strip.

With roughly 500 NEC large-screen displays deployed throughout MGM's properties and running on Four Winds Interactive software, digital signage is a key component in the company's strategy for guest relations.

But according to MGM Vice President of Multimedia Randy Dearborn, what the company's done so far has just scratched the digital signage surface.

MGM owns and operates some of the best-known attractions in Las Vegas, including The Mirage, Bellagio, Monte Carlo, New York-New York, Excalibur, Luxor, Mandalay Bay, MGM Grand, The Signature at MGM Grand, Aria, Vdara, Circus Circus and the new CityCenter.

And while it may take some convincing to get the first new-concept digital signage install done at one of those locations, Dearborn said that once it's up and running the rest of the properties will soon come calling.

Digital signage has been "incredibly important" to the MGM properties, Dearborn said in a recent interview, but the advantages it confers have been an "ever-changing thing."

At first, digital signage provided a "wow factor," especially in the "sensory overload" setting of the Vegas Strip. But as the price point of the screens has come down, Dearborn said he's been able to justify replacing static signage with digital signage to both save on printing and labor costs in posting and to take advantage of the dynamic capabilities of the medium.

Now, though, things are headed in a more interactive direction, he said.

When touch interactive screens first started hitting the MGM properties, members of the younger demographic would use them, while those in the older demographics would tend to shy away.

"Now everyone touches everything," Dearborn said.

The bigger picture, he said, is that the trends in digital signage are headed in three directions.

One, the operations and finance departments are starting to wonder what, analytically, is behind the screen. They want to know what people are looking at, he said. "Analytics is the next brave new world that we're heading into."

Two, digital signage is embracing social media. MGM has deployed digital signage "Twitter walls"at several of its properties and has been piloting a "photo booth" digital sign that allows customers to post pictures of themselves with Vegas celebrities to their Facebook walls. "It's been a huge hit — you get this interactivity between the customer and a screen, literally."

And three, as mobile-interactive technologies like mobile wallets and near-field communications come into play, the screens are going to become even more interactive, as customers will be able to wave their phones at a screen to download coupons or make reservations for dinner. "So now this one-way screen that would just push information out to you, you can now interact with it."

So far MGM has been "playing with" NFC in the back of the house, and preparing to roll it out when the market is ready, Dearborn said. They're still waiting for the manufacturers to start putting the technology into handsets, but there are rumors that the new iPhone is coming out next month, he said, which could start the ball rolling.

"The entire industry tends to follow what they're doing, and so it'll be interesting," Dearborn said. "I think if someone like Apple bakes an NFC chip into their phone this thing will take off. So we're kind of sitting waiting for it. We've been playing with it and we've been doing some stuff; it's just waiting for the consumer to get up to speed."

Perhaps the main challenge with analytics is just filtering through the "overwhelming" amount of data it can provide, Dearborn said. But it does have its advantages in smaller cases, too. For example, with one touchscreen deployed in front of one of the MGM's restaurants, the restaurant chef called to complain that the display wasn't helping to bring people in. Dearborn's team was able to look at the analytics, see that more than 550 people interacted with the screen in a 48-hour weekend period and suggested that the problem might lie elsewhere.

"I haven't heard back from them since, but without the analytics what would I have to back that?"

On the social media side, the company's Twitter wall deployments have been a huge hit, according to Dearborn. MGM has run out video walls showing selected, monitored Twitter feeds to several of its prime locations, and they've sometimes turned up some surprising results. For example, in one location Dearborn found that other venues within the property, such as restaurants and nightclubs, would on their own initiative start using the Twitter feed to run their own promotions and advertisements.

It's sometimes been tough to get the initial buy-in from the property on a project like that, he said, but once that happens, and once the other properties see it, "the next thing you know I've got every property calling me for one."

"Sometimes the biggest challenge can be getting across our vision to the operators, but [it becomes easier] once you get it out and they see what it is, and they can actually kind of touch and feel what it is ...," he said. "I call it the shiny ball syndrome. You've got the nice new shiny ball, and now everyone wants a new shiny ball."

And all the shiny new balls are helping the bottom line, in ways both obvious and obscure, he said.

At the Luxor, Dearborn said, the company pushed out a scavenger hunt on its digital signage screens for two tickets to the property's Criss Angel-Cirque du Soleil show. "We told people that two tickets were hiding in the Criss Angel store, and after we pushed it out, within 20 minutes had 300 people in the store looking for the tickets."

But it's still in its infancy, he said. There are more possibilities just waiting to be tapped.

"As we start to get more into the operations and into the mobile space, like with digital wine menus and things like that on tablets, that through the analytical side not only are we going to be able to see what people are looking at and what they like, but we'll be able to literally reshape inventory," he said. "We'll know no one is looking at these wines, so why are we warehousing these things?"

That means that not only will digital signage affect the company's return on investment in obvious ways, but also in less obvious ways like increased efficiencies in what the company buys and what it keeps in inventory.

"I think it will not only affect how we look at what the customer is looking at, but it will go all the way back to procurement," he said. "I really believe it's in its infancy; the first part was just getting the stuff out there."

Read more about digital signage trends.

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