Article

EnQii unlocks digital signage and mobile

EnQii's Stuart Armstrong talks about his company's latest effort to fully integrate digital signage and mobile technologies.

March 15, 2011 by Christopher Hall — w, t

The effective integration of digital signage and mobile technologies is probably the closest thing the digital signage industry has to a Holy Grail right now.

And digital signage mainstay EnQii recently launched a new mobile phone application that takes another step toward that integration.

EnQii's new Engage Passport app and platform appears to get closer to a true, two-way integration of the two technologies, according to Stuart Armstrong, EnQii's president - North America.

EnQii's Engage Passport app allows retailers or other deployers to not only target smart phone users with promotions but to also tailor the messaging on their digital signage screens to fit one customer's profile or even multiple customers' profiles, the company said in a recent announcement.

Passport will be offered as a "white-labeled" mobile application to retailers who are using EnQii's EnGage digital signage system as well as retailers who may be using other signage systems, the company said.

Armstrong talked briefly yesterday about the importance of mobile integration, both to EnQii and to the digital signage industry at large.

"We think it's huge," he said. "We think that – although the wave of adoption and the industry growth in digital signage is significant – we believe that the mobile and social media wave is much, much larger and that both retailers and very importantly consumers expect there to be a digital connectivity between what they see in an in-store environment, what they experienced at a website and what they're utilizing their phone for."

And that level of intimacy between a venue – whether it be a doctor's office, a light rail transit station, a retail operation or a QSR – and its audience can be triggered through digital signage and taken home in consumers' pockets on their smartphone, through the use of mobile applications, he said.

The tricky part isn't the one-way interface from a digital sign to a mobile phone, he said, noting the proliferation of access nodes like QR codes being embedded in digital signage.

The tricky part is the routing back of information to the digital signage to understand either on a one-on-one basis or an aggregate level what people are looking at, what they're responding to and what their frame of mind is, he said.

"If you can interpret the frame of mind and the need state of your audience at that time, you can begin to change the information on the digital signs," he said. "And that level of integration is what we're thinking is important between digital signage and the mobile applications."

The customer downloads the EnGage Passport mobile app and is prompted to check in through a digital sign as they enter the store. When they check in, the retailer knows who they are and where they are. The retailer can send targeted offers to their phone or even change the message on the digital screen to tailor it to the customer's profile. The customer can use the mobile app to look at what is available in the store and even post messages and images to Facebook to interact with their friends.

"We are very excited by this new product," EnQii CEO Ajay Chowdhury said in the company's announcement of the launch. "One of the biggest challenges retailers face today is recognizing when their on-line customers enter their physical stores. EnGage Passport allows retailers to manage their multi-channel interactions with their customers and allows them to make targeted offers to their online and social customers when they are most ready to buy in the physical store. This closes the loop for retailers and allows them to compete more effectively with their online-only rivals."

According to EnQii, EnGage Passport is a suite of Web services that provide services to support a product catalog, product details, and couponing. The EnGage Passport white-labeled App, which is available for rebranding and enhancement, is currently available on Android and will shortly be built for the iPhone.

The App provides a store locator capability, a hierarchical product catalog and a "wallet" for coupons. This wallet capability is used to store coupons that are captured from QR codes displayed on digital signs or in print media, and can be integrated with a loyalty program to provide a single integrated mobile/web/store customer experience. Once stored, coupons can be recalled for display at point-of-purchase or integrated with a store's enterprise systems to provide additional redemption options, according to EnQii.

The EnGage suite of products consists of the EnGage content management and networking platform, EnGage Menu (menuboarding software), EnGage Creator (message creation software), EnGage Music (integrated in-store music software), EnGage Content Apps (online content store) and EnGage Passport (mobile application).

This suite has been tailored for three key market segments: digital merchandising for retailers and financial services; campaign management for advertising networks; and merchandising for food service companies.

More information on EnGage Passport is available in a recently-published white paper available for download.

About Christopher Hall

---

None

Connect with Christopher: