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Interactive retail screen media's personalized future, Pt. II
In this two-parter from digital screen media consultant Bill Collins, DST takes a look at how the MIT Media Lab's "Glass Infrastructure" points to the personalized future of interactive retail screen media.
(This is the second part of a two-part article on innovations coming out of the MIT Media Lab in interactive digital signage and how they could point toward the future of retail screen media, Click here to read part one. - ed.)
Researcher sees retail as the next frontier for "Adaptive Experiences"
Because of Chaki Ng's background in "Adaptive Learning" (He was the co-founder of an eLearning firm called Interactive Constructs.), he has a unique perspective on how children and adults think and learn. This helps Ng understand the opportunity that retailers now have to leverage personalized interactive technology like The Glass Infrastructure screen media network that will help shoppers navigate and shop stores in a way that's easier, more fun and more personalized.
"No two learners learn the same way and at the same pace," Ng said, "so you need to personalize and follow their ‘path' to learning … This concept of ‘adaptive' is now very popular and is quite well-understood by people involved in eLearning and Ecommerce, but in physical spaces like retail we have not yet developed these adaptive experiences."
In retail, shoppers go into a store and look at merchandise organized in aisles and buy it if they like it, Ng says. That process of shopping hasn't really changed for thousands of years, and shoppers essentially rely on the retailer to present them what the retailer thinks they'll like, he says.
In a retail store, a shopper's feet act the way that a mouse acts with a computer, and the shopper "browses" the store by moving from one place to another, he says. To look for something, shoppers often look at static signage to sort by category and sometimes ask a sales associate, then point their mouse (feet) to the target space, he says. They look, see something and move in the direction to where they might want to buy something, he says.
"If I don't see something, chances are I won't know it exist somewhere in the store," Ng said. "This reminds me a lot of directory-based search engines from the 1990s. It also reminds me that retail physical space is not yet smart enough to help me explore something in a less linear and more spontaneous and fun fashion."
Conventional wayfinding directories: they don't know who you are
To help people navigate retail stores, shopping malls and other large venues, Ng pointed out that the in-store digital navigation tool that is used most often today – electronic directories – do little more than duplicate the printed building directories they replaced.
"They (the electronic directories) are one-size-fits-all," Ng said. "They install five screens, but the screens all say the same thing and display everything possible … The directory doesn't know who I am nor help me explore more easily."
Those screens need to be made more personal so that they can display more appropriate information about their respective areas, Ng says. To fix this problem, he suggests emulating the Netflix or Amazon.com model — where the website recognizes the online shopper and makes recommendations based on the pattern of her previous "stops" on the site — inside the store.
Ng says the interactive on-screen features of The Glass Infrastructure such as "I'm Interested" and "More Like This" just scratch the surface of this personalized interactivity, in which a specific visitor to a public space is recognized electronically and the media network makes recommendations to that visitor.
However, as retailers leverage their loyalty-card data and transaction data to provide consumers with opt-in choices, Ng says that is when networks like The Glass Infrastructure will take digital screen media to the next level at retail.
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 Chaki Ng)
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