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Getting engaged with digital in-store

Digital and conventional POP share commonalities, but only digital POP delivers relevance and influence to shoppers while tracking and reporting customer engagement.

December 7, 2011 by Ben Stagg — CTO, Vital Media, Inc

When it comes to fostering engagement at the point of decision, conventional and digital point of purchase (POP) have some obvious similarities and differences.

Similar to conventional POP marketing material, content is delivered to the shopper at the crucial moment where interest, means and opportunity come together. Unlike conventional POP, digital in-store POP has the ability to do more. This is important as the digital universe becomes more mainstream and shoppers' perceived benchmarks for how and what information they choose to digest escalates and they begin to expect more from marketing communications.

By delivering multiple messages per shopper and full-motion video support of the advertising message, digital in-store is better able to capture and retain viewers. One of the more compelling reasons to use digital in an informative capacity is the ability for full-motion video to reduce the mental effort required to learn complex mechanical concepts. Too much information, no matter what its value, can become cumbersome, overly technical and written essentially from one Ph.D. to another. Educating a shopper on the topic can be a hurdle most efficiently overcome with the use of animation and video.

The marriage of technology and shopper adoption of technology has provided an avenue to educate and inform shoppers like never before. True interactive applications such as kiosks and touch-enabled devices allow the shopper to select the most relevant information and continue the engagement by giving shoppers control. No longer do they feel like they are being pitched, but instead informed and educated on their terms during their shopping experience.

Though it is important to recognize the positive aspects of digital experiences from the shopper perspective, don't overlook one of the most powerful aspects of applying technology to the POP marketing mix. This is the fact that digital has the ability to deliver the same relevance, engagement and influence back to the brand or retailer by tracking and reporting how, when and for how long shoppers are engaged. In fact, likely the most interesting technology integration seen to date is the ability for signage solutions to work directly with POS and inventory databases. This provides a level of targeted messaging that can be updated practically in real time.

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