News

Digital signage 'catalyst' for bank-wide renovations at Huntington

July 10, 2011

American Banker recently took a look at how Ohio's Huntington bank is undertaking "a locally-focused branch renovation that will use lots of video and digital signage capabilities to deliver rapidly updated information and services on-screen, customized by each location's needs."

"Digital signage is the catalyst," according to the article.

The renovations are being spearheaded by David Hawkins, the company's senior vice president of customer experience who came over to Huntington from Umpqua late last year to help drive the modernization of Huntington's retail operation.

The $70 million project will upgrade about 100 of the bank's 600 branches in its five-state retail network each quarter, with an aimed-for completion by 2012.

In addition to the internal project team, the project also involves external partners Arnold Worldwide, an ad agency, and Stratacache, a digital content distributor.

Branches will be outfitted with multiple 40-inch digital signage displays showing tailored content controlled remotely. Stratacache will provide a Web-based product that will allow the bank to create, schedule, manage and monitor messaging in the branches from the marketing office. The product will deliver to the bank's branch network a content playlist containing both promotional messages as well as customized local content.

"Only recently has [retail branch] video become more sophisticated," says Steve Tom, vice president and associate creative director at Arnold, who says the tailored video content aims to take the consumer outside of "just the banking world," making the branch experience a component of an engagement with a larger community that includes the bank branch, local businesses and neighborhood news and events. "Once we connect with the consumer, it's a little easier to start a product conversation," Tom says.