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Platt Retail Institute reveals audience stats for Whole Foods digital signage installation

October 13, 2009

In a Retail Week article posted Tuesday, PressDOOH founder Dave Haynes summarized a report from the Platt Retail Institute on the effectiveness of digital signage at Whole Foods stores.

According to the article, stores in Chicago and Toronto deployed "digital screens to help vendors raise brand and product awareness, educate shoppers and, most critically, drive sales."

Each store operates 11 zones, which each run custom content based on what is sold there, such as bakery products, seafood or produce. Each screen is equipped a small camera, which records who is looking at the screen and for how long. That information is sent to a software program that can determine face counts, dwell time and gender. Information is then turned into "Pulse Analytics," which can be used by the Whole Foods management to make marketing decisions.

• The technology shows shoppers are engaging with the screens for less than three seconds on average, with some spots appearing to hold attention longer than others.
• Foot traffic in a typical store is about 100,000 monthly, and the impression count suggests more than 75 percent viewership store by store.
• Peak time-of-day impressions vary considerably from store to store. Early to mid-afternoon is consistently a high-traffic period, but while impressions drop off steadily after that in a suburban location, they stay high through the dinner hour at a more urban location and actually peak mid-evening in the Chicago store.
• Tuesday is the strongest weekday for audiences, while Saturday is the best day of the week in the Toronto stores. Sunday is slightly beter than Saturday in the Chicago store.
• Results vary by store, but the grocery and supplements sections are strong. The stations where there are not typically brand-oriented messages are the weakest — such as seafood, meat and produce.
• The gender breakdown is more than two-to-one female over male, but the data show in some locations the male percentage is higher at certain stations, such as prepared foods.

*Editors note: What is most interesting, however, are the reactions from retail consultants and marketers in the comments section below the article. Most understand the value of in-store digital media but aren't convinced this installation covers all the bases in order to take full advantage of the medium. Here are a few excerpted comments:

"Am I missing something, or does this article ignore the single most important data source available — POS transaction logs (T-logs)? … At the risk of sounding harsh, who cares if shoppers spend 3 seconds vs. 4 seconds gazing at a plasma screen showing ads unless it actually changes shopper behavior?"   "Most of the things you mentioned were things that any retailer worth his salt should already know… I assume it will take some time to gather enough data to do this. It still begs the question — what's it going to accomplish? Is it going to help sell more goods? Make for more efficient assortments? Better store design? Or is it another exercise in statistical self-satisfaction?"

"While I applaud the effort mentioned above, I believe that it is still a case of not fully understanding the true value of the retail environment. Success at retail is measured in sales; shoppers register their approval by opening their wallets ... simple as that."

"The real problem here is that there is a beguiling tendency to think of television and computer screens when thinking about digital media in-store … The problem is so bad that I have resorted to saying ‘shoppers are NOT an audience!!!' The ephemeral, incidental exposures in the store are mostly an addition to the clutter already there."

Read the entire article here (requires free registration).