French Retail Network

Druckversion

Digital signage roll-out for a French retailer across 80 stores.
 
Retailers thinking of investing in digital signage solutions in order to obtain potential customers’ attention and influence their purchasing decisions have to consider not only the short-term requirements, but also the long-term, such as the flexibility and longevity of the technology installed. On the one hand, quick-fix solutions might not have the durability required and may need updating, but, on the other hand, custom-made products can be very expensive. In any digital signage project, the methods for updating the content and its ease-of-use are crucial factors to keep in mind.
 
Fnac, an international entertainment retail chain and the largest retailer of its kind in France with 2.2 million members, decided it wanted full HD video and image quality digital signage rolled out across all of its 80 retail stores in France.
 
Each of the 80 stores had to have three different eye-catching, full-screen, HD digital signage programmes running and playing videos mixed with still images. Another requirement was that the televisions for sale in the electrical department had to run promotions and sample video content in-synch with each other, in full HD quality, to enable customers to compare the TVs more easily. Multiple portrait displays mounted as large video walls show promotions for upcoming events and concerts, and show up-to-date pricing, times and dates. Displays were also located next to the store shelves to run store-wide savings and other promotions. The content running in all of these three areas needed to be accessed locally at each individual store, but also from head office on a daily basis for in-store promotional updates.
 
In this project, more than 3,000 digital displays were installed to run up-to-date HD video content and promotions throughout the 80 stores, all driven by 1,500 networked BrightSign media players, with the content managed by the BrightSign Network from Fnac’s head office and staff in the regional stores.
 
“With its extremely reliable and feature-rich solid-state media players, BrightSign has reached a milestone in the digital signage industry, as it allows system integrators to offer powerful and cost-effective digital signage solutions to retailers like never before.” said Michel Baronnier, CEO of TMM Communication, the French digital signage provider selected for the Fnac project.
 
TMM proposed using a combination of Roku’s BrightSign solid-state media players and the BrightSign Network solution. They created a unique interface software specifically designed by TMM for the Fnac project to enable easy content management. The solid state design provides high reliability, supports networking for remote updates and is more affordable than PC-based solutions, both in terms of unit and network service pricing.
 
TMM chose the HD210 and HD1010 BrightSign networked models. From basic looping video to fully interactive solutions, they allow content to be delivered remotely and provide a variety of remote management and reporting functions. Both models support the full range of networking options, allowing customers to configure and manage digital signage networks using software or scripting.
 
Roku’s BrightSign CEO Jeff Hastings explained, “By creating a product line of five new BrightSign models, we’ve taken our products to a new level. Rather than offering fully-loaded models with features that may not be necessary for all applications, we’ve packaged each model with specific software and hardware capabilities that we’ve found are most popular to the wide range of digital signage applications out there. Now you only pay for what you need and save money in the process.”
 
The BrightSign Network was chosen as it is an all-inclusive networking solution based on xml technology, which allows software developers to connect to BrightSign’s hosted network service, providing value-added features like the interface TMM developed for Fnac. The software simplifies the presentation creation and content update process, and interfaces with the BrightSign Network service to ensure smooth updates without having to access all of the management features. This links in to execute the publishing of presentations to the 80 Fnac locations throughout France. A key benefit of the core effort TMM put into the development of this unique interface is that it can be repurposed for future projects.
 
All BrightSign models benefit from high video quality and relevant digital signage and kiosk functions without the complexity of PC-based solutions. Their simple plug-and-play platform makes it easier to create engaging, innovative display experiences with many of today’s standard media files, including MPEG-4 part 10/H.264. Playback is also made simple using SD cards containing content and playlists.