The writer is editor of SelfService.org.
Some shoppers cruise to the mall in mid-sized automobiles to sort through racks of chiffon skirts with polka dots while listening to piped-in light jazz. And some shoppers ride to their favorite store on wooden boards and bang their heads to heavy metal while they buy bearings and black t-shirts.
West 49 courts the latter. And when the Canadian skateboard shops realized they could increase sales by getting their customers to hang out longer, they turned to self-service for the answer. The company built nine multimedia pilot stores, with projection screens showing skate videos, music videos and commercials. They built stages to host rock bands inside the new stores. And they installed multimedia kiosks.
"(The kiosks) provide another element of the shopping experience for our customer, just to expand on the community that we've started to build online and trying to integrate that into the store experience as well," West 49 head of advertising Brent Laderoute said. "A lot of the music content is uploaded by independent bands or bands on smaller labels. They upload it to our Web site and that same content is also available on our kiosks, so customers can listen to independent bands around the world, basically."
West 49 contracted ADFLOW Networks to deploy digital signage and manage the signs' content. The company already showed in-store video on traditional media, and upgraded its delivery onto remote-managed digital signs.
"They run skateboard videos on screens in their shops — kids knocking their heads, all that scary kind of stuff," ADFLOW Networks vice president of sales Wayne Ruttle said. "Half the problem was the monitor was turned off, or the DVD player didn't work, that kind of stuff. They were digging (remote content management). That was a no-brainer."
The two companies' collaborative efforts then evolved into building a system of entertainment kiosks to increase customer loyalty.
"One day, I was in a meeting with (West 49), and they were discussing how they can keep kids in the store longer," Ruttle said. "Twenty minutes more in the store equates to $20 more per kid. So we said we'll throw a kiosk in there and call it a jukebox, or a video box. A kid could go in there, sit on a stool, put headphones on, touch an Elo touchscreen, and watch videos or listen to music."
