Dynamic Displays: Ambient interactivity

by all | 22 November 2013 8:30 am

By Michael Mascioni
Once considered a remote outpost of the art world, ‘ambient interactivity’ has recently emerged as a potent tool for marketing, entertainment and education, with special implications for digital signage displays. Whereas today’s standardized touch-screen kiosks could be referred to as ‘interactivity in a box,’ the field of ambient interactivity instead involves embedding or building interactive features into the physical environment surrounding the user, affording a more natural, flexible, fluid and dynamic experience.

Form factors range from interactive furniture, such as multi-touch-sensitive table displays, to kinetic-response spaces. These systems are enabling more expansive user experiences through the application of such technologies as gesture recognition and augmented reality (AR).

Tabling the evidence
A growing body of evidence has shown the significant marketing potential of multi-touch interactive tables and countertops in bars, restaurants, hotels and other gathering places. These systems typically allow customers to access an array of information and entertainment content, such as menus, tourist news or games. Their impact on business can be handily tracked, as they also allow customers to order and then pay for various products and services.

David Aichele, T1 Visions’ executive vice-president (EVP) of sales and marketing, says installations of his company’s InTouch multi-user, multi-touch-sensitive interactive tables in North America over the past several years have been generating “more revenue per table” for restaurants and bars than their non-interactive predecessors. In 2009, a study was conducted at an undisclosed restaurant using the interactive tables. As Aichele explains, the findings showed these tables earned 50 per cent higher revenues than the restaurant’s ‘regular’ tables.

Indeed, in restaurants that use both InTouch systems and regular tables, the interactive tables usually represent the highest percentage of occupied seats, suggesting customers are drawn to them. At the Cowfish Sushi Burger Bar, for example, a ‘build-your-own-fish’ game—which allowed customers to create an avatar with a touch screen embedded into the sushi bar, then send it onto a large, dual-screen ‘fish tank’ display—got locals talking and attracted new business.

“The response during the first six months was phenomenal,” says Alan Springate, the restaurant’s owner. “The touch screens and the game brought cutting-edge technology to our restaurant. We well exceeded our financial projections, due in large part to the ‘talkability’ factor.”

Similar results have been achieved elsewhere, too. Dax Patton, director of business operations for Digital Touch Systems, reports the Touch Café in Chisinau, Moldova, experienced an “over 14 per cent increase in sales” after it used his company’s T3 interactive tables.

Of course, there can be benefits to organizations beyond increased sales. The Minimally Invasive Spine Institute (MINI) Surgery Center in Dallas, Texas, uses four touch-sensitive counter displays in a waiting room to allow patients to check themselves in. These screens are integrated through practice management software with digital signs throughout the facility’s examination, pre-operation and post-operation rooms, along with medical and surgical information controlled from nursing stations. Together, this technology has increased surgeons’ efficiency.

“It’s not often surgeons have the opportunity to practise at a facility built with our needs in mind,” says Dr. Michael Rimlawi, co-chair of the centre’s board of directors.

Shaking up shelves
In Portugal, YDreams has developed not only multi-touch tables, but also interactive furniture, benches and shelves for marketing campaigns, museum exhibits and other applications. One example was a promotional campaign for J&B Whiskey in Jumbo supermarkets, which used interactive shelves to help the client’s products stand out from the competition. When customers approached, the gesture-sensitive displays reacted with vibrating glass bottles, an elaborate light show and a distinctive musical jingle. The idea was to simulate the sensation of drinking in an entertaining environment.

“By drawing attention to the whiskey products and the brand, it established a significant relationship with consumers,” says Filipe Vasconcellos, spokesperson for YDreams.

The shelves were shown to enhance the shopping experience.

“They induced impulse purchases, while also gathering customer statistics and providing data for further analysis,” says Vasconcellos.

Shimmering walls
Walls can also become dynamic content delivery systems. HypoSurface, for example, is a three-dimensional (3-D) structure whose entire surface can physically shift and move. It can display a message or logo, but can also react to interactive inputs with movement, making it more versatile than other digital signage.

The wall can be triggered by touch, sound or kinetic movement. It can also be fed content through Internet feeds or apps. With the scale of its structure and movement, it has the potential to provide a highly immersive experience for the viewer.

As such, instead of using full-motion video to capture attention in the first place, like most digital signage deployments, the movement of the screens themselves is more likely to draw the eye of passersby, followed by the emergence of on-screen content from the fluid, luminous surface of the wall, with video overlaid onto the movement.

“Typically, physical dynamics attract users immediately,” says Simon Berger, founder of IM2 Events and marketing director for HypoSurface. “Like a finely controlled liquid, this technology is emblematic of the new media of movement.”

Berger explains a recent soft launch with pneumatic technology will soon be followed by an electromagnetic (EM) version, which will more easily display text and visual content on the various screens. Digital out-of-home (DOOH) advertising firms can purchase the intellectual property (IP) outright or simply add HypoSurface as another option in their ‘pipeline.’

Berger is also marketing the system on a modular plug-and-play basis for permanent installations in suitable areas with high levels of pedestrian traffic, including airports, stadiums, shopping malls, theme parks, nightclubs and casinos.

Another business model involves an advertising revenue-sharing arrangement for video wall applications, whereby revenues generated through DOOH advertising are split once the licensee earns a capital expenditure (capex) return.

“Already, companies like JCDecaux and Clear Channel have expressed interest in the system,” says Berger. “It is also being marketed directly to brand owners and through their agencies. And it will be available for multi-event rentals.”

The next generation
From multi-touch tables to gesture-sensitive merchandising displays to immersive video walls, digital signage is going to be delivered in increasingly dynamic formats in the next few years, with interactivity becoming more prevalent. Ambient interactivity offers the promise to substantially expand the scope of digital displays and achieve much greater sensory impact with passersby. Conventional notions of interactivity have already been fundamentally transcended, as an entirely new generation of digital signage is ushered in.

Michael Mascioni is an independent market research consultant and project manager in the digital out-of-home (DOOH) advertising industry. This article is based on part of his upcoming book, The Out of Home Interactive Entertainment Frontier, co-authored with Kevin Williams. For more information, contact Mascioni at (212) 688-4781 or via e-mail at mmmascioni@aol.com[5]. To order the book from Gower Publishing, visit www.ashgate.com[6].

Source URL: https://www.signmedia.ca/ambient-interactivity/

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