Projectors create a ‘digital wallpaper’ effect on the rear walls.
All of the bars at Splitsville’s locations feature their own banks of large monitors to communicate with customers. The lounge areas feature arrays of 0.8 to 1-m (32 to 43-in.) screens, numbering anywhere from 11 to 14, depending on the size of the location. These video walls are similar to those that have rapidly become a mainstay of airports, office lobbies, car dealerships, hotels, call centres (for displaying performance dashboards) and other venues.
Up to three satellite dishes per Splitsville location deliver the customized AV content to the various displays. The screens are also connected to the Bowling Music Network, which runs commercials every 15 minutes. This frequency can be adjusted according to a location’s needs and audience.
At the Hamilton facility, newer display synchronization technology has been deployed that allows for an increased selection of screen-splitting options, based on 16 to 20 inputs that can be loaded from the head office in Oakville.
“We can dictate what we want to feed into those panes at any time,” says Haggerty. “There is some additional integration we need to do. Once that’s done, we will be moving that technology into our other locations, too.”
Commercial-grade components
Each of the on-site installations cost more than $1 million. Haggerty explains one of the key factors determining the scale of this investment was selecting commercial-grade digital display technologies to ensure high image quality and longer useful life. While pricing differential with consumer-grade screens has narrowed considerably, there are still nuances to higher-grade displays that are appealing in the commercial marketplace, such as much thinner bezels—in some cases less than 2 mm (0.08 in.)—for creating large, seamless video walls.
Beyond the hardware, the quality of the on-screen content is also crucial in capturing the audience’s attention and interest. The aforementioned Accenture study found millennials are particularly influenced by rich video and graphics and engaged by multimedia and multichannel communications, which have all become more easily achieved with advanced software that minimizes the cost and complexity of integrating multiple assets.
“It’s part of today’s reality,” Haggerty says. “Ads are not enough on their own. If you’re selling a hot dog, for example, a static picture of a regular one might seem fine, but if you instead present a richer, moving image of a foot-long with all the trimmings, you can do more to appeal to your customers’ instant gratification needs.”
A journey of many steps
Among the next steps for Splitsville will be adding interactivity with the installation of new digital-display scoring systems. Customers will be able to e-mail their scores, sign up for promotions, collect points, reserve lanes and input other data.
Splitsville’s digital signage journey is a telling testament to the power of visual experiences for today’s consumers. When a digital signage experience is excellent, millennials and other consumers will follow it, whether it relates to retailers clamouring for attention in a shopping mall or to an activity like bowling that has often been considered an outdated tradition. Indeed, now that dynamc display technology has become more affordable and easier to install and manage, businesses of any size in any market can step up their digital signage game to better capture their audience’s attention.
Deidre Deacon is general manager (GM) of ViewSonic Canada, a provider of liquid crystal displays (LCDs), plasma displays, digital projectors and other visual technologies. For more information, visit viewsonic.com.
