Touch-screen kiosks allow customers to customize their own jerseys.
Dynamic experiences
Compared to earlier methods for increasing customers’ affinity for the Jays’ brand, one of the new challenges this time was to create a more immersive, engaging and interactive environment. Shikatani Lacroix proposed a number of digital signage-based ‘experiences’ to respond to this challenge on multiple levels.
“In some projects, digital signage is just laid on top of everything else, but here we were able to integrate it from the start,” says Dirstein. “We’ve been sensitive about installing it where it’s actually needed. Digital signage can become expensive and you have to be able to show your client a return on investment (ROI).”
The resulting layout features 16 screens and seven unique digital experiences. Customers are first greeted by 10 screens at the entrance, then led through the store by other digital signage placements, including a multi-screen animated hat wall.
“The screens at the front are in a mixed configuration behind cut-out acrylic letters,” Terenzio explains. “They showcase great moments in the Jays’ history. We created that content by combining branding, timelines and baseball imagery.”
The store is designed to showcase a broad range of fashion items for various demographics.
The hat wall, meanwhile, combines printed images on backlit panels with three 1.4-m (55-in.) liquid crystal displays (LCDs) in landscape mode that display images of various players in between interstitials and other spots.
Secondary screens promote exclusive merchandise that is not available anywhere else outside the Rogers Centre. In the jersey department, for example, touch-screen kiosks allow customers to customize their own products. And at the very back of the store, a 2.2-m (85-in.) ultra high-definition (UHD) ‘4K’ screen features live feeds of the Jays’ games and, when they’re not playing, a custom mix of branded, historical and promotional content.
“Digital signage helps us expand the range of communications in the store,” says Terenzio. “Our three-step approach in enhancing the retail environment is: attract, transact, retain.”
Shikatani Lacroix worked with audiovisual (AV) service and installation provider CaTech Systems, based in Markham, Ont., to configure the new Jays Shop’s digital signage network, with Actineon media players running Moxie content management software developed by Omnivex in Concord, Ont.
“We’re hardware- and software-agnostic,” says Dirstein. “We just find out what systems will deliver what’s needed.”
Exceeding expectations
The store opened in August 2014, with thousands of visitors lining up to check it out and meet some of the Jays in person. Staff reported strong sales and the store exceeded revenue expectations in its first month of operation. In particular, the newly introduced fashions and other products for women and youth sold exceptionally well. Not only was transaction volume very high within the first few weeks, but the average purchase per customer was also higher than anticipated.
“We had great traffic when the store was inside Sears at the north end of the mall,” Dirstein says. “The Eaton Centre is going through a lot of changes and, as it’s redeveloped, our new store is in a great position and can drive a lot of its own traffic as a destination unto itself.”
With files from Shikatani Lacroix. For more information, visit www.sld.com.
