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![]() Westfield Centre, Stratford City: Making a big statement with digital signage
By Louis M. Brill
Westfield drove the desire for these digital screens and commissioned Esprit Digital (Herts, England) to facilitate the delivery at the new shopping centre.
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Westfield Stratford City - Largest Urban Shopping Mall in Europe
Between Westfield - Stratford City's enormous size and unique location, the mall is also at the crossroads of much of London's cultural, retail and fashion activities. The shopping centre is located in close proximity to the new London Olympic Park, site of the 2012 Olympic Summer Games which will host summer sports of cycling, swimming, diving, track & field and gymnastics. It is estimated that 70% of all Olympic Games attendees are expected to pass through the mall. Another tremendous addition to Westfield - Stratford City's daily attendance is that it is also located directly above Stratford London, the underground tube (subway) platform serving that part of the city. Between subway passengers, Olympic ticket holders, and mall shoppers, Westfield - Stratford City promises to be one busy mall during the summer of 2012. With this massive influx of public traffic constantly circulating throughout the mall, it was only natural for Westfield to incorporate a state-of-the-art digital signage media system to keep Westfield's customers connected to the mall and its on-site tenants. Furthermore with the Olympic Games happening literally next door to the mall, it is a great opportunity for Westfield - Stratford City to use their digital signage to compliment the competitions as they occur.
The overall Westfield Centre digital signage was presented in at least three layers: several outdoor LED displays, an interior third party digital advertising network sponsored by CBS Outdoor, and a massive interior digital sign system that will be discussed within this article.
"The importance of digital signage at Westfield Centre-Stratford City was emphasized by Myf Ryan, General Manager of Marketing UK, Westfield, who noted, "The on-going inclusion of digital signage is now seen as a fundamental component of shopping centre operations and is vital in enhancing the shopper's customer experience by educating them on product offerings, brand awareness and reinforcing a positive shopping experience at the mall. The scale and scope of digital signage for customer messaging and content is as yet unmatched in other UK shopping centres."
Esprit Digital & Signs Up
In regard to Westfield - Stratford City, it was obvious notes Esprit Managing Director, Peter Livesey, "that in working inside of one of the largest shopping malls in Europe, Westfield wanted, and we recommended, digital displays of equal scale to provide maximum viewing opportunities and relevant Westfield media content for their audiences. As well, there was also the issue of where to place these display screens in terms of accessible audience through points within the mall."
"To meet these objectives, we created several types of digital displays from single screen modules to massive video wall set ups that in some cases, occupied the entire length of a mall wall. These video screens were either located in front of an anchor tenant's store or by a mall traffic hub such as near an escalator landing, allowing customers passing by to have good viewing opportunities of the various digital displays."
Video Wall Fabrication Building Blocks
The Samsung display was used both as a standalone screen and as a tiling component to build the various video walls deployed around Westfield - Stratford City. The Samsung module was selected for its ultra narrow bezel which offered as little side-by-side seam separation as possible and is an important feature when multiple displays are tiled together and built up into a video wall. The video wall design is very scalable, and in planning the various video walls, depending on location, a certain sized video wall was recommended for that site. In all, at least 16 video walls were recommended and installed throughout the Westfield - Stratford City.
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As for various video walls deployments around Westfield - Stratford City, the importance of digital media at the Centre was not to be understated noted Livesey." With an emphasis on brand partner visibility and keeping customers informed of mall event activates, Westfield - Stratford City wanted big video walls and they wanted them everywhere." Below is a review of the video walls installed by Esprit Digital at Westfield - Stratford City, including the following:
In a turnaround of display configurations, there was also an equal emphasis on individual stand-alone screens, using a single screen with several deployments, some free standing and some wall mounted, as follows:
Each video wall had its own media player and all media players were managed by a Scala Content Manager that uploaded that video wall's unique content to its specific video wall and then displayed the content as scheduled. Once the Westfield digital signage went live, Esprit initially managed its operation for several months while they also trained an on-site staff to eventually take over its day-to-day operation. In turn, Westfield's in-house creative team also managed most of the mall's sign content as they either created it or in some cases acquired it from the brand's creative agency and then incorporated it into their various digital sign systems. "With the Westfield - Stratford City digital sign system operational," Ryan noted, "Our retail tenants absolutely loved their access to the digital screens and used the system to advertise their product which helped to increase their store traffic and drive sales. "
Livesey also emphasized that Esprit is able to do remote real time maintenance on Westfield's digital signage from their home office in North London. If a component of that digital sign system goes down, Esprit would know about it pretty quickly and have a crew on it as soon as possible.
Westfield Digital Content - A Little of Everything The smaller LCD Mini Wafer displays were 100% dedicated to marketing, promoting Westfield in-house events such as off-hours discounts, parking rates, and upcoming fashion shows or cooking demonstrations as they occurred. In terms of creating appropriate customer engagement experiences, an immediate digital display opportunity will be some kind of coverage of the Olympic 2012 Summer Games. Once the Olympic Games have ended, Ryan noted, further digital display coverage may in the future include other live events such as music concerts, live entertainment, and other relevant presentations that would compel our customers to return to Westfield - Stratford City on a continual basis."
The Concierge of Successful Customer Experiences Louis M. Brill is a journalist and consultant for high-tech entertainment and media communications. He can be reached at (415) 664-0694 or louisbrill@sbcglobal.net
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