"Retail will take over brand communication".
Scala manager Matthias Hofmann sees stationary retail in the future more as a place of experience for brand presentation than as a pure point of sale. Digital signage will therefore become a success factor.
Retail is in a state of flux. Customers increasingly expect shopping to be an experience and for individual advice to be provided on all aspects of a product. At the same time, brand awareness and the desire for identity-forming goods that underline one's own personality are on the rise. Consumer goods and services are increasingly becoming an expression of the consumer's social attitude. The question of what suits me as a buyer is being asked more and more frequently.
A trend that goes far beyond the mere satisfaction of needs. The answer to this question could increasingly be provided by retailers, who could stage individual brands and products directly at the point of sale. This could also become an attractive business model, especially for stationary retail.
"We will see that in the future, retail will no longer be measured only by the turnover of goods sold, but also by how it supports the marketing and brand communication of products and manufacturers," Matthias Hofmann is certain. Hofmann is DACH manager of digital signage market leader Scala and a proven retail expert.
In the medium term, this could lead to completely different business models. Instead of just putting goods on shelves and hoping that the customer will grab them, holistic worlds of experience could be created that bind shoppers to a particular brand and make it seem fascinating. Retailers could thus not only profit from trade margins and advertising cost subsidies, but also get a slice of the marketing and advertising budgets, much like the web currently does. "Where else but directly at the point of sale could a brand or product be made more tangible?" asks Hofmann. Ideally, strong retail brands ally with strong product brands in communication, thus ensuring maximum image transfers and advances in trust.
To make this possible, further digitization of retail and a new awareness of a modern customer experience are necessary. Technologies such as virtual and augmented reality, individual and customer-related information displays via monitors or the shopper's smartphone, as well as artificial intelligence, nearfield communication and social media applications would have to become more prevalent in retail. "Brand staging in retail means addressing customers with all their senses and individually and satisfying their information interests before they have thought or voiced them themselves. Modern brand communication is proactive," says the Scala manager.
Scala improves the customer experience through intelligent Internet-based digital signage solutions for displays in stationary retail, on mobile devices and websites. The subsidiary of US digital signage provider Stratacache delivers the software platform to create an optimal shopping experience that can be flexibly tailored to individual customer needs and preferences. Scala has 30 years of industry experience in developing and selling innovative, revenue-generating, best-of-breed technologies such as mobile and predictive analytics that are easy to use yet offer many options for individual benefit optimization. Scala has a presence in more than 90 countries and operates more than half a million digital advertising spaces worldwide. The company is headquartered in Philadelphia, USA, with EMEA headquarters in Sittard, Netherlands.
