Leading the way is group director for innovation and technology EMEA, Bobbie Andrews.
Mobile and digital technology is helping to make point of sale print more effective in retail environments, as well as providing data to prove its effectiveness. Delta Group has set up a specialist team to investigate further possibilities.
In earlier times, the brief for Lick Creative’s Innovation and Technology Department would have been a daunting one: prove that in-store point of sale (POS) print is having a positive effect on sales and quantify its impact.
Fortunately, today there are technologies already at hand – as well as more in the offing – that can help to do just that. As part of the ‘visual communications specialist’ Delta Group, which has long been one of the UK’s premier retail and cinema POS print suppliers, Lick Creative has the muscle to harness these technologies, test them and bring them to its customers’ attention.
It is doing so through a new Innovations Lab – a dedicated environment within Delta Group’s vast Waltham Cross site to showcase ‘the latest in technology-enhanced creative approaches for clients’. Leading the way is group director for innovation and technology EMEA, Bobbie Andrews.
‘The mind-set of the business is to prove that what we do works, and so far we have shown that print has a really positive effect in-store,’ he told Digital Printer. ‘We are starting to prove it to our clients and they are starting to understand it.’
He says these words in the Innovation Lab, where he is surrounded by a good deal of unseen technology – Bluetooth Beacons, Audience Monitoring, for examples – that has been incorporated into printed retail displays. There is HD lenticular and 3D-Holographic shelf edge projection to also catch the eye, and a big Virtual Reality screen that allows you to zap attacking aliens just by moving your hands.
All of these technologies are designed to engage with the consumer, to communicate information to them, to track their reactions, to help increase dwell time, to give them a more immersive experience – and all of them are linked to promotional print for the retail or cinema space.
Referring to his boss, Delta Group chief executive Mike Phillips, Mr Andrews continued: ‘Mike wanted to go into meetings and unequivocally say: this is what we have delivered and we can tell you whether it’s been good or bad. We have got a great print product with fantastic quality; it’s arresting and works in-store. Certain clients have seen print drop and we can now go back and say: this is what’s really true about your campaigns; this is what they are delivering. We can say that it works, that it’s engaging and, most importantly, that it’s at the point of sale.’
Mr Andrews’ job is to ascertain client requirements and recommend the right technology solution for the campaign needs. ‘No-one comes to us and says they want NFC though. They might say they want to talk to people directly from their shop window.’
He went on: ‘It’s about finding horses for courses, solutions for what they want to achieve with a campaign. Our biggest job is just sieving through. We’ve got ten technologies in this room and that many again that we are playing with before we take it to customers. Once we get them to work and understand how they add value to the client, that’s when we can offer them proper solutions. For me, it’s all about relevancy. If it’s not relevant to the campaign, the results are not going to be very good and they will not want to use it again.’
Many of these solutions are tied to that device that most of us have about our person: the mobile phone. Bluetooth Beacons, for instance, can be integrated into a piece of printed point of sale in-store. They can be used to recognise when a consumer has the particular store app on their phone and can instantly deliver special offers to the consumer while they are at the point of sale. Mr Andrews believes they have the potential to provide an answer to many retail issues but, he says, no-one has found the killer execution yet.
Audience Monitoring, by contrast, is great for testing which creative execution works best and is already being used by a number of big brands, informing them how many people have looked at something, their gender and age (within certain margins of error!) and how long they looked at it.
Although Mr Andrews is not bound to recommend print for every campaign, it is a simple fact that it often is the best solution in retail. ‘Print has the ability to create theatre in a way that nothing else does,’ he concluded. ‘I get no pressure from Delta to put print in every campaign, but we are specialists, a fantastic print company and we can add value using print. I say, make use of the tools around you.’
‘We’ve got ten technologies in this room and that many again that we are playing with before we take it to customers.’
