Displays That POP: Print or Electronic, It’s All About the Message

Picture if you will: in the UK, Pizza Hut is testing “the world’s first subconscious menu,” which uses a tablet computer to track customers’ eye movements and “read their thoughts” as they linger over a menu. No more actually speaking to a waitperson.

How about this: the mirror behind a bar can display electronic advertisements from a local car insurance company imploring patrons not to drink and drive.

Or this: you are in the “smart fitting room” of a clothing retailer. As you are trying on clothes, a sensor detects, via RFID tags on the clothing, what it is you are trying on and makes accessory suggestions via a tablet-based “personal assistant” or through interactive mirrors. Useful…or creepy?

New technologies have been changing the retail environment, and if you are a cutting-edge signage provider, it’s an exciting time of wild and crazy experimentation. However, there has to be not only a method to the madness, but a message to the madness. The technology that is used is really only a means to an end: communicating the client’s message effectively.

Integration is Integral

Video displays have been penetrating into more and more retail locations—even grocery stores. A FastSigns case study (www.fastsigns.com/Blog/qs/updating-kroger-grocery-stores-with-digital-kiosks-and-point-of-purchase-signage) documents how Kroger Mid-Atlantic, with the help of FastSigns of Salem and Roanoke, Va., integrated digital kiosks with traditional POP signage to provide a modern shopping experience.

Things can be taken even further.

“We’re moving into this weird technology, print/electronic display world,” said John Wardrope, founder and owner of Winnipeg, MB, Canada.’s Acryl Design. Acryl Design began 30 years ago and has moved from 3D displays, to printed signage, to dynamic digital signage (DDS), to video. The company has always sought to stay on the cutting edge and embrace new technologies, while at the same time not losing sight of the older technologies. “We’re what I call ‘the new sign company’ that has embraced digital but is supported completely by print. It’s a world in which you have to invent.”

“Can we invent something?” has become a company mantra, and in addition to integrating print, video, and DDS, Wardrope has become actively involved in developing mobile apps that complement other signage media.

“We’re amalgamating branding, and going to companies and saying, ‘this is the future, you have to get into people’s phones,’” he said.

A lot of Acryl’s experimentation came thanks to one of the company’s biggest clients, SodaStream Canada, the Canadian division of the manufacturer of home water-carbonation devices. Acryl not only designs and manufacturers the SodaStream Canada POP displays that go into WalMart, Staples, Bed Bath and Beyond, and other retail locations, but also its trade show booths. “Our greatest feat was designing and manufacturing five trade show booths in two months in six different locations and setting them up,” said Wardrope. These trade show displays were printed X-Board constructions with video screens behind them. For some retail displays, such as at Bed Bath and Beyond, Acryl used a 7 x 10-inch motion-controlled video screen that was triggered when customers approached it.

For SodaStream’s Night Spirit line, Acryl created printed displays that comprised a 3D champagne glass with integrated video. These were installed in Air Canada’s executive lounges.

“We became a hub for SodaStream,” said Wardrope. “That was the launching pad for us getting into video, digital signage, and all these other areas. Then I took it one step further.”

That step was creating iPhone apps.

For a local college, Acryl is developing combination wayfinding/advertising displays for the campus. Acryl installed the monitors in printed boxes “so it looks like the screen is in the wall,” said Wardrope, and the printing around the monitor relates to the content on the display. Then there is that one further step: creating an iPhone app for the students. “All their graduation pictures can be in there, what’s around the college is in there, and the college can push notes to all the students if they want,” said Wardrope. Acryl does all aspects of these projects—printing, video, DDS, content creation, app creation—itself in-house.

As an example of how new technologies need to be sold today, the college didn’t actually ask for any of these items. Initially, said Wardrope, “they were asking for some door signs. That’s it. When I made my presentation, I upsold the digital signage.” And then upsold them the app.

Other projects have included an “engagement center” for a local golf course that comprises an outdoor printed display with integrated video and DDS, and iPhone apps that let golf pros communicate with members, as well as use “geo-fencing” (using geolocationary services in a predetermined zone) to send push notifications if a player is, for example, on the 8th hole. Acryl is also working with a local restaurant to integrate mobile apps and Twitter feeds with the restaurant bar’s video displays and digital signage, especially on, say, NHL night, to use social media to foster a sense of community. (A lot of these installations and deployments can be paid for, said Wardrope, by the client selling advertising on the DDS or video screens.)

A lot of what Acryl has been offering is foreign to the company’s clients. “No one is phoning you up and asking ‘can you do this?’,” he said. “People are phoning up and saying, ‘can you make this?’ and I say, ‘have you thought of this?’ You get them intrigued.”

Although still a relatively small company, Acryl has been growing—and solely by word of mouth. “I’ve never had one salesman in my life.”

It helps that Acryl concentrates on smaller companies rather than the large corporate clients looking for 400 digital signage deployments. And with small companies, Wardrope said, “it’s easy to talk to the owners and the marketing people.”

Acryl has been doing 3D displays for 30 years, print for nine years, video for two, and mobile apps for about six months. And the company is still looking to get into new applications, such as touchscreen displays and materials that can turn windows into screens for rear-projected images. But it’s always about integrating new media with old media. For example, he said, “How can we get phone technology tied right back to the print and digital technology?”

As is often the case, it’s up to the display service provider to educate the clients as to what is possible.

Less Is More

While kiosks, DDS, video, and new electronic bells and whistles are all the rage, traditional retail and POP signage is still very much in demand, effective, and not in any way devoid of innovation.

“We do a lot of everyday banners, magnetic, and ‘normal’ substrates, but we’re always pushing the envelope, always trying to print on different media,” said Bruno Dede, president of Hollywood, FL’s Metro Signs. “We’ve printed on chrome materials and metallics to have more dynamic output.” Dede approaches displays very much as a designer. “Lamination and finishes are my favorite, and textured floor graphics,” he said. “I love doing layered signage with acrylics, with polished edges. We even sandblast slate rock and use it as waterfalls in executive lobbies, spas, or doctors’ offices.”

Metro Signs has been in business for 26 years, and has clients that run the gamut from the Miami Dolphins and Miami Marlins, to Macy’s, to local mom-and-pop shops.

This past holiday season, Metro Signs did all the in-store graphics for Macy’s South Florida retail locations from South Miami to Broward County. And even though there was nary an electronic pixel to be found, the project still posed technological and logistical challenges. The elements of the graphics included curved fabric banners, double-sided elevator graphics, and wall wraps that covered the entire perimeter of the store. “We wrapped an entire three-story elevator shaft that was all glass,” said Dede. “We wrapped it with perforated film so you could still see out of it. We did two stories of large fabric banners that we had to weld a curved pole to in order to match the curve of the elevator shaft. It was really high-end stuff and we made it happen in a short period of time.”

Each specific Macy’s location had its own unique dimensions and layout, so Metro Signs had to do a lot of rescaling and resizing.

Metro Signs also produced Gatorfoam displays for Alonzo Mourning’s Zo’s Winter Groove FUNraiser last December. “We did layers, a high perspective of the whole city with sponsor names on the city. It was eight feet tall and 30-feet wide, all different proportions and dimensions,” said Dede.

Metro Signs has been complementing its display business with a flourishing—and Avery “Wrap Like a King” award-winning—division called Metro Wrapz that does vehicle graphics.

“I consider myself a shrink,” said Dede with a laugh. “When a customer comes in, I try to evaluate what they’re trying to achieve rather than what they want to order. When they tell me, I give them different options. I give them the cut-and-dried stuff you can get at any trade shop, and I offer them something higher-end, higher-quality that will give them an upscale look and will give them better results.”

One trend in retail displays that Dede has been noticing is a return to a more “natural” look. “In this day and age, everything has been done, so everyone’s trying to be outrageous,” he said. “I like the natural, recycled paper products that are out now that people are using in large retail stores as major displays, as opposed to high-end materials. Even stores as large as Target are using that natural, recycled feel.

“It’s all about your sign making sense to the end user,” he said. “You can promote all you want, but if it doesn’t get the message across properly, then the sign’s not worth anything.”