My blog entries have been a bit less frequent these past few weeks, as
the busy season at WireSpring has just begun. It's traditionally
crazy here from just after Labor Day until Christmas, but after a very
active summer period (much more so than in the past), I had wondered if
we wouldn't see the traditional 30-40% up tick in year-end business
that we've come to know and love. After only one week I can
safely say that any concerns I may have had were completely
unwarranted, and retailers this year seem to have a hungry appetite for
all things digital retailing, and in particular, digital signage.
Regardless
of whether a growing economy, a more discerning consumer base, or a
general dissatisfaction with traditional advertising is to blame,
retail chains and consumer product manufacturers are becoming much more
open about their digital retailing ambitions, with many creating formal
proposals for integrating new technologies like narrowcasting networks and interactive kiosks into their existing store display and POP advertising plans. Additionally, high-profile deployments by companies like Borders Books and the Home Depot have been making enough noise to attract the attention of store designers and retailing experts everywhere.
What
we have come to see in the very early years of this new industry is
that it follows a cycle based on both retail patterns and corporate
spending patterns. Even though the vast majority of retail sales
are made in the 4th quarter of the calendar year, most of these
companies set their budgets during the previous year, including the
portion set aside for in-store advertising and retail display fixtures
(the part the kiosk and digital sign projects typically fall
into). While smaller companies, consultants and start-ups don't
really adhere to this policy, nearly all of the retailers and consumer
product manufacturers do.
To make the situation even more
confusing, no large company would consider doing a rollout of such
technology without doing some kind of beta test at one or more
location. However, while the money for a full deployment most
often comes out of some part of the fixtures or in-store advertising
budget, funds for a beta test often have to be scrounged for, often out
of the IT budget, since capital expenditures for computers, screens,
and networking equipment are required. Thus, bringing a project
to fruition often involves (a) working with the marketing group to
identify the need and establish a plan, (b) work with the IT or
technology group to budget for and deploy a beta, (c) go back to
marketing with the results of the trial to identify the time to initial
ROI, and finally, (d) take the (possibly revised) plan and a budget for
full rollout to management for approval. With management approval
you'll need to add lots of extra steps with both marketing and IT to
work out the details of the deployment, but by that point much of the
hard work has been done already.
Thus, if you work for a company
that you think can benefit from digital retailing technologies and you
want to champion a beta test, it's important to involve all of these
parties early on. Wait too long to get your IT folks involved,
and they may feel like their budget dollars are being controlled by the
whims of marketing people who want to add more work to their already
busy schedules. Likewise, pitching your plan as a technology
project to the IT staff will virtually ensure that your marketing
people won't want to touch it with a 50-foot pole. The key to
success with any digital retailing project is to work with both halves
of the equation -- be diplomatic and facilitate communications between
two groups that might not be so familiar with working with each other.
Disclaimer:
Not all companies have this sort of problem. Some firms really
have it together, and have no problem with complex projects that span
multiple groups or divisions. However, it has been my experience
that if there's going to be an internal hang-up over a digital
merchandising project, it's almost always due to politics between these
groups. Your mileage will vary.