Creating an immediate impact is crucial if you have seasonal products to sell, which is why Leisuregrow asked Vueinti to develop digital signage for point of sale
Given the fickle nature of our British weather, if your business is selling outdoor lifestyle products you’d better make sure you get your message across fast and effectively before the sun goes in.
That’s the perennial marketing problem faced every summer season by one of Britain’s biggest suppliers of outdoor lifestyle products, Leisuregrow.
In 2011, the company was especially keen to make a promotional splash for an exciting new product exclusive to them - Grillstream – a range of ‘better eating’ barbecues that had already impressed the judges on BBC TV’s popular business programme – Dragon’s Den.
But how best to ensure this innovative barbecuing technology stands out from the competition and gets noticed in garden centres throughout the UK?
With 150 garden centre outlets to work through, whatever marketing method was chosen had to have ‘reach’, be cost-effective and flexible enough to meet the varying needs of different types of garden centres, from small independents through to large national chains.
These constraints ruled out TV and most forms of national press advertising, which, while having the reach, would have proved prohibitively expensive. But since there was already a high collective footfall through the garden centres, Leisuregrow decided to focus their efforts on Point of Sale promotions next to their barbecues. This would highlight the benefits of the new range to shoppers, then immediately allow them get ‘hands on’ with the nearby products.
However, thinking that traditional POS materials might be too static and too ‘old fashioned’ to promote something innovative, Leisuregrow turned to Vueinti to devise a more dynamic, digital signage solution that would really grab the attention of the thousands of visitors to the centres each week.
Large LCD or plasma screens might have been one option, but were cost prohibitive. They were also potentially impractical, given the need for heavy duty staging and fixing if they weren’t to pose a health and safety hazard, particularly to families who might have small children there.
They would also be more difficult to set up and move if the retail area had to be reconfigured and the layout changed. In any event, a large screen, though eye-catching, could seem too obtrusive for the retail space of many garden centres.
To overcome such issues, Geof Jones, Vueinti’s head of Business Development and Innovation, developed a small LCD screen mounted on a bespoke, height-adjustable ‘gooseneck’ stand. And this would play a 2’ 30” promotional video fed from a SIM card slotted into the screen, rather than using a bulkier, expensive standalone media player.
With a weighted base, the stand and screen together are a robust and compact signage solution at point of sale but still easily movable as and when required.
While the voiceover from the ‘looping’ video would attract the attention of anyone nearby, to create even more pulling power, the screen was given a 50mm orange-coloured surround, that would not only catch the eye, but also present valuable promotional messages.
With this POS signage up and running, Leisuregrow now had a permanent, noticeable but still discreet ‘salesperson’ right next to their products tirelessly selling the benefits of Grillstream.
As a result, the Vueinti screens have helped Leisuregrow sell thousands and thousands of units in the first part of the 2011 barbecue season alone. And, with May 2011 being billed as National Barbecue Month they’re expecting to sell many more. All in all, another success story for digital signage.
Visit – www.vueinti.com for more information
Vueinti Limited, 6b Alton Business Park, Alton Road Ross-on-Wye, Herefordshire HR9 5BP T: 01989 562726 www.vueinti.com