How Scala Met the Challenge
The extremely large footprint and stock size at Argos meant the company needed a digital signage solution that could deliver content that matched the current in-store conditions at all times. The signage network had to be able to show current pricing and use live, local stock data to decide which products get promoted.
Pixel Inspiration were mindful from the outset of the project that any functionality implemented for the initial seven stores should be scalable without any fundamental change to several hundred locations. Scala, with its rule-based scheduling, dynamic templating and real-time data support, provided the toolset needed to create such a network.
“As a very experienced online retailer, Argos already had excellent APIs that exposed product, pricing and stock information,” said Smith. “Pixel Inspiration capitalised on this by creating a Scala configuration that was able to query these APIs and retrieve the details of any product marked for in-store promotion. This keeps costs for content management down and ensures parity between the in-store and online customer experience.“
Scala messages were created, which included the ability to specify the catalogue numbers of products needing in-store promotion. By simply adding a valid catalogue number (SKUs), the system is able to automatically create, distribute and play-out a piece of digital POS in any store.
To create additional retail theatre and media sales opportunities, Argos can execute a store-wide content ‘takeover’ using network triggering provided by Pixel. During a ‘takeover’, a single brand ad or promotional message runs simultaneously across all in-store screens for maximum impact.
In addition, each store is linked to the local weather station, which enables Argos to promote weather related products on-screen as appropriate.
Pixel Inspiration manages the entire network for Argos, liaising with the retailer’s marketing department who briefs the system integrator on the content strategy and the products to be promoted.
Argos had already put a lot of work into its online services. The retailer is running one of the busiest UK e-commerce websites and can now capitalise fully on its highly sophisticated backend services to move its in-store environment forward.
“The way the Scala digital signage solution queries such a complex product and stock information environment in an automated manner is still relatively unusual in the world of digital signage,” concluded Smith. “The first seven stores are a first step and we’re really pleased to be involved with such an exciting project with this forward-thinking retailer. “