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Signage helps create 'the want'

November 2, 2005

It's easy to get wrapped up in the excitement of developing and deploying a kiosk, and it also is easy to devote most of your focus to the productivity and profit gains you hope it will bring.

This story and all the great free content on KioskMarketplace is supported by: KING Products

In this rush, it's important to remember that you have to entice people to use the machine in the first place. According to retail consultant Rick Segel, that's a key component of any device you're going to place in a retail space.

"In the mall, for instance, the issue today is that you have time-starved shoppers," he said. "They go in fewer stores, and they spend less time in the mall. Are you making the assumption that by looking at a kiosk, (as a shopper) I'm going to be interested in using it? You have to create the want first."

Segel said that flashy signs and visual displays are effective, but he's a fan of the one of the oldest forms of communication - the written word. "As important as graphics are, there is still something special about the power of copy, the power of words," he said. "Words can set a mood. I would opt for more touching, interesting copy that would be the compelling reason to stop to use the kiosk, making it fun, user-friendly."

First things first

Whether you opt to use copy, a visual firestorm of graphics, or some combination of the two, your next decision becomes where to place that consumer-educating information.

In most cases, the obvious choice is the kiosk enclosure itself, usually a static panel mounted above the touchscreen area, or somewhere nearby. But in most cases, that means you're left with static copy, and you'll have to change it manually if the focus of your marketing efforts should be revised.

For the Ontario-based KING Products & Solutions, one answer to this has been to incorporate a digital display atop a traditional kiosk design. That led to the company's dual-screen Plynth G5, which features a 15-inch touchscreen plus an 18-inch LCD mounted just a few feet above.

"The two displays generally run separate content," said Robert Giblett, vice president of North America sales and marketing for KING. "The ad player for the second display can assign certain perimeters for each ad, such as when it will be played. Ads can also run in a playlist format, where the individual ads simply take turns rotating through the playlist."

That means the teaser screen could rotate between a number of messages, like a new-user introduction to the kiosk, targeted marketing messages based on time-of-day and day-of-week, and even third-party advertising.

Giblett said that one of his clients, Alpha Multimedia, has had great success with this dual-screen approach, selling pay-per-use services like phone cards and wireless through the touchscreen while alternating the upper screen between marketing messages and third-party ads.

"The combination of a steady monthly revenue stream combined with the revenue from their pay-per-use services makes for an extremely profitable ROI."

This article appeared in theRetail Kiosk & Self-Service Executive Summary, Fall 2005.