12.01.10
Orange Store features first Samsung interactive videowall
Orange’s first multimedia store opened in Milton Keynes with the very latest cutting edge technology installed for an interactive customer experience. InAVate spoke to the team behind the install…
This multimedia store is one of three new retail formats being trialled by Orange to identify the most effective and popular retail environments for its customers. The tech-savvy interactive experience offered in Milton Keynes allows customers the opportunity to try its products and entertainment services using the latest technology.
Specialist AV integrator Fujitsu worked with PSCo’s Special Projects Division on the project, specifying and installing the complete interactive system across the shop. With a complex retail install to co-ordinate, Project Manager Jeff Boucher explained:
“The focus was to create a retail environment with an urban, minimalistic look which hosted multimedia to engage with Orange’s customers and to explain their services. The system we chose featured predominantly Samsung products integrated into the retail framework.
“A 70” Samsung LCD screen was used to create a cinema-style area to publicise Orange’s link with movies and their Orange Wednesday promotion with adverts, trailers and previews running on the screen.”
The impressive 16 screen video wall in the entrance is the centre piece of the store’s installation. The new Samsung 460UTn-UD Ultra Thin Bezel LCD is the latest videowall technology to enter the market and videowall expert PSCo was brought in to deliver the bespoke wall installation in a 4 x 4 format. The 46” screens installed create a videowall of four metres in width and nearly 2.5 metres high.
Special Projects Director Paul Childerhouse explained:
“This is a great application for a videowall and our experience ensured the installation, specification and service level agreement were all inline with the customer expectations. Our bespoke bracket system for the narrow bezel LCD screens allows single units to be serviced from the front of the installation rather than the rear, meaning cheaper engineering costs and less down time for a retail installation!”
“These LCD screens will be very popular as they are ideal for digital signage applications, not only do they look good, but they are robust and can be left on 24/7.”
London based digital creative agency Poke created the digital on screen graphics for all in store technology working to different briefs across the products. Nik Roope, Creative Director for Poke explained:
“The videowall’s aim was to attract people from the shopping centre into the store and the content had to engage with customers upon entering. We created two concepts that ran across the videowall with different levels of interactivity.”
The ‘Mexican Wave’ concept was created to demonstrate video messaging and showcase the quality of the video on the big screen. Visitors to the store were invited to record individual videos of a Mexican Wave with a mobile phone which was then uploaded and streamed onto the videowall to fit into a Mexican Wave with 64 of other people.
Nik Roope continued: “The constant uploads meant that the videowall content kept evolving and always featured the most recent visitors to the store. Infrared sensors along its base of the screen detects motion and when a person walks past, the Mexican Wave is triggered and follows the person’s movement along the screen.”
When the Mexican Wave was not on the screen, the ‘Picture Clock’ concept displayed images of Milton Keynes taken at different times across the day. People submitted the images taken of the city and they were then displayed at the correlating time to when they were taken to create a picture clock which was time sensitive.
Jeff Boucher of Fujitsu continued; “We have been working with Orange on instore IT installations for the past 5 years but this project presented new challenges in terms of lead times, kit delivery and installation on site.
“We had never before attempted a wall with this quantity of screens and complexity of acoustics but the support received from PSCo’s project team and skills of their technical team meant the installation was completed in time for the store opening.”
Fujitsu integrated a large installation in the store which included a comprehensive EPOS system, training area, game playing area and a 70” Samsung display at the front of the store. A Panphonic Sound Shower was installed above the videowall and 3 x Fujitsu Tills in the middle of store as the PA system.