19 September 2011

Largest NZ Rollout of Digital Screens for Lotto Retail Network

Lotto is entering a new digital era with the roll-out of LCD promotional screens to almost 600 stores around the country – the biggest roll-out of its kind in New Zealand, says NZ Lotteries’ Chief Executive Todd McLeay.

“Digital signage is a new medium that offers us huge potential as a new marketing channel – using a mix of animation, video and catchy messages,” says Mr McLeay.

“Approximately one million customers visit our Lotto stores each week, and digital signage can offer them a more emotionally engaging in-store experience than present.

“It will grab attention and better engage our customers – as well as reduce our carbon footprint with less of a requirement for printed collateral over time.”

The digital screens play a range of promotional displays for NZ Lotteries brands, as well as showing current jackpot levels and information on lottery grants for the community.

Whilst digital signage is relatively new in the New Zealand retail market, internationally the medium has achieved significant growth. The United Kingdom’s OAA (Outdoor Advertising Association) predicts the digital screen market will be worth £107 million ($211 million NZD) by the end of 2012, or 14.9% of all outdoor advertising revenue.

International research studies carried out by Microsoft and Intel have shown that more than five times as many people look at digital signage when compared to a flat poster, even a back lit version. On average, the time customers spend viewing digital signage is 40 percent higher than viewing a static display.

The medium is rapidly being embraced by some of the largest retailers in the world, including Tesco, Target and the Bank of America.

After a competitive tender process, NZ Lotteries partnered with New Zealand vendor SignActive to implement digital signage in 600 of its retail stores.

Most of the installations are 47 inch landscape screens, whilst 42 inch portrait screens have been used in sites where there is limited space.

“SignActive were deemed the best vendor for the software and the hardware installation as they provided the best solutions for the needs of our complex network situation, at a competitive price,” says Mr McLeay.

The solution is based on content creation, management and distribution software from Scala, which is headquartered in Exton, Pa. USA and drives the majority of digital signage screens worldwide. Scala runs on a PC hardware platform, in our case using purpose-built digital signage player PCs from Massachusetts manufacturer MediaVue Systems.

It was decided on these players because they are designed to be small, rugged and highly reliable under continuous load, and had sufficient performance to cope with the rich content required. SignActive built the players using a customised Windows Embedded operating system.

Other support for the project has included LG as the monitor supplier, Laser Electrical as the installers, and Datacom as the service and support company.

“NZ Lotteries is designing the content internally, and feedback from retailers and customers alike has been positive.”

ENDS

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