Iceland Foods modernise their stores with Signagelive powered Digital Signage

Introduction

Iceland Foods has been on a phenomenal journey of growth since the first store opened in 1970. However, with discount supermarkets increasingly nipping at Iceland Foods’ heels, the food retailer decided to take matters into its own hands. In a bid to grow and diversify its expanding customer base, and entice more discerning shoppers into the store, the business undertook an extensive refurbishment programme to modernise a significant number of Iceland Foods’ 800 stores.

Iceland Foods contacted Signagelive partner Lumino AV to explore how we could assist to design and implement a Digital Signage platform to deliver their current and future in-store digital media requirements.

Opportunity for Digital Signage

The refurbishment was about introducing fresh, bold colours and concepts to create a more memorable shopping experience. Also, it was about introducing new technologies to modernise the shopping experience, whilst driving efficiencies in how the store communicates special offers to its customers.

Key project requirements and challenges

The famous Iceland Foods special offer posters in the shop front windows were replaced with two sets of high quality back to back screens mounted in a customised metal casing. The external facing screens are the Samsung OM55D Hi-Bright Screens, and the internal facing are Samsung Tizen PMF display.

Iceland Foods installed a custom Digital Signage solution above the open-end freezers to promote the latest deals. These synchronised three displays in a bespoke housing have revolutionised the way Iceland Foods communicates with its customers.

A key challenge for Iceland Foods was the need to keep customers informed of the latest home delivery slots available in each store. Home delivery is a key requirement for customers who want to shop during lunchtime and have their frozen and chilled items delivered when they are at home.

Signagelive worked with Iceland Foods and their logistics platform provider Route Monkey to develop a custom application that is deployed to key displays in each store where it dynamically displays live delivery slot availability based on the store location.

In addition to providing the convenience of displaying home delivery slots within the store, Iceland Foods required a Digital Signage platform that would enable them to be more nimble and deliver highly targeted special offers that fit the demographic, seasons, time of day or special occasions.

These solutions also helped contribute to the modernisation of Iceland Foods stores, bringing the shopping experience right up-to-date and luring new customers through the door.

Innovation in action

Iceland Foods has never been a company to shy away from bold campaigns or initiatives and it has always hailed itself as being a consumer champion in the food retail market. It has maintained this personality by successfully evolving over the years, updating its brand image and attracting new customers through the door.

At the heart of the successful collaboration was Signagelive’s ability to balance scalability with ease of use and ensure scheduling content remains time efficient, irrespective of the number of connected players.

Collaborating together to understand the Iceland Foods strategy model of how they differentiate stores, we were then able to transpose this into Signagelive to ensure managing and publishing all connected players could be achieved using just a few playlists; enabling the power of advanced scheduling logic with our conditional playback features to ensure the stores and associated displays automatically received the correct media.

Signagelive provided consultancy and implementation support; making scheduling recommendations based on Iceland Foods requirements, allowing us to refine the media management and publishing process, whilst actively working with the Iceland Foods team to understand where we could improve our core platform to meet the project needs throughout.

The Solution

The technologies that were installed included the following::

Back to back screens in the shop window in a customised totem, with the outward facing high-bright screens durable in any sunlight conditions.

Implemented Signagelive Content Management solution which is a comprehensive, cloud-based CMS platform giving Iceland Foods total control of individual or groups of screens, allowing the central team to push new deals instantly across selected stores or to the whole retail network.

Lumino AV didn’t just install a series of new screens, but a totally bespoke solution for Iceland Foods including the customised casings for the screens to ensure robustness whilst being aesthetically pleasing and eye-catching.

The solutions installed have the ability to directly impact the commercial success of Iceland Foods a few examples include:

Each screen in the shop window can feature multiple deals in a rolling carousel of eye-catching images, an improvement on the static, printed posters which may have only allowed for 4-6 static promotions at any one time.

Implementing Signagelive Digital Signage opens up additional revenue opportunities for Iceland Foods by selling space to brands to promote their latest deals.

The Digital Signage deployment is not a project running in isolation, it is an integral part of Iceland Foods broader transformation of the way Iceland Foods is perceived on the high-street and is considered by them as a key component in the highly successful refurbishment project.

This video shows how this was achieved:

Key Benefits

The store refurbishments have been hugely successful for Iceland Foods, winning the hearts and minds of existing shoppers and attracting a cohort of new customers for whom shopping in Iceland is a brand new experience.

Key benefits of using the Signagelive solution for Iceland Foods include:

• Helping Iceland Foods store look modern and current – an immediate step-change in their image with bright eye-catching content.
• Help educate new demographics on the great food Iceland Foods sell – start to change perceptions driving footfall.
• More tailored communications – area-specific deals can be promoted in window displays to drive footfall and ultimately sales.
• Reducing colleagues time by eradicating the need for Iceland Foods’ staff to put up and take down paper posters as display screens can be updated more nimbly.
• Reducing production and distribution costs – posters no longer have to be dispatched in the post removing the hassle factor and risk of missing deliveries.
• Better for the environment – less paper wastage and road miles which are usually incurred with the dissemination of paper posters.
• Greater commercial opportunities – Iceland Foods has the ability to sell advertising space on its above freezer digital displays where brands have certain deals they want to push.
• A chance to promote home deliveries – how customers the next available home delivery slot as they approach the till – updated in real time..

Evidence of Success

• Footfall is up across all refurbished stores.
• Turnover is significantly up by 120-150% in all refurbished stores.
• Clapham store, which was the first to be made over, recorded a 700% increase in sales of Coconut Water after featuring the deal on display screens in the shop front.

Neil Hayes, Merchandising and Format Development Director, Iceland Foods Ltd

Taking on Digital Signage and display screens was a big step forward for Iceland Foods and we’re pleased to say it’s paid off as part of our general refurbishment programme. As this was in many ways an experiment for Iceland Foods, Lumino AV were very supportive in working with us to find the right solutions, creating favourable terms on which to do business and access equipment readily. Our customers have been full of praise for the refurbed stores and love the modernity and convenience that the screens add to their shopping experience.

About Lumino AV

Lumino AV Solutions is a forward-thinking business, who is an innovative player in the Audio Visual sector. They help organisations connect their customers to their brand message by using highly visual content.

Ian Scott, Managing Director, Lumino AV

What has been particularly rewarding for the Lumino AV team, is we have been a key component of a broader transformational strategy, rather than simply delivering a discrete AV project. Seeing the impact the store refits is having on their business and hearing the feedback direct from Iceland Food’s customers, has been fantastic. It has been a real team effort. We have worked closely, Iceland Foods, their other contractors and of course our key partners, Samsung and Signagelive. There is a real pride in the project and a can-do attitude. It’s a lot of hard work, but a lot of fun too.

Jason Cremins, CEO, Signagelive

The Iceland Foods project demonstrates the value of Signagelive being involved with a major project from the outset, working with Ian Scott and the Lumino AV team to establish the; now, near and future needs for Iceland Foods in-store Digital Signage.

In addition to providing our platform and licences, we delivered a range of technical and creative services that delivers an optimised experience for Iceland Foods and their specific in-store marketing requirements.

The commercial results delivered from the Iceland Foods refurbishment programme incorporating Signagelive has demonstrated that Digital Signage has a major role to play in the future success of high-street retailers facing the challenge from online and discount retailers.