One of our new advertisers is installing digital advertising panels in shopping centres. We asked the CEO to give us an overview as to how digital screens impact shopping centre trading. The SCA Property Group will install about 200 of these panels in 70 of their centres across Australia – obviously they’re convinced.

Shopper Media Group, Australia’s fastest digital out-of-home media business, will install more than 1,000 SmartLite digital advertising panels across 300 Australian shopping centres by the end of 2016.

The high-tech panels, with their high-density wi-fi, HD screens, beacon technology, webcams and intelligent wi-fi analytics, are the latest trend in consumer experience and are poised to change the way shopping centres are managed and how consumers shop.

The state-of-the-art SmartLite panels offer shoppers free wi-fi with a faster connection than 4G and unlimited data to guarantee the best possible experience within the shopping centre.

The recent Deloitte Mobile Consumer Survey report found that more than 95% of the Australians surveyed relied on their smartphones to communicate, research products and get information while shopping, while 59% preferred to connect their smartphone using wi-fi instead of their mobile network.

The panels offer shoppers a greatly enhanced shopping experience but what really sets them apart is their ability to capture a huge range of consumer analytics.

When a consumer registers and accesses the free SmartLite wi-fi within a shopping centre their shopping behaviour, social media and internet use are tracked, giving our clients access to a greater understanding of their individual centre’s traffic flow.

SmartLite analytics can generate a real-time heat map of a consumer’s usage and movement around the centre. This type of data helps shopping centres to better understand their consumers and their community, and manage their facilities on an operational level such as allocating tenancies, trolley collection and cleaning of amenities. They can also understand better what their consumers need, allowing them to create a community that connects within the shopping centre.

SmartLite panels capture how many people are in a centre at any point in time, how often they come, at what time of day, and how long they spend within the centre. This data can improve the management of tenants both in relation to specific stores and across the centre.

A specialty retailer within a centre may be questioning the foot traffic to the centre if their store isn’t performing as well as it should be. We are able to produce a report that shows the peak traffic times throughout the centre. The specialty store’s opening times may be 9am to 5pm, but the traffic report may show the peak time within the centre is 3pm to 7pm, so the store is missing out on two hours of key trading traffic. Armed with this information, the store can either extend or change its trading hours to suit the traffic to the centre.

The traffic flow to a centre also impacts which tenancies are offered, and their location. SmartLite analytics can generate reports showing usage of shopping centres over a series of days or even weeks to reveal established patterns. This can discover that one side of the shopping centre is currently attracting less traffic but repositioning of tenancies as trip attractors can both improve and increase traffic flow throughout the centre.

Shopper Media Group installs the SmartLite panels at no cost and pays a licence fee to the shopping centre to ensure the best possible position within the centre, choosing strategic panel locations. The slimline panels seamlessly blend in with a shopping centre’s design while remaining highly visible and offering free and fast wi-fi connection for the consumer.

Advertising in the majority of shopping centres around the country is currently displayed in poster panels, but today’s consumers are demanding more from their shopping centre experience and the SmartLite panels are a 100% digital solution. The analytics captured by the SmartLites offer advertisers the unique opportunity to better integrate their messaging, ensuring that consumers are being served relevant information, on time, in real time and on their path to purchase, improving their shopping experience and assisting with their decision-making process.

Shopping Centres Australasia (SCA) General Manager Sid Sharma says SCA will install approximately 200 SmartLites across more than 70 of their Australian shopping centres.

“We are always looking at ways to improve the shopping experience in our centres,” Sharma says. “Understanding our customers more will enable us and our retailers to better cater to our customers’ needs. We are excited about our partnership with Shopper Media Group in providing our customers access to wi-fi and customised information content.”

SmartLite panels will become the industry standard for retail digital out-of-home advertising, not simply because of the technological advancement of their digital panels, but because of the data they provide to shopping centres to improve the consumer’s overall shopping experience. SCN