If you ever take your Mercedes in to have some work done, you are going to see several digital signs as they walk you through the details of what needs doing. They are one of many top-tier companies that are making good use of digital signs. When luxury companies have adopted an idea, you can be pretty sure it is more than just a trend. Here are four ways that luxury retailers are using digital signs to the benefit of themselves and their customers.
When In Rome
Take a walk through Rome’s Fiumicino Airport and you will see some spectacular large digital columns which dominate the airport’s C Gate area. Several luxury brands have had their promotional material on those signs, and none are more popular than Chanel. They also had their adverts on the LED screens that were set up in the Terminal 3s check-in hall. Chanel made the smart, but expensive, move of having their ads appear when the digital signs were first set up.
That way, when the press reported on the new installations, all their pictures of the signs showed the Chanel advertisements.
A Very Hurdy Gurdy! Bork! Swedish Idea
The motivation for using digital signs is not always one of utility and sales. Sometimes, aesthetics come before use, and that is what happened with one luxury retailer called Nordiska Kompaniet based in Stockholm, Sweden. They were looking for a way to help highlight their brand while maintaining their high-class image.
Their stores rely heavily on marble walls and floors with golden brass highlights. When they decided to put up digital signs, they did so with the understanding that the light generated from the signs would cast very attractive reflections off of their various surfaces. Interestingly enough, this decision also applies to their content.
When you view their content, they use either very black backgrounds to highlight the colours in the centre, or they use very white backgrounds to illuminate the area. They also added very large brass frames to their digital signs.
Seeing Yourself In Louis Vuitton
The Louis Vuitton brand was one of the first to use its version of augmented reality as a digital changing room. You pick your clothing off the menu, or you scan your item, and it appears on the digital screen. You stand in front of the screen and position yourself, and you can see what you would look like if you were wearing the item of clothing. The clever thing is that they proportion the empty shirt with a muscular person’s physique.
That way, when you look at yourself in the digital sign, the shirt looks great on you because you are seeing what it would look like on a muscular person. This type of almost-AR technology has been around for a while, but Louis Vuitton is the one that has popularized it the most. They were also smart enough to photograph their clothing on muscular body types rather than trying to adjust the sizes for the shopper’s real body size.
Try On Technology
Guerlain now has digital signs and tablets in their stores that allow women to take a selfie and then see themselves in the various types of makeup featured in the store. It is actually a blisteringly simple process. All they do is have the selfie run through a series of filters, similar to the ones people use on TikTok and Instagram, and then transmit the information back through the Kitcast digital signage software.
The only difference between the in-store try-on technology and Instagram filters is that Guerlain has customized to feature only their makeup. They have so far denied that they will make an app with the technology, which means you will have to go to their store and try out the digital signs and tablets for yourself.