Lehman Brothers LED (now Barclays blue)

During the current financial crisis, one unexpected benefit of digital signage has come to the forefront -- the ability to rebrand corporate branding and promotional messaging immediately following an acquisition.

In the wake of Barclays' takeover of Lehman Brothers' prime brokerage and investment management businesses a few weeks ago, Barclays immediately washed the LED spanning the block-long facade of Lehman's headquarters with Barclays blue.

Unless Barclays retains Lehman's creative department, passersby will greatly miss the element of visual drama the sign added to its block. Animations--which were coordinated across all the LED panels--incorporated news feeds, corporate branding writ large, and visually appealing full motion video, often of landscape or nature scenes (eg. fields of wheat swaying in the wind, waves).

The original LED design and installation was overseen by Untwist Technology, a NY-based A/V integration firm. The LED manufacturer and content processor vendors are not known.

(Photos taken from news publications and Untwist Technology website)

HSBC - Times Square LED

While our primary area of interest is branch-related digital signage (as the blog title would suggest), we will be covering a few especially impactful out-of-home installations over the next few weeks, the first of which is HSBC's 45' x 52' LED sign, located at the heart of Times Square in New York.

In use for the past 5-6 years, with a significant technology refresh in 2005, HSBC is currently employing it to reinforce its "The World's Local Bank" brand positioning, and to rasie awareness of its direct bank offerings (high-yield savings, online checking). Content is made up of full-motion video and animated versions of HSBC's print advertisements, including time-sensitive rate offers. One recent content example is featured below:

Content development, software, operations, and technology support are provided by New York-based Show & Tell Productions.

(content storyboard taken from Show & Tell website)

E*Trade Financial - Flagship Stores

E*Trade made a pretty big splash a few years back, when they announced they were moving from "clicks to bricks" by building flagship retail trading locations in San Francisco and New York. If you never had the opportunity to visit one, they were literally littered with plasma screens, LED tickets, and big-boards flashing stock quotes and providing E*Trade's own closed circuit television feed. As quoted by the San Francisco Chronicle back in 2000, someone close to E*Trade said about the stores,

This is anything but a branch strategy...this creates a concept store that presents the brand. (Full article: here)

Are these high-concept retail financial services "branded experience" stores worth the money? Not to me, and apparently not to E*Trade.

While E*Trade has continued to open branches across the US--undoubtedly buoyed by their burgeoning deposit business, as well as the core trading offer--the Manhattan flagship location (pictured above), has long since been shuttered and is now a Wachovia or a Chase branch (can't remember which). The San Francisco flagship on Market Street is still operational, but I suspect that has more to do with closing an office in your hometown in a location with landmark status than it does with any sort of break-even.

The lesson for all of us? The "branded experiences" not linked to any tangible service or communications functionality just don't cut it for customers, and don't cut it as ROI justification long-term. (One potential exception: ING Direct's coffee shops, which we'll address in an upcoming article)

(Photos taken from E*Trade Annual Report)

Bank of America - Collated Pilots & Rollouts

With nearly 6,000 locations, Bank of America possesses by far the largest retail network of any US retail bank. While the bank, which prides itself on technological innovation, has been making waves in the digital signage industry for years now--including this 2004 article in Business Week, which many at the time believed (incorrectly, it turns out) was the bellwhether moment for the digital signage industry--but has yet to make any large-scale commitment to date.


That said, over the past 2-3 years a number of "small scale" rollouts have occurred among within the bank's network (the largest of which was inherited in the acquisition of FleetBoston), and many of these would dwarf a full rollout for almost any other client. The bank is notoriously tight-lipped about results from any of its pilot tests, but rumor has it that customer satisfaction improved dramatically in RBSi branches, where Teller Zone Media was originally tested, and that branches with the interactive mortgage fixtures witnessed a 10-15% increase in applications during a limiting pilot test (if that's true, it's shocking the bank didn't deploy those babies everywhere, as 6-12 additional mortgage sales per year would easily cover the cost of ownership).

Rather than detail them individually over time, I have attempted to provide a comprehensive list below:

• Teller Zone Media (400-500 sites) - 19"-42" screens located above or behind teller counters, displaying live news feeds interspersed with bank content, primarily in New York, Washington, DC, and in denovo (RBSi) locations from the past 3-4 years
• Lobby/Media Wall (300-400 sites) - a 42" screen located in the waiting area of denovo (RBSi) branches, playing the same mix of news and bank content as the teller area
• External LED Signage (<10>sites))- massive LED banners and walls serving as external signage, primarily in high-visibility locations in New York
• Digital Windows (10-20 sites?) - 19"-60" Screens located in windows of high-traffic New York locations, some in 'portrait' mode and some in 'landscape' mode, primarily playing the same news/content mix as the interior screens (where they're even working these days)
• Investor Centers (40-50 sites) - 1-2 42" screens located in the Banc of America Securities offices, mostly in California and Texas, showing financial news almost exclusively
• ATM Vestibule (~50 sites) - primarily small screens in New York branches, frequently incorporated into the ATM surround itself
• Interactive Web Kiosks (~300 sites?) - all over in New York, DC, and Boston (although rarely being used and with less pomp than those displayed in the photo below), touchscreen kiosks enabling customers to access account information, print out information, and use various "tools" available on the Bank of America homepage
• Interactive Mortgage Centers (15-20 sites) - a very cool application, which since may have been de-installed, the interactive versions of the ubiquitous "Mortgage Center" fixtures allowed customers to learn about mortgage products or watch informational videos, and were located primarily in Las Vegas and Florida
• Interactive Window (1 site) - an ersewhile pilot test in Chicago, probably designed to generate buzz (which it did: link), which played primarily the same content used on the mortgage fixtures

As you would imagine, this many projects takes a small village of suppliers to manage and complete, including Prism Technologies, Creative Realities, Planar/CoolSign, R/GA, GestureTek, Convergent, and Sony, among others I'm sure.

HSBC - 5th Avenue Flagship

These photos come from HSBC's flagship branch/brokerage center here in New York. As retail formats go it's certainly not among my favorites, but it is one of the earliest branches to employ digital signage and proto-interactive applications (circa 2000?) here in the city. The branch, to my knowledge, remains unique among HSBC's 400+ retail locations in the US.

There are three core electronic communications elements in the branch: 1) the three 2 x 2 arrays of plasma monitors in the windows, which glow by night but are exceedingly difficult to see during the day, 2) an LED stock ticker that weaves its way throughout the interior of the branch (the rotating barbershop pole of brokerage centers here in New York), and 3) a forrest of interactive "web terminal" totems for customers to check their account balances and make trades in the lobby.

The branch cuts a striking figure at night, when the entire lobby and the digital windows glow from the street, but due to glare--a factor known and accounted for today--the leigibility of the plasma screens is maligned substantially during the day, to the point where I've never actually seen someone stop to read them. The content probably also has something to do with that...it alternates between network news (without sound, what's the point in watching a talking head?) and the same sequence of 4-5 content spots that has been playing since the signs were installed. Nor have I ever seen more than 1-2 people checking their account balance at the preponderance of interactive banking terminals. Perhaps their value is more strongly brand-oriented; when the facility was built I suspect offering internet banking and account access still seemed like the vanguard of retail banking and brokerage. I would like to see the bank come up with some more inventive ways of using the fixtures, however, as they send a different, unintended message ("nobody banks here") today.

In summary, HSBC and its design agency, BrandPartners, are to be applauded for their early adoption of electronic communications media, and for the ambition displayed in the variety of applications employed. It's time for a refresh, though, guys...even if it's just a few new content spots! Retail format design was supplied by BrandPartners, content is produced by DDC, and the signs are managed using software from 3M Digital Signage.

(Photos taken from BrandParnters, DDC websites)