PNC Bank - Network Rollout

A reliable source from PNC Financial Services, who offer banking, lending, insurance, and wealth management services through nearly 1,100 branches on the Atlantic seabord, has confirmed that the bank is in the process of rolling out digital signage as part of a comprehensive merchandising program to its entire branch network.

PNC, which began experimenting with digital media in its flagship branches as early as 2002-3, made the decision to move forward with the new program after a lengthy pilot test earlier this year, which produced impressive results. While the exact figures were not provided, key decisioning metrics included lifts in awareness and recall (~2x better than the current merchandising system), as well as a noted lift in the percentage of customers asking questions about promotions they saw while in queue. The new merchandising system has since been expanded to the bank's ~200 Washington, DC-area branches, recent denovos, and flagship locations already outfitted with plasma screens, with plans to extend the program to the remainder of the branch network over the next 1-2 years.

One notable element of PNC's program is that the digital screens are but a single element in a broader, fully integrated merchandising program. Other elements include a variety of environmental elements, a promotional fixture which holds 3-dimensional graphics to attract attention to the bank's most important current promotion, and a clever queue fixture that houses product brochures, flyers detailing community events, and other branch-related information. According to the source, each of these elements is reinforced by messaging on the digital screens (the ubiquitous behind-the-teller-counter and waiting-area varieties), and localized to fit each branch's surrounding community. This mutually-reinforcing approach--rather than the "fish out of water" screen which shows information unrelated to other branch promotional material--is exactly how all institutions should be including digital media in their retail communications mix.

Gensler provided the new environmental branch design for the PNC program, but the merchandising system and digital signage network are being handled by John Ryan, using its ScreenRed software platform.

Bank Hapoalim - Network Rollout

The Middle East has been a hotbed for financial services digital signage networks lately (albeit mostly on a small scale) but Bank Hapoalim, Israel's largest consumer bank, maintains the largest. Starting nearly two years ago, the bank began a rollout of a comprehensive digital communications system to its 250 branches. According to a press release at the time, each location is now equipped with digital signs in four different zones--the teller counter, the business banking zone, the retail lending zone, and the personal banker zone--each showing a unique "channel." Content consists of 30% entertainment and 70% advertisements, as well as displaying customers' positions in queue (a clever "now serving" application), and a permanent Reuters information ticker on the bottom of the screen. Ad targeting is done generally on a regional basis, but also using attributes such as branch size, services available, and customer mix.

Note to bank marketers: Including news/stock price tickers on the bottom of the screen is a bizarre obsession of many network operators and, according to at least one test, an absolutely dismal idea. Results from a pilot I conducted on content effectiveness showed across-the-board declines in standard media measures (awareness, recall, etc.) for the "main" content displayed when tickers were present, likely a by-product of the increased visual clutter and distraction of customers who read the news instead of watching ads. Even forgetting the test for a moment, intuitively, if you want customers to watch your ads, why would you provide them with a competing alternative?!

As well as its use as a marketing vehicle, Hapoalim also uses its network to communicate to its staff before- and after-hours. Content is developed by the bank's internal marketing department, and the network is managed using C-nario's software application.

(Photos taken from C-nario website)

Washington Mutual - Occasio Branches

Washington Mutual's digital signage network spans roughly 250 of the bank's 1,700+ branches. Referred to internally as "WM TV," the network is another of the industry's earliest and most well-publicized (at least within digital media and A/V circles).

Installation began in 2001-2 with a lengthy pilot, and has continued in earnest, albeit very slowly and most in denovo locations, ever since. WaMu has cited a number of reasons why they adopted digital signage as a component of their Occasio branches (more on them in a minute), but most accounts include:

1. The pilot proved that the medium greatly reduced wait-line fatigue, increased product awareness, and was consist with WaMu's "un-bank" brand image.
2. By at least one account, published in a local business journal at the time of the test, WaMu believed they had statistical evidence that customers were switching their primary service activities to branches with screens because they were so much more pleasant to visit.
3. Quicker time to market or, per Les Gruner, the bank's VP of media and production, "the beauty of (the) system is that we can craft messages...that speak to products we may be featuring this month."

The bank has utilized a number of different (read: inconsistent) display formats and placements, including 42" plasmas behind the teller podiums/area, a "what's new" information wall, 3-wide banner displays above product walls, and short-lived above-ATM screens. With the exception of the banners, which run a substantially shorter loop, all the other screens I've seen run a roughly 20-minute show, half of which is daily-updated syndicated news and the rest of which is devoted to brand-building or soft promotion.

It's unclear why WaMu hasn't opted to deploy the system beyond a few core locations in Seattle and its denovo builds, but at least one explanation is the fact that the network seems inextricably linked to the overall "Occasio" retail format, which the bank launched as part of its national branching push in 2001. This is in many ways very unfortunate since, despite the silly show the bank made of patenting the format and the press it received in industry rags, anyone who has visited an Occasio branch knows they've been a pretty blatant failure.

Developed to be unlike any other branch format, Occasio, or "favorable opportunity," promised to eliminate lines, provide more personal service, and improve efficiency. Tactically, this manifested itself in a rotunda shaped interior where no staff are hidden behind desks or walls, the installation of free-standing service "podiums" rather than a teller counter, and cash dispensers along the wall, all wrapped in a garish color palette and dropped by the dozens in the bank's new markets across the US. A link to a virtual tour of an Occasio is available here: Link.

In practice, which is readily observable during any lunch hour here in New York, the design (completed by retail agency Design Forum) actually created two lines--one for the teller podiums and one for the cash dispensers--and a massive amount of confusion, as customers figure out where to wait. It's telling, by the way, that the three executives responsible for the concept are no longer with the bank (two are at Barclays plc...enjoy, my English bretheren), and many of the branches have since been shuttered. But I digress...

Impart provides software, network management, and syndicated news services for WaMu and, as I understand it, most of the content is handled largely in-house these days. Design Forum designed the Occasio branch format.

(Photos taken from Impart, Washington Mutual websites, Digital Signage Quarterly magazine)

Citizens-Charter One - Network Rollout

With "video merchandising" deployed in roughly 850 of its 1,600 total branches, until recently Citizens-Charter One maintained the world's largest financial services digital signage network. While the network has been profiled in a couple of different industry publications over the years, it origins have often been confused. It also merits re-visiting due to its sheer breadth, both in terms of size and usage, and the number of learnings that have come from it over the years.

The network as it exists today consists of two separate digital signage initiatives, assembled when Royal Bank of Scotland purchased Citizens Financial Group (RI), and later Charter One Financial (OH). Citizens had begun to deploy digital signage in their "NICE" concept branches and had built a network of roughly 75 locations, less than 10% of the total footprint. Charter One, on the other hand, had made the decision to use their "digital communications network" (DCN) as their primary branch communications medium, and had deployed it to their entire network of 650 locations.

Screens (generally 42") were located above the teller counter and on kiosks in the branch lobbies of Citizens' branches, whereas they were located behind the teller counter in most Charter locations, as well as in a large "feature wall" dioramma facing the waiting area and the lobby. Both banks, and especially Charter, also maintained in-store locations, where larger screens (up to 84") were frequently mounted on the exterior wall facing the checkout counter or toward co-located Starbucks locations. In both cases, the bank's conducted a number of tests in select pilot branches, with results indicating that:

1. Improved the impact of promotional messaging (increased recall)
2. Improved customer perception of key brand attributes
3. Increased the number of products which could be put on display
4. Reduced perceived wait-time and improved satisfaction

In terms of content strategy, in a recent interview, Bill Harrison, director of branch marketing for Citizens-Charter One, commented that the network is aimed at making a three-tiered impression on customers,

It starts with the brand. The first impression when people walk in is 'This is a nice branch.' Their second impression is 'This bank has everything I'm looking for today.' And their third impression is 'I need to go and check that out now.' This exhibits itself through brand spots, spots that show product breadth and spots that tell you what to do next. you need to give consumers enough content that it's...entertaining and worthwhile.

Based on a few select branch visits over the past few years, Citizens-Charter uses a roughly 15-20 minute playlist of 20-30 second spots, although the timing of the loop is deceiving as a number of key spots are repeated more than once. News, weather, and sports updates for 21 unique regions appear prominently in the mix, and I would say that brand interstitials are featured more prominently than in other, more promotional networks. In addition to customer communications, the bank also uses the network to reach its employees , delivering training videos, product launches, and other corporate communications before- and after-hours. Sound does not seem to factor prominently in the multimedia experience, although ambient music does play in the "NICE" branches, and I can remember seeing content in the old Charter One branches that included an audio track.

The Citizens "NICE" branches were originally designed by Lippincott, and employed Impart software and content services to manage the network. Charter One's branches were designed by John Ryan and managed using the company's ScreenRed software and content services.

(Photos taken from ScreenRed, Impart, and Lippincott websites, ABA Bank Marketing article)

Harris Bank - Network Rollout

Harris Bank (owned by Bank of Montreal) is one of Chicago's oldest community banks and, with roughly 200 branches in the metropolitan area, one of its largest. Starting in 2001, the bank began experimenting with digital signs in its branches, first in high-traffic urban areas, and eventually made the decision to roll out to its entire network.

The bank adopted digital signage to address two key recurring issues: 1) long teller queues in its urban locations, cited as a primary source of customer dissatisfaction, and 2) generally low awareness of its broader (non-DDA) product portfolio, which was inhibiting cross-sell opportunities. The bank's branch communications weren't helping either problem--in fact, in one audit only 39% of customers could recall seeing a marketing message during their visit. In 2001, the bank initiated a pilot test, where it installed an LCD screen behind the teller counter in 13 urban locations, and eliminated all other print communications from the branch. The screens showed a mix of brand, promotional, and community relations/sponsorship content spots, interspersed with local news, weather, and sports updates.

At the end of three months, 89% of customers surveyed could recall a message they saw during their visit (compared to 39% in cohorts), and more than half indicated the screens improved their branch experience. The bank has also hinted that it observed a lift in cross-sell ratios during the pilot, but has yet to publish the results. In a Chain Store Age article, Joseph Teller, VP of Marketing Services, said the bank had finally found a medium that "successfully intermingles the product and services messages in a format that attracts and retains customer attention."

While there is certainly nothing revolutionary about the screen-behind-teller installations, to my knowledge Harris was one of the first to begin customized content (community events and news) on a branch location basis. Marketforward provides network management software and content services for the network.

(photos taken from Marketforward website, and digital retailing expo conference presentation)