Integrated and customer-specific product advertising on food scales at Migros
Leading Swiss retailers MIGROS are offering their customers attractive advertising of their fresh produce on its scales systems and thereby improving communication where the decision to purchase is made.
The integrated product advertising on the screens on the food scales is aimed at drawing the attention of MIGROS customers to current offers. Current products are promoted in a targeted way on the screens of the self-service scales on location in the fruit and vegetable sections and the manned fresh food counters for meat, fish, cheese and charcuterie, thereby enhancing their shopping experience.
The project was realised together with IBM, the MIGROS divisions and screenFOODnet. Migros gave IBM the order to realise this project with screenFOOD® software. Technical implementation on the scales was simplified and centralised so that the scales could have up-to-date animations copied onto them according to specific locations. It was also guaranteed that this solution would be integrated into the existing technical operation of the scales. screenFOODnet acted as advisers, created a content concept with MIGROS and assumed responsibility for the integration service in the server surroundings and product support.
At the start of 2009, the order was then given to screenFOODnet. The first scales had moving pictures copied onto them for the pilot start in 2010 at the MIGROS Cooperative in Lucerne. After the introduction of a high-availability installation in the server area, what is known as a cluster system, the project was rolled out in August 2011. At the end of 2011 there were already more than 1000 scales in about 200 branches of the MIGROS Cooperative in Zurich, Lucerne and Geneva with this dynamic product advertising. The Bizerba scales that had already been in use were adapted to incorporate the screenFOOD® CS software, which had itself been adapted by screenFOODnet for the specific Linux system in order to optimise the performance of the target system. The screenFOOD® add-on module, PROFILING, is used to generate the content profiles according to location using media attributes and parameter databases. This guarantees that the right contents are presented in the right branches. Additionally, there is a local application installed on each device that enables MIGROS employees to administer the desired product advertising for the presentation ad hoc on location. This makes sales talk between the employees at the counter and the customers easier and guarantees that products that are out of stock are not advertised on the scales. The blackboard at the fresh food counter has now been replaced by screens on the scales.
The MIGROS Cooperative offers the customer attractive, up-to-date images of their products with this dynamic and integrated solution, thereby increasing the sales of these and further products via cross-selling. By implementing this project, MIGROS can use a further sales area sensibly to advertise their products directly to their customers. Thanks to screenFOOD® training with the MIGROS Cooperatives, they can carry out the content management independently and undertake their own inhouse employee training. Additionally, the integration of screenFOOD® CS allows the central and fully automatic connection of new scales equipped with a screenFOOD® Player. The guarantee that the content is available on the server is provided by MIGROS themselves.
Operating on the network of scales operations is a particular challenge because this is a high-availability area that requires special attention. screenFOODnet, together with the M-POS division and IBM, were also able to take this hurdle success-fully, thus guaranteeing secure and stable operations.