IBM enters in-store TV market and signs 790-shop Douglas

Called Dynamic Digital Merchandising, the system combines plasma screens in stores with a central back-office server to stream content.

Big Blue is joining a growing number of suppliers seeking to provide systems that can distribute, co-ordinate and measure the effect of promotional video content to so-called captive audiences. Douglas Perfumeries has already signed up for the system.

Retailers spend significant amounts of money printing promotional material, only to throw it away once the promotion ends. Using plasma screens is costly in comparison, but should make savings eventually, because the screens can be used for every promotion.

There is also the chance that extra revenue can be generated from product suppliers that want to highlight their own products on the shelf, much as TV channels make money from advertisers.

Two of the biggest UK digital signage trials to date have taken place at Tesco - which has installed big screens suspended above the end of each aisle in 100 stores - and Spar, which has recently published the results of a trial of small format shelf-edge screens in six stores.

Spar found that items promoted on plasma screens saw sales increase by up to 40 per cent compared with controls in the sample, which ran the same promotions, but did not use digital signage. Spar also found that these products continued to do well even after the promotions had finished.

The trial was self-funding, because it sold space to suppliers at a rate of a few pence a minute of screen time.

However, no attempt has been made by the retailer to make any profit on the venture.

Douglas Perfumeries is one of the first retailers to try out the effect of digital signage on high-value items. The company will use the solution to generate footfall on its lower-ground and first-floor departments in its 789 stores throughout Europe and the US.

Douglas Perfumeries is a subsidiary of Douglas Holdings, which also runs jewellers and a German-speaking bookseller.