The Beer Store has partnered with Cineplex Digital Media, a business-to-business unit of Cineplex specializing in digital retail environments, to revamp the so-called “Beer Wall” in its stores across the province.
The Beer Store is replacing its traditional static display of labels and prices with kiosks housing 21-inch tablets that enable customers to search its 650 beers by brand and category.
The touch-screen displays are able to show inventory in a given store, while highlighting both new brands and brands that are on sale.
Cineplex Digital Media president Nick Prigioniero said the digital displays would also provide The Beer Store with valuable analytics, such as how many people interacted with the screens, what they selected, what time of day, etc., information it can use to better market to its customers.
“It becomes a manageable, measurable and compliant marketing tool, and becomes very efficient in helping with selection,” said Prigioniero. “The strategy is ensuring that we’re creating a better experience for customers.”
The new digital screens have been deployed in approximately 145 stores, and Prigioniero said Cineplex expected to have them installed in 367 of The Beer Store’s 447 stores by June.
The Beer Store spokesman Bill Walker said the partnership stemmed from its commitment to improving the in-store experience for customers. The Beer Store has committed $100 million to upgrading and redesigning its stores over the next three years.
“We wanted to move beyond static, one-dimensional lists and transition to digital in a way that really allows our customers to go deeper in terms of exploring new beer experiences,” said Walker. The Beer Store, he said, is also working on other digital and mobile innovations.
Cineplex began expanding its digital capabilities in the early part of the decade, first with the $3.5 million purchase of Waterloo-based Digital Display & Communications, followed by the 2013 acquisition of digital signage company EK3 Technologies.
The two merged into a new entity called Cineplex Digital Media earlier this year. Its client roster includes Tim Hortons, McDonald’s, A&W, RBC, Scotiabank and Walmart.
The company has three offices in Ontario (Toronto, Waterloo and London) and a fourth in Chicago that oversees U.S. sales. The company recently landed the North American assignment for QSR chain Dairy Queen.
I’ve used this app (it’s been out for awhile): it’s nicely done, and it would be a cool implementation if the rest of The Beer Store wasn’t the Soviet era retail experience that it is. But using it to replace the wall rather than augment it, I can’t help feeling it’s part of The Beer Store’s systematic retooling of the stores to make it very difficult to find a beer you don’t already know about through advertising (and hm… coincidently the ones with big ad budgets are the ones who run The Beer Store). Frankly, when you compare this experience to the LCBO’s (eg with their new craft beer sections), the gap between them continues to widen. They just don’t seem to get it.
Tuesday, May 17 @ 1:39 pm |