L.L. Bean RFID Trial Ties Products Being Touched With Digital Displays
Written by Evan SchumanFebruary 17th, 2011
Approaching a product display table at her local L.L. Bean store, a consumer picks up a pair of boots that she thinks might work with a just-purchased outfit. Those same boots are equipped with a passive RFID tag, which detects the specific product being picked up, calculates the speed of its ascent and concludes that a customer is interested. A nearby digital display then starts running a video ad for those boots.
This L.L. Bean trial, which started in January, is trying to see whether highly targeted video—keyed into specific consumer actions—will push sales beyond traditional digital ads. The trial raises some interesting marketing issues, such as whether today's younger consumers (who have been inundated with fast-paced background videos since birth) will be influenced by these videos. Heck, will they even notice? This is an especially critical point, given that many of these videos are without sound.
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