NEC Display Solutions Client Installation Retail / DooH
LAND SECURITIES AT TRINITY LEEDS
CREATING A DIGITAL RETAIL DESTINATION
Trinity Leeds, the only large scale shopping mall opening in the UK in 2013 and the largest project of its type in Western Europe, opened in March 2013. Representing the blueprint for the future of retail, the mall is fully digital, offering shoppers a mobile app and free wifi, in addition to a £1million screen network investment featuring gigantic interactive NEC videowalls.
Trinity Leeds is located in a prime position in Leeds, the third largest city in England. Owned by Land Securities, the shopping centre boasts over 120 shops, restaurants, cafés, bars and a cinema, bringing a host of national and international brands together under the domed roof.
Almost half of the stores are new to the city with Apple, Hollister, Mango and Superdry amongst the exciting names debuting in Leeds, together with new flagship stores from well-loved brands including Marks & Spencer, Next, River Island and Topshop.
The Challenge
Persuading members of the public to leave the comfort of their homes where a retail purchase is just a few clicks away online, necessitates a unique offering requiring a customer-led approach. Making the site a digital destination in its own right was therefore one of the key objectives, enabling retailers and consumers to engage on a level which generates a more personalised shopping experience offering ‘special moments’ and a ‘fun factor’.
“Nine out of ten purchases are made online today and a big proportion of the searches and buys are made on mobile devices,” says Sean Curtis, head of marketing at Land Securities. “When we were planning this project we asked ourselves, should we dance with the internet devil in a shopping mall environment? The answer was yes, definitely. ”
Trinity Leeds’ integration across the website, mobile app, digital media touch points and digital signage achieves consistent messaging and design details across all platforms. Richard Gilbert, IT consultant at Land Securities confirms “we can operate with extreme efficiency with technology which enables us to have a common integrated platform for information dissemination to our customer base. It enables us to quickly implement digital creative across all platforms in an intelligent customer centric way. With digital screens forming the interface between us, our retailers and the public, they play a crucial part in our unified communications strategy.”
The NEC Solution
NEC videowalls, located in key areas across the mall, display information about events, live travel updates, centre branded messages, movie trailers, special offers, news and city guides. Crucially for the retailers, a percentage of the air time is dedicated to advertising and promotions, specific to the neighbouring store owner. With cameras located above a number of the videowalls collecting spatial information about its environment, passers-by can interact with the screen without having to touch it. Through an interactive application, visitors are engaging with the content to enjoy a personalised experience.
The location of the videowalls maximises engagement between consumers and retailers in terms of footfall and dwell time whilst integrating seamlessly into the development and forming part of the building façade. There are seven videowalls in total : two 3x3 touch enabled walls and one 2x6 wall utilise the 46” NEC X463UN ultra narrow bezel display. One 3x6 and one 3x4 video wall both with interaction plus two 2x6 walls utilise the 55” NEC X551UN ultra narrow bezel display.
With LED backlight technology, the NEC Ultra Narrow video wall modules are slim and light weight in design enabling easy installation to create virtually seamless digital canvases on which to display content. Installation was facilitated by Digital Media Projects and 53 Degrees.
“NEC displays were used exclusively throughout our installation for Land Securities at Trinity Leeds where the reliability, picture quality and 24/7 capability was crucial for this environment,” says Rod Pallister, Operations Director at 53 Degrees. “We have an excellent relationship with both the commercial and technical teams at NEC and with a UK based support network and Service Level Agreement promising next day swap out, we can be assured that our customer will continue to enjoy excellent signage performance.”
Direct LEDs deliver improved picture quality as they have a full array of backlight LEDs over the whole display area, giving the 46” MultiSync®X463UN and 55” MultiSync® X551UN superb image uniformity. Backlit LED panels deliver high brightness levels using less energy and creating less heat therefore offering savings in power usage and lengthening the product’s lifecycle - power savings associated with LED backlights can be as high as 35-40 %. Additionally, the displays feature a programmable ambient light sensor controlling the entire wall ensuring that the brightness is automatically adjusted as the light conditions change, further reducing power consumption and delivering eye pleasing brightness levels even in glass atrium environments such as shopping malls.
“NEC promises quality and reliability, this coupled with having a whole scalable range of displays that we could utilise now, and provide “future proofing” for the future, assured us of a reliable long-term partnership,” says Gilbert.
In addition to the seven videowalls operated by Land Securities, NEC supplied video wall solutions, high bright store window signage and touch screens into numerous stores located within the Centre including: River Island, Everything Everywhere, O2, Vodafone, Wasabi, HSBC, M&S, Superdry and Victoria Secret thus dominating the digital scene.
The Result
At Trinity Leeds, the digital dimension enhances the customer experience and provides retailers with the tools to reach their audience with the right message at the right time. Since opening, the shopping centre has welcomed half a million people per week. Its modern look and feel, as well as its practical functionality using wifi, mobile and digital signage, gives Leeds citizens a sense of pride and creates a new destination for the city’s visitors drawing consumers back again and again.
