Case Study: Page (1) of 1 - 06/01/12

Bilingual Solution Aids Community, Customers

Bicultural Pharmacy Chain Combines Bicultural Pharmacy Gets Across With Digital Signage

Bicultural Pharmacy Chain Combines BrightSign Digital Signage Players with Wovenmedia Place-based Media Service

Establishes Milagros de Mexico as a Community Resource for Healthcare Information within US Hispanic Communities

When you think about your neighborhood pharmacy, your first thought probably isn't of high- definition screens playing informative and engaging health-related video messaging and branding ... unless you happen to live near a Milagros de Mexico (MdM) Pharmacy. A completely bilingual and bicultural retail pharmacy chain with a small-town feel, MdM provides health and wellness products to the established Hispanic neighborhoods of San Francisco, San Jose, Oakland and Redwood City. In addition to offering a broad selection of U.S. and Latino brand medicines, supplements and homeopathic remedies, it also offers a wide range of affordable medical services.

MdM wanted a cost-effective solution for differentiating its stores from the larger chains by providing their communities with much-needed health-related information that entertains. Management also wanted to deliver timely messages about the stores' extensive product and service offerings so customers would be able to make well-informed decisions. By combining BrightSign® network-enabled HD210 digital signage players with Wovenmedia's place-based media services, MdM now delivers professionally produced health and wellness segments from leading television networks, as well as their own content, throughout their chain of stores.

Key Facts
Industry: Pharmaceutical
Location: 4 Milagros de Mexico locations in Oakland, Redwood City, San Francisco and San Jose, California
Integrator: Store staff or outside contractors
Project: Provide helpful information on health issues affecting the community and improve brand awareness
Installation: Each pharmacy/clinic has one or two BrightSign HD210 digital signage players driving Wovenmedia's cloud-based video service on up to three commercial-grade monitors

Challenges

Deploying a budget-friendly, easy to manage, energy efficient, turnkey signage solution
Differentiating Milagros de Mexico as a trusted resource for health-related information and services in their bilingual/bicultural community
Enhancing MdM's brand image; making it more competitive
Building awareness of the various products and services offered by MdM pharmacies and clinics
Providing valuable health and wellness information in an engaging format
Delivering frequently updated, eye-catching HD-quality video and images

Benefits

Increased customer loyalty by establishing MdM as a community resource for healthcare information
Reliable, HD-quality video that captures visitor attention
Flexible video messaging can be easily updated via a standard network connection
Enhanced customer shopping experience
Improved waiting area customer/patient satisfaction
Improved awareness of available products and services
Ability to drive over-the-counter sales and generate income by running educational content from advertisers

BrightSign Solution

Low initial cost of BrightSign players and low power consumption delivers budget-friendly solution
Solid-state, non-PC platform ensures the highest standard in reliability and worry-free maintenance
All-in-one digital signage solution includes the player, management software and networking capabilities to simplify deployment, eliminate compatibility problems
BrightSign HD210 controllers deliver dynamic looping content and Full HD video quality
BrightSign's open-platform BrightAuthor software links to Wovenmedia's video service
BrightSign network-enabled players make content updates easy via Wovenmedia's cloud-based service portal

Quote
"It can be economically challenging for smaller chain businesses to compete with national chains for their share of the neighborhood market and define what's unique about their offering. But with BrightSign's line of HD video controllers, we can keep the Wovenmedia service affordable without compromising video quality or network reliability. For Milagros de Mexico, this solution has removed the cost barrier and enabled them to broadcast professional-quality, brand-building and call-to-action video messaging to their customers, just like the big chain stores."
- Susie Opare-Abetia, Co-Founder and CEO of Wovenmedia

The Challenge
According to the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA), an appropriate marketing budget for business to consumer (B2C) retail and pharmaceutical stores can exceed 20 percent during the peak brand-building years. This can be an intimidating prospect for localized chains competing against the seemingly bottomless pockets of a national chain on the opposite neighborhood corner vying for the same customer's loyalty. The key is to work smarter and compete wisely with a tailored marketing plan directed at the specific needs of the community served, while simultaneously fulfilling the company's goals.

Not only did MdM want a solution that would help them improve their brand loyalty within the bilingual/bicultural community they served, they also wanted to promote the various products and services offered by the pharmacy as well as provide valuable health and wellness information to their customers in a friendly and engaging format. The real challenge, however, was to achieve their marketing goals without exceeding their budget. In addition, because the pharmacies serve bilingual/bicultural communities, messaging needed to be delivered in both Spanish and English while taking up as little valuable real estate within the store as possible.

The Solution
For MdM, the clear, practical answer was digital signage; but the challenge remained to keep costs down. To achieve their goals of being able to display affordable, HD-quality, video content without exceeding their budget, MdM selected Wovenmedia's cloud-based video service driven by BrightSign® network-enabled HD210 digital signage players.

Using Wovenmedia's straightforward drag-and-drop software interface, Milagros de Mexico now has the ability to create its own in-house TV network programming on a secured cloud-based platform. Subscribing to Wovenmedia's vast pool of rights-cleared video content, MdM is able to blend their own branding and promotional content with relevant live broadcasts, social media streams and even licensed programming. Once the content programming is set in their cloud-based account, the BrightSign HD210 digital players at each of the four Milagros locations can access the content and ensure each location provides prompt, synchronized, glitch-free onsite broadcast in Full HD quality to the screens onsite.

The licensed pool of third-party content providers includes NBC Universal, Access Hollywood, PBS, The Weather Channel, PGA Tour, Big 10 Networks and CNET. Hispanic language content from V-me and Qubo, two of the fastest growing Hispanic TV networks in the US, is also available.

"It can be economically challenging for smaller business chains to compete with national chains for their share of the neighborhood market and define what's unique about their offering," said Susie Opare-Abetia, Co-Founder and CEO of Wovenmedia. "But with BrightSign's line of HD video controllers, we can keep the Wovenmedia service affordable without compromising video quality or network reliability. For Milagros de Mexico, this solution has removed the cost barrier and enabled them to broadcast professional-quality, brand-building and call-to-action video messaging to their customers, just like the big chain stores."

Included with the digital players, BrightSign's BrightAuthor PC-based software includes templates, wizards and customization tools that enable even inexperienced users to create, schedule and manage their own presentations. The intuitive interface makes it easy to build full-screen and multi-zone playlists for looping displays without manually configuring coordinates and image sizes. In MdM's case, BrightAuthor's open platform also enables direct links to Wovenmedia's video service.

BrightSign Implementation and Outcome
All four Milagros de Mexico locations are utilizing BrightSign HD210 digital signage players and Wovenmedia's video service to engage customers with timely product promotions and Hispanic language entertainment content chosen by MdM specifically for their in-store audience. Sales of items promoted on the network have seen a noticeable increase, and customers have been enjoying the entertaining content. Eventually, Milagros hopes to reach customers on-the-go with similar content sent to their Smart Phones and other mobile devices.

The complete, turnkey HD signage solution includes software and networking capabilities built-in for easy deployment. And, because the BrightSign players are based on solid-state technology, rather than a traditional PC platform, they cost substantially less, deliver higher reliability and require only a fraction of the power.

As part of Wovenmedia's services, Milagros de Mexico management receives email alerts as new content partners are added, enabling the pharmacy's network administrator to log onto the cloud-based portal and select programming from the newly available content that will be published on the web-connected screens in each of the four pharmacy storefronts. In the field, the network-connected BrightSign units receive and play the revised content according to the newly created programming list. To keep brand messaging and call-to-action content fresh, MdM performs video playlist updates monthly.

"When it came down to making a digital signage decision, what I really liked about the Wovenmedia/BrignSign solution was the fact that it would allow us to manage our own content without requiring us to make a large investment in an infrastructure or contract an IT person," said Milagros de Mexico Marketing Manager, Ben Singer. "This solution has allowed us to do a great deal of branding at a very low cost, while still allowing each of our pharmacy locations to address the needs of their specific neighborhood."

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Related Keywords:digital signage