United Colors of Benetton

Benetton relaunches its stores with a project that invests in digital on a large scale, making communication management more flexible, efficient and engaging.

Benetton invests in digital signage on a large scale for the renewal of its retail stores and steps-up its communication management.

To strengthen in-store communication the Benetton Group has selected a sophisticated digital direction: a digital signage solution designed to deliver maximum flexibility, efficiency and efficacy.

The brand strategy introduces a new concept of store layout, based on the flexible positioning of the displays, and dynamic content distribution.

Replacing the costs of printed materials with the new economy of scale provided by the digital innovation, the Group is now able to manage centrally the multi-lingual communication in-store. The project is already active in 180 stores in 18 countries and has proved to be a winning choice:

• improved efficiency and flexibility in the management of the multi-lingual promotional material and in-store marketing
• Faster delivery and improved co-ordination of the in-store marketing content in all the Group’s stores.

THE PROBLEM

Every year Benetton, historic clothing brand with 5500 stores in over 100 countries, produces for its collections over 120million garments, shoes, and accessories. A large quantity of information, in the form of catalogues, specific contents, promotions, and marketing messages for each point of sale, must be handled by management for every seasonal collection.
Printed material, quickly out of date in relation to the collections turnover, proved to be expensive and not very functional.

Following a 2014 project called “On Canvas”, that sees the loom as a symbol of tradition and craftsmanship, United Colors of Benetton reinvents communication in the store. It is based on an original, functional and dynamic structure, around which revolve seasons, collections, colours and materials. Thus the loom becomes the symbol of innovation, and every transformation inside the store becomes possible, thanks also to the use of the most advanced digital signage.

THE SOLUTION

Benetton entrusted the project to M-Cube, the company specialised in Digital Signage systems, Digital Assets Management (DAM), and Audio and Digital Engagement, that has been working with the Group on all the in-store radio and digital signage projects since 2009.

Displays are positioned behind the checkout in every store, while an innovative structure is designed for the Man, Woman, and Child collections areas. Here 46” displays, hung on the looms in a specific cage, can be moved and repositioned at any time with extreme ease. Near the checkout areas there are also some small video-walls.

The re-engineering of the entire communication process comprises:

• the definition of a structured metadata Digital Signage platform, that can link photos and videos to languages and catalogues.
• fine tuning of a centralised control system, able to manage thousands of contents in 20 different language versions.
• organisation of a distribution service of multimedia contents in the various points of sale of the Group, in a synchronous and asynchronous mode, handled directly by M-Cube.

The new system enables us to control in a coordinated way the digital communication on the entire network of our stores. Thanks to a very reliable platform, and an excellent level of service, today I can manage single-handedly, and without any problem, all the flow of in-store communication through various monitors.

Giovanni Flore, Global Digital Signage Manager Gruppo Benetton

THE BENEFITS

Through engagement systems with high emotional impact for the shoppers, Benetton can now diversify the broadcast of images and text in twenty different languages in every point of sale worldwide. Thus the communication is always coordinated, and in line with the season, the time of day, and the promotional initiatives.

The new service guarantees to the brand:

• faster, more functional management of communication thanks to M-Cube taking charge of the programming schedule.
• advanced reporting and value added monitoring, with real time interventions, both remote or on site.
• drastic reduction of costs in the management of printed materials such as catalogues, promotions, and marketing initiatives.
• more efficient marketing personnel, free to focus on creative ideas for targeted campaigns for each point of sale.