Utilize digital signage and interactive displays to engage customers and influence their purchasing decisions. By integrating behavioral science principles, you can create compelling and personalized shopping experiences that drive sales and enhance customer satisfaction.
Dynamic Content
Dynamic content on digital signage allows us to adapt to customer behavior and preferences in real-time, creating more relevant and impactful messaging.
Example: McDonald’s Dynamic Menu Boards
McDonald’s uses AI-powered digital menu boards that change based on time of day, weather, and restaurant traffic.
This approach aligns with the availability heuristic, where people are more likely to make decisions based on readily available and recent information. By displaying items that are immediately relevant to customers’ current context, McDonald’s makes it easier for customers to choose items that suit their immediate needs and preferences.
Salience and Attention Bias
By prominently displaying cold drinks and ice cream during hot weather, McDonald’s leverages the salience principle. Our brains are naturally attuned to information that is relevant to our current state, making these items more noticeable and appealing. This taps into the attention bias, where we pay more attention to stimuli that are relevant to our immediate needs or desires.
Priming
The menu boards prime customers for specific choices. This subtle influence can shape customer preferences without their conscious awareness, making them more likely to choose the highlighted items.
Choice Architecture
By reorganizing the menu based on various factors, McDonald’s is engaging in choice architecture. They’re strategically presenting options in a way that guides decision-making towards desired outcomes.
Framing Effect
The dynamic menu allows McDonald’s to frame their offerings differently based on context. For instance, framing cold drinks as “refreshing relief” during hot weather can make them more appealing than if they were simply listed as beverage options.
Cognitive Fluency
By aligning menu offerings with the time of day (breakfast in the morning, transitioning to lunch), McDonald’s creates cognitive fluency. Customers find it easier to process information that aligns with their expectations, leading to a more positive evaluation of the options.
Recency Effect
By updating the menu in real-time, McDonald’s ensures that the most recently viewed items are the most relevant to the current context, leveraging the recency effect where we remember and are influenced more by recently presented information.
Interactive Experiences
Interactive displays provide personalized experiences that make shopping more engaging and informative.
Example: IKEA’s AR app, IKEA Place
It allows customers to virtually place furniture in their own homes before purchasing. This innovative tool leverages several cognitive biases to enhance the customer experience and drive sales.
Endowment Effect
The endowment effect refers to the phenomenon where people assign more value to things merely because they own them.
By allowing customers to virtually place and “own” the furniture within their own living spaces, the app creates a sense of ownership before the actual purchase.
Risk Aversion
The app significantly reduces the perceived risk associated with purchasing furniture. Customers often worry about making wrong choices that don’t fit their space or style, leading to regret and hassle of returns.
Mental Simulation
Mental simulation involves imagining oneself performing an action or experiencing an event, which can increase the desirability. The app allows customers to vividly imagine owning and using the furniture. By virtually placing a piece in their home, customers can simulate living with it—seeing how it looks, fits, and functions in their space.
Influence Techniques: Driving Customer Action
Strategic use of digital signage can significantly impact customer behavior, driving attention to specific products or promotions.
Example: Kroger’s EDGE (Enhanced Display for Grocery Environment) Digital Shelf System
Kroger, one of America’s largest supermarket chains, has implemented a digital shelf system in some of its stores. This system uses digital displays instead of traditional paper price tags and can be updated in real-time.
Here’s how it works:
- Dynamic Pricing: Prices can be updated instantly based on supply and demand.
- Personalized Offers: When connected to the Kroger app, it can display personalized offers as customers approach.
- Nutritional Information: It shows detailed product information, including nutritional facts and allergens.
- Stock Levels: It displays real-time stock information.
- Comparisons: It can show price comparisons with similar products.
Choice Architecture
The way products and information are displayed guides customer decision-making. By highlighting certain products or information, Kroger is essentially designing the environment in which choices are made.
Scarcity Principle
By displaying real-time stock levels, Kroger creates a sense of urgency. If a product is shown to be low in stock, customers are more likely to purchase it immediately, fearing they might miss out.
Social Proof
When the system highlights popular items or shows how many other customers have purchased a product, it leverages social proof. People tend to follow the actions of others, especially in uncertain situations.
Anchoring and Adjustment
By showing price comparisons, Kroger anchors customers to a certain price point. Even if a product isn’t the cheapest, seeing it compared to more expensive alternatives can make it seem like a good deal.
Cognitive Ease
By providing all relevant information in one place, Kroger reduces the cognitive effort required to make a decision.
Ready to Transform Your Retail Space?
Discover how integrating behavioral science principles into your digital signage strategy can revolutionize customer engagement and drive sales.
Contact us today to learn more about our expertise in behavioral design and how we can help you create compelling and effective in-store experiences.
