What is a brand zone?

A brand zone is a designated area within a store that showcases a particular brand's products or services. It is a marketing strategy brands use to create a unique and immersive shopping experience for their customers. In a brand zone, the products are arranged to highlight the brand's identity, values, and style. It is an opportunity for the brand to tell its story and connect with its target audience. A well-executed brand zone can create a lasting impression on the customer and increase brand loyalty.

How brand zones look like 

Brand zones in stores can take many forms, depending on the brand's objectives and layout. The design can vary from minimalist to elaborate, dramatically enhancing customer experience through creative designs. For example, themed experience areas that reflect the brand's essence, customization stations, and educational zones provide live demonstrations and workshops to engage and inform shoppers. 

Nike's brand zone

For example, Nike's brand zones feature massive LED screens that display sport-related content, a basketball court, and a treadmill for customers to test their products. 

Samsung brand zone

Another example are Samsung brand zones, which showcase Samsung's latest technology products in an interactive and immersive way, allowing customers to try out the products and learn about their features. 

Lancome brand zone

Lancôme, a French cosmetics brand, improved customer experience by using digital technology in its brand zones. This included video walls in malls and gondolas with interactive touch screens powered by DISPL software. The initiative boosted customer engagement and sales. Additionally, DISPL audience analytics provided GDPR-compliant customer demographic data, helping Lancôme optimize store layout and marketing strategies to increase effectiveness. Explore more about the project here.

The importance of brand zones

Brands must invest in their brand zone, as it is a powerful tool to differentiate themselves from their competitors, communicate their brand values, and promote their products and services to their target audience.

Differentiation

A strong brand zone can effectively differentiate your brand from the competition by showcasing your unique identity and values. This can help you stand out in a crowded market and attract more customers who resonate with your brand.

Communication

Through careful design and content creation, your brand zone can be a powerful communication source to effectively communicate your brand values, ideas, and meanings to your customers. This can help build a more trusting and loyal relationship with your audience.

Promotion

Your brand zone can also be utilized to promote your products and services to your target audience. Creating a dedicated section for new offers, promotions, or products can effectively showcase your offerings and educate your audience about their features and benefits. This can help boost sales and revenue for your business.

Challenges for brands

Like any marketing tool, brand zones have their disadvantages.

Measuring the effectiveness

It can be challenging to determine how many people saw the brand zone, how many were influenced by it, and how many ultimately made a purchase because of it. Without this information, it is difficult for brands to calculate the return on investment (ROI) and determine the effectiveness of their marketing efforts.

Why may sales not increase?

Another challenge is determining why sales may have stayed the same, even with a brand zone in place. It is possible that customers did not see the brand zone or saw it but were not interested in the offered products. 

How audience analytics helps to overcome difficulties

Fortunately, there is a solution available to help overcome the difficulties mentioned above: offline audience analytics. This tool can be used to understand customer behavior and preferences. In the following paragraphs, we will discuss several ways in which offline audience analytics can be used to understand the effectiveness of brand zones and drive sales.

Analyze audience profiles

By utilizing DISPL's innovative audience analytics in brand zones, brands can recognize the age and gender of the offline audience in a specific store, enabling them to personalize the brand zone to better resonate with the local audience. Alternatively, suppose the brand zone is attracting a different audience than intended. In that case, brands can use this data to consider changing the concept of the brand zone to align with the demographic characteristics of the actual audience.

Measure engagement level

The audience analytics technology deployed in brand zones can also provide valuable insights into the level of engagement, including the time visitors spend at the brand zone. This data can help brands and retailers conclude the effectiveness of the brand zone in capturing and maintaining customer interest, ultimately influencing purchase decisions and driving conversion.

Optimize sales funnel

The audience analytics solution can track the number of people passing by, the number visiting the brand zone, and the number showing interest. By combining this data with sales information can provide a comprehensive view of the full conversion funnel.

Get content insights

Audience analytics for digital signage can track how much time visitors spend viewing screens displaying content. By analyzing viewing time alongside the content, brands can optimize their content strategy to deliver more relevant and captivating experiences. This ultimately increases the effectiveness of the brand zone in driving customer engagement and conversion.

Make comparative analysis

Gathering data on the effectiveness of brand zones in different retail stores allows brands to compare and identify the most successful and impactful brand zones. This data-driven approach helps them strategically allocate resources, focusing on the most effective brand zones, and make informed decisions about optimizing or reevaluating less successful ones. 

Enhancing brand zones with digital technology

Once you receive the results of your analytics and identify weaknesses in your marketing strategy, you can take steps to improve the brand zone, boost engagement, and attract a new audience. One way to do this is by implementing digital signage. We will analyze specific examples further.

Leverage interactive tablets

One effective way to attract more attention to the brand zone through digital technologies is by leveraging interactive tablets. These tablets can be strategically placed within the brand zone to provide visitors with detailed product information, interactive experiences, and the ability to scan QR codes for further engagement. By offering a hands-on and informative experience, interactive tablets can enhance visitor engagement and create a more immersive brand experience.

Use dynamic content

Dynamic content on digital screens is another impactful tool for capturing attention within the brand zone. These screens can display captivating and constantly changing content, such as product demonstrations, brand storytelling, and visually appealing graphics. The dynamic nature of the content can effectively draw in visitors and create an engaging and visually stimulating environment within the brand zone.

Implement real-time targeting technology

In addition to interactive tablets and dynamic digital screens, DISPL can leverage real-time targeting technology to enhance the impact of the brand zone further. This technology allows for the display of targeted ads in real-time, tailoring the content based on the gender and age of the audience. Real-time targeting technology can significantly increase the effectiveness of brand zone marketing efforts by delivering personalized and relevant content. Learn more about how real time targeting works.

Conclusion

Leveraging DISPL analytics in brand zones not only enhances customer engagement but also provides brands with crucial data to fine-tune marketing strategies and increase overall effectiveness. By adopting these advanced technologies, brands can transform ordinary brand zones into dynamic, interactive experiences that captivate customers, deepen brand loyalty, and drive sales, ensuring that each brand zone is a powerful asset in the competitive retail landscape.

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