Waitrose send SMS messages to Digital Screens

At 11.30am every day since the middle of January the breakfast/brunch menu displayed on a digital screen adjacent to the steak and oyster bar at Waitrose’s Food & Home store in Canary Wharf, London, automatically disappears to be replaced by the lunch menu sent by an SMS message from a mobile phone.

The branch is the first in the group to use this technology provided by Pierhouse, which also generates customer information for screens at the salad, juice and baguettes counters. Apart from promoting what is available at each location, the screens also include marketing information about other products, to encourage up, and cross, selling. The 42 ins LCD screens plug into the normal electricity supply and work independently from the store’s IT system.  

“We are always looking at new ways to improve our in-store marketing communication to customers,” says Steve Scott, Department Manager Point Of Sale Administration, Waitrose. “The screens provide us with the flexibility to change our messages during the day, something that is not possible with traditional POP. The fact that store staff do not have to worry about the screens and their contents, means that they can focus on the prime role of interacting with customers.”