Newsagents are being encouraged by one of their associations (the Australian Newsagents’ Federation) to install scrolling poster units from a company called Moving Tactics. These units hold 20 magazine posters and scroll through, promoting the products in store. I see several problems with these units:
Customers spend little time in line in a newsagency so point of purchase displays need to move through their messages quickly.
Newsagents are contracted to provide a certain number of poster facings to at least one supplier. Using this scrolling unit would not, in my view, release them from that obligation yet the promotional material suggests otherwise.
Mechanical poster display units are dinosaur units – LCD is the way to go if you want your store to look relevant today. As I have discussed here I use an LCD unit in my store with excellent success.
Reaction time is slow given the archaic technology. Take the Powerball jackpot. If the $22 million does not go off this Thursday I would want the $33 Million promoted in a consistent marketing message in store from Friday morning.
These units make newsagents lazy. We’re better off creating stories in our shoops based on what is appropriate for us and for our customers. Abrogating that responsibility to a company located far away from the action of our shop is lazy.
Hopefully there will not be much take-up of this offering. Newsagents will gain more from active involvement in their businesses than giving the opportunity over to someone else.
I’d rather see newsagents use LCD screens like I and others are using. The association would have been smarter in visiting these innovative newsagencies and seeing LCD technology working well.