Project Overview

In 2014 Travel Money Group (Oz and NZ) decided to revolutionise the foreign exchange 'rates board'. Our goal was to deliver the brand experience 'we make foreign currency simple' when communicating exchange rates.

The old store screens were manual red LED, which consultants had
to programme daily and could not even display the full currencies
list of 60+ currencies. Non-cash products were promoted solely through limited range of posters.

From late 2014 Travel Money Oz opened 11 new stores in the Sydney area, and retrofitted digital rates screens into all existing stores. 4 different screen types and tailored playlists were developed to integrate into existing legacy retail store designs, and also formed a key component of the three new format store designs being rolled out across new stores opened.

Using iBase media players and the Scala Content Management System, screens deliver tailored messaging to store with real time 5 minute upload.

Playlists can be tailored to store, store format or region. High
impact visuals Inform and Inspire customers to deliver a
differentiated brand experience.

Organisation

Travel Money Group

Team

Travel Money Group:
Red Livermore- Senior Designer
Dion Jensen (GM and commissioned the brief)
Rebecca McGready: Brand and Marketing Executive
Michael Frost: Digital Signage Consultant
Rowena Samaraweera: Global Marketing Manager

Project Brief

As Australia and New Zealand's fastest growing foreign currency
retailer, Travel Money Group's goal was to revolutionise the look and feel of the traditional currency exchange bureau, deploying
innovative and targeted content to a range of integrated in store
digital screens.

Foreign exchange retailers display exchange rates are very static
and confusing. Static LED rate boards, confusing terminology, and
the expectation that customers can work out what 45.998 Yen
converts to keeps customers in the dark. Retailers often switch off their screens to hide exchange rates forcing customers into the store and reducing competition for shoppers who find it hard to compare.

The brief set out to meet the following goals:
1. Deliver an innovative and simple display of foreign exchange rates to improve the customer experience and build consumer trust in our brand.
2. Improve instore transactions by encouraging more customers in store.
3. Improve cross sales of non- cash products via engaging digital content.
4. Clearly differentiate the Travel Money Oz brand, by providing a very different store experience from local FX competitors and large banks.

Project Innovation/Need

Travel Money's revolutionary new exchange rates boards are
dynamic, clear and easy to understand exactly the maths: Screens clearly communicate: $100 AUD buys you xxx USD. We display store
rates for all the currencies traded- offering transparency on
pricing and demonstrating our range.

The full product range of money transfer, travel
insurance and card products is now clear.

In new store layouts the core exchange rate screens have been supplemented with a range of tailored content or campaign screens, which communicate visually stimulating travel money tips, destination content, real time exchange rates, weather feeds, and product content helping customer make better travel money choices.

This content is tailored to each store format and the relevant retail interaction zones. Brand values and personality are demonstrated through quirky creative and copy and aspirational travel imagery communicating the excitement of travel.

The entire project and ongoing design and deployment was executed cheaply and quickly through an inhouse team. The 100% retrofit of existing stores demonstrated the business commitment to the digital signage forming a core part of the target brand and customer experience.

Design Challenge

The key design challenges were:
- being able to simplify complex financial exchange rate information.
-balancing needs of different customer segments e.g. people wishing to buy versus sell currency.
- getting timing of rotation right (too fast vs too slow)
-tailoring content to 3 new store formats as well as all legacy store designs.
- developing standardised playlists to suit the interaction zone of the screen within the store physical context
-working with product suppliers to align dual branded content.

User Experience

Staff report the existing stores are now suddenly more visible- with customers asking 'how long have you been here?" even when we have been at that location > 2 years.

There has been a marked uplift in unprompted enquiry around non cash products, as well as increased sales in the more 'exotic currencies' as the full product range is now on display.

We have also installed cameras and measurement software at a
number of locations. Before and after analysis of using cameras in
existing stores has demonstrated a 130-200% uplift in shoppers
viewing the digital rates boards compared to the LED boards

The digital signage installation has been a key support to the
amazing revenue growth of Travel Money in NZ and Australia,
with sales growing at +50% in NZ and +29% in Australia and a
massive $2m profit improvement in 14-15.