LG’s 14mm Transparent LED Film Turns Windows into Digital Signage, Encourages C-Store Foot Traffic and Sales
Retail-focused technology integration firm Abierto recently conducted a blind study of convenience store shoppers and found that LG’s 14mm pixel pitch Transparent LED Film (model LAT140) encourages spontaneous purchases, deeply enforces messaging recall and improves brand perception. The new LG technology, which Abierto has rebranded OPEN.LED as part of its OPEN platform of digital signage products and services, was tested at a Café Nouria convenience store in Maine and garnered unanimous approval from shoppers who weren’t told which part of their visit was being studied.
A convenience store’s bottom line depends on in-store foot traffic, but according the NACS’ Consumer Insights 2019 report on Consumer Behavior at the Pump, 56 percent of fuel customers don’t go inside the store. Donovan Woods of the Fuels Institute said, “In fact, the average person spends a total of 3 hours per year at the pump fuelling their vehicles. These recurring 3 to 5 minute fuelling visits provide excellent opportunities for retailers to market to them.”
“For obvious reasons, even fewer consumers entered stores during the pandemic, and retailers are now looking for ways to entice them to return and shop the store” added Rick Sales, President of Abierto. “To date, the most common exterior-facing signage solutions have been traditional flat panel displays and low-resolution LED window signage, both of which have significant drawbacks. We found that an OPEN.LED display promoting quality foods and displaying animated graphics directly encourages spontaneous purchases and improves the brand’s perception as a more modern, upscale convenience store.”
The LG Transparent LED film is especially beneficial for fuelling station convenience stores, as the 73-percent transparent technology enables dynamic digital advertising while retaining employees’ ability to monitor individual fuelling pumps and parking lots. The transparency also gives customers an unhindered view of the store interior and provides tinting against glare. This is a major change from window-facing flat panel displays, which can completely block large sections of windows and may negatively affect in-store aesthetics due to unsightly wires and rear panel visibility.
According to Abierto, the advantages of LG’s LED film go well beyond visual quality and transparency, providing the option to build digital canvases in custom sizes and presenting a much simpler installation process than alternative technologies.
“LG’s 14mm transparent LED film is self-adhesive and consists of tiles that piece together, so any window can sport a digital signage solution,” Sales added. “As part of our OPEN family of digital signage solutions that includes cloud-based content management, an entire chain’s OPEN.LED displays and other existing signage can be centrally managed, enabling near-instant company-wide messaging and promotion updates or to direct targeted messaging to specific sites testing new products.”