How Grandi Stazioni Retail uses relevant and targeted campaigns to stop travellers in their tracks

February 27, 2018Samantha Brault

Italy attracts 48.6 million tourists a year and is home to one of the most diverse and beautiful landscapes in the world. Tourists and locals flock to get a glimpse of beautiful shorelines, rural villages, spectacular cities and ancient monuments. Connecting passengers with these destinations is Grandi Stazioni Retail.

Located in the heart of Italy’s busiest train stations, the Grandi Stazioni Retail network turns places of transit into information centers, shopping malls and meeting places. Their digital screens provide travellers and daily commuters with relevant, timely and targeted content to enhance their journey.

campaigns that respond to people

With an average of 2 million visitors per day, Grandi Stazioni Retail has a large audience in the mood to spend: tourists searching for the perfect souvenir, locals picking up a last minute gift on their way to see relatives, daily commuters grabbing an espresso on their way to the office and more.

But with such diverse groups of people, Grandi Stazioni Retail understood that not every person can be shown the same advertisement for their platform to be effective. Rather than opting for a one-size-fits-all approach, Grandi Stazioni Retail’s advertising channel implemented in-depth targeting to make sure that the right content gets to the right people with:

  • Facial recognition
  • Audience analytics including age, gender and mood
  • Presence sensors
  • Dwell time and attention time analytics
  • Third party data feeds

Through cameras and recognition technology, Grandi Stazioni Retail collect travellers’ information while they’re looking at a screen. With travellers’ safety and privacy a top concern, strict guidelines are followed to make sure all data is collected anonymously.

With the ability to detect gender, mood and age, ads respond to a consumer’s particular demographics. This technology lets Grandi Stazioni Retail target commuters with effective content that better suits their needs and interests.

Working with Lufthansa and Quividi, Grandi Stazioni Retail featured a campaign that used presence sensors to detect when a person was near the screen. The “Shhhh” campaign was used in three locations and had over 380,000 interactions.

Grandi Stazioni Retail uses audience data, including dwell time and attention time, to determine the success of a campaign. With this data, Grandi Stazioni Retail confirms that their network is performing as expected, advertisers learn what type of content works well with travellers and travellers receive relevant ads that add value to their journey.

engaging content for the busy traveller

With trains leaving every few minutes, passengers often rush to find everything they need before heading off to a new location. Whether that’s grabbing a quick bite to eat or picking up an entirely new outfit, the stations are constantly abuzz, which is why content on the network must be engaging and relevant to actually stop people in their tracks.

For this reason, the platform incorporates interactivity, social feeds and video to keep travellers engaged for longer periods of time. With these features, Grandi Stazioni Retail works with brands in a variety of industries including telecommunications, fashion and live entertainment, to deliver impactful marketing campaigns.

The network recently partnered up with the Italian Paralympic Committee to promote the importance of sports and recreation for disabled people. With the hashtag “cuore paralimpico” or “paralympic heart”, travellers could see their social media posts on station screens.

Through Grandi Stazioni Retail’s versatile platform, advertisers have endless creative opportunities to connect with on-the-go consumers and provide them with helpful and interesting content.

grandi stazioni retail & broadsign

With partners like Broadsign, Grandi Stazioni Retail automates their content and targets the right people at the right time by updating content based on specific times in the day, the current weather, a viewer’s mood and more. For example, for morning passengers who could use a pick-me-up, Grandi Stazioni Retail can display advertising for a local cafe between 6 and 10 AM.

Using BroadSign’s open API, Grandi Stazioni Retail displays unique content, easily and effectively. With the ability to integrate third-party audience analytics and content softwares, Grandi Stazioni Retail delivers content that truly connects with travellers and commuters.