Wickes
The Company
Wickes is a British home improvement retailer and garden centre, based in the United Kingdom and owned by Travis Perkins, with more than 230 stores throughout the country
Howard Hunt Group is a leading marketing services provider, consisting of Howard Hunt, Celerity, ORM and Graft services. They are the largest producer of direct mail in the UK, manufacturing over 600 million direct mail packs, one billion door drops and three billion inserts per annum. This level of output commands stringent practices around efficiency and quality as well as a strategic annual investment programme.
Graft – part of the HH Group – is a vibrant team of multi-disciplined experts, backed up by solid process and technology that allows the company to provide comprehensive support for their clients marketing campaign delivery. A particular strength is sourcing and supply-chain management, providing solutions and advisory services across a range of disciplines.
The Challenge
Wickes wanted a hand held video playback solution so their staff in store could easily and efficiently watch the new video content that was being served on a regular basis by head office. These videos could be product knowledge, store information, company news, staff training (and more).
They wanted a customised, bespoke branded unit that was rugged and durable.
The video playback device needed to have the ability to quickly serve new/fresh video content without the need for high-activity process to get the new videos on to the device. With conventional hand-held video players, when updates were required, the process was typically 1) deliver new videos somehow (FTP, email, USB, file share). 2) download the videos to the desktop. 3) Connect the video player to a PC via USB cable 4) access the flash memory and the video folder 5) Delete the existing videos 6) Drag/Drop the new videos 7) quick QC check
This process was considered too complex for the solution to be viable.
The Solution
We designed and manufactured a highly customised solution tailored to the clients specific requirements.
- A robust and durable custom branded VideoPak video player that could be hand held or as a table top unit with rear stands.
- Produced on a printable, heavy duty acrylic.
- The product itself was TOUCH-SCREEN
- Powered by a heavily modified android4 operating system (OS)
- The unit was streamlined of most unwanted/distracting apps and features so the product was more directed towards its primary purpose – corporate video content delivery. Many of the standard setting were removed or switched off.
- The device itself was WiFi enabled, so, after a simple one time only set up on first use, the product was ready for immediate use thereafter.
- A bespoke app was created to deliver a fast and simple video viewing experience whereby the client content auto-launched when the pack was turned on (or even woken up from sleep mode). The app was powered with some features such as intelligent connectivity/content display timing) as well as customer loading screens to make the experience feel even more tailored and also an auto-refresh so the latest web content was always current in real-time
- A smart URL solution was installed so the web content that is pulled through to the client app could be easily changed if needs be.
User experience
- Turn the device on.
- After it powers up, the customer app will automatically launch once the device has detected internet connectivity
- On launching, the video content is displayed on-screen
- Head office have the ability to change the video content quickly and easily via their Web App – so are in full control of the central point of the content.
- As and when new video content was loaded (weekly or bi-weekly), a notification email was sent to the store managers and, on turning on the device, the fresh content is immediately served on screen with no actions or updates needed from the end user.
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