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Step Right Up
By Andrew Kantor
981-3384
Want to see a new kind of advertising? Roanoke-based IntelliMat hopes to catch your attention by adding motion to floor-mounted displays.
"We own the floor." That's how Debra Saunders, marketing director for IntelliMat, describes the Roanoke company's patents -- ownership rights so broad they give the company a virtual monopoly on a new kind of advertising.
And the company is taking those patents and running with them.
Spun off from the Egg Factory earlier this year, IntelliMat holds nine patents -- including four foreign ones -- for any floor-mounted display that's controlled by a computer. And because there are computers in just about everything, including televisions, it comes down to this: No company can put a screen on the floor without IntelliMat's permission.
But the company has more than the patents. It has a product: a floor-mounted computer and monitor that's flat enough (at four-fifths of an inch) and tough enough to be walked on in the supermarket or drug store, by the cosmetic counter or deli section. The first of the $9,900 units are already coming off the production lines outside Chicago.
IntelliMat is betting that the floor is the next frontier in advertising -- a frontier that's barely been touched, but, it hopes, is ripe for the picking.
We've all seen floor graphics, those large stickers placed under your feet in the supermarket. Maybe they're touting Clorox in the cleaning supplies aisle, or Diet Coke, if you're looking at soft drinks.
But those don't move. They're static images, and soon customers simply tuned them out. Chances are you walk all over them.
As Mya Frazier, a reporter for Ad Age magazine put it, "Everyone bought them up when they first came out. I think people are a little skeptical about them now."
Forget stickers on the floor, says IntelliMat, even big, colorful ones. The company's product is a bit more 21st century. And, in an age of advertising saturation, maybe the Next Big Thing.
It takes the idea of putting an ad on the floor (which we all have to look at, if only to avoid stepping on -- or in -- something), and adds motion. Anything that can appear on a computer screen can be displayed on an IntelliMat: Pictures, movies, animations, even PowerPoint presentations. Think ads, news, information, entertainment.
The important thing is that what's on an IntelliMat moves, and that makes them darned hard to tune out, whether they're showing a commercial for Tide or a trailer for "Spider-Man 3."
Here comes the science
According to Joe King, professor of physiological psychology at Radford University, humans are wired to pay attention to certain things, including objects in motion. After all, a few million years ago, that object might have been food ... or a predator.
We can always focus on something when we need to, such as a conversation with the boss. ("We call it 'paying attention' because it costs us something," King explained.) But, he said, "We also have another mechanism of attention, and that's automatic attention."
That's the predator/prey thing. It's when our eyes -- and brains -- are drawn to something unconsciously. "You have no choice in the matter, you don't think about it," King said.
This isn't a bad thing. "There's an evolutionary advantage to having those mechanisms present," he explained. "Animals that didn't have a rudimentary version of this were not likely to survive."
Survive we did, and with that came some useful brain wiring. Useful for us ("I think a cheetah is following me") and useful for IntelliMat, which is, in effect, using millions of years of instinct against us.
"Anything that's out of context -- a TV in a grocery store -- is going to capture our attention," King said.
IntelliMat's plan is to use that attention to drive sales differently from the way most advertising does.
Think about it: If you see a billboard for the new Camry, you're not about to head to the nearest off-ramp to find a Toyota dealer. If you see a television commercial for Tide, you're not going to run to the store that minute.
Traditional advertising creates a desire -- a desire that will (hopefully) remain with you until you're looking to buy a car, or are simply in the laundry aisle at Kroger. It plants an idea in your head.
IntelliMat is different. Its goal is also to put an idea into shoppers' heads, but to do it right there where the product is. You know how magazines and candy are placed by the checkout lines to generate "impulse buys"? The IntelliMat folks want to make every product a potential impulse buy.
As Saunders put it, "Every other form of advertising drives people into the store. We're the closer." People, she said, can be influenced mightily when they're right in front of a product.
"Once we're in that aisle, if this is there," she said, referring to the IntelliMat, "we can be swayed."
For advertisers looking for new and different ways to break through to over-saturated, ad-jaded consumers, the IntelliMat presents an intriguing possibility. Ditto for retailers looking for a profit center; they can sell ad space on IntelliMats.
In effect, there are two forces coming together: 1) Brand marketers are realizing that they need to target their ads to the people who will actually buy their products; and 2) Retailers are seeing their margins squeezed, thanks to competition from superstore chains -- and the mighty superstore that is the Internet.
End result: Retailers are offering their customers' eyeballs to advertisers. "The power shifted a long time ago to retailers," Frazier said. "They're seeing their stores more and more as a medium -- as a revenue source." It's a lucrative sideline. Each Wal-Mart store takes in between $137,000 and $292,000 per month for each ad on its in-store TV screens.
IntelliMat is well aware of this. It's part of the company's plan to make money.
According to company president Jim Currie, IntelliMat is planning on two profit centers. First, it will focus on selling the units to businesses that want to drive sales or sell those ads. Later, though, Currie said, "I want to sell space." That is, rent the units to stores in exchange for a piece of the action -- a cut of the ad revenue IntelliMat brings in.
Both revenue channels will depend on people actually paying attention to what's on the floor, and not just for the moment. If the novelty wears off and shoppers become desensitized, there goes the company.
Looking away?
Despite the best-laid plans of Currie and company -- and the cognitive science -- there are doubts about the IntelliMat's long-term possibilities.
"I'm very skeptical about whether this in-store stuff really works," said Ad Age's Frazier. "I mean, it's annoying."
And as logical as a point-of-purchase ad sounds, "It's not yet proven," she said. Maybe it works, maybe it doesn't. "It's impossible to connect the advertising to purchase data."
"[In-store ads] are real shift in mind set," Frazier said. "It's still so green. Nobody's solved it. Nobody had the tried and true formula yet."
But what about motion? The idea that millions of years of evolution practically forces us to watch them?" There's another side to that coin: The effect may not last. There could be, shall we say, IntelliMat burnout -- the psychological term is "habituation."
Picture this: You're talking to someone near a window. Outside, a child starts to swing in a playground. At first, your eyes are drawn to the motion; you can't help that. But after a few swings, your brain discounts that motion -- it's not prey and it's not a threat. It loses your attention.
In IntelliMat's case, as Radford's King put it, "Once you've seen a moving picture you're going to habituate to it. After a while people will stop paying attention to those TV monitors."
Frazier agrees. "I'm sure that toddlers will watch it," she said, "but a busy mom, rushing in and out?"
She pointed out how many homes have the TV on all the time. It's become, effectively, wallpaper. "In a lot of ways, [IntelliMat] is going to become wallpaper itself."
Even retailers who are interested in the IntelliMat aren't sure how they'll use it. They just like the idea.
Electronics retailer Circuit City confirmed that it will be one of IntelliMat's first customers but wouldn't say how it planned to use the displays. As spokeswoman Amanda Tate put it, "It's pretty new, and we're still trying to figure it out."
Accentuate the positive
But plenty of great ideas took a while to become great. The photocopier, telephone, radio, computer and a host of other inventions were scoffed at by people who should have known better.
That's not to say that the IntelliMat ranks up there with Chester Carlson's XeroX machine (as it was first marketed); it is to say that you never know.
Currie, in fact, points to a lot of reasons a store might want an IntelliMat -- or several of them. Retailers he's spoken with have different plans.
"Some look at sales lift, some look at entertainment," he said. And some simply want to improve the customer experience, for example, by putting IntelliMats on the checkout lines to make the wait seem shorter.
The important thing, from his point of view, is that there's already plenty of interest, especially among companies looking to advertise when those IntelliMats are installed in stores.
"Brand marketers are asking for exclusives for their segments," he said. In other words, companies like Procter Gamble want to be sure that only their brands are advertised in grocery stores.
Currie is nothing but upbeat about the potential. He expects brands to compete for exclusive rights to the floors of stores. "I think it will get to a bidding process," he said, which would be nothing but good for the company.
He might be upbeat, but Currie isn't putting IntelliMat into high gear just yet. The company has four full-time employees, and Currie expects to hire six more within the next 14 months, including sales, technical and customer-service workers.
In the meantime, Currie, along with senior vice president for technology Tom Douglas, marketing director Saunders and newly hired one-man sales staff Craig Roberts are focused on getting the world out about the IntelliMat. And the message is simple: It's unique, it's patented and it's hard to ignore.
As Currie put it, "When it's on the floor, it's in your space."
Inside the mats
An IntelliMat is more than a mat. It's chock-full of some cutting-edge technology.
First, there's the screen -- four of them, in fact. They're variations on the flat-panel monitors you can get with a new PC, but thinner. They can be treated as four separate screens or one large one.
The screens are covered by a transparent, scratch- and slip-resistant, waterproof shield, and they're surrounded by a tough case designed to be walked, rolled and stomped on.
The monitor rises about four-fifths of an inch above the floor, which means an IntelliMat needs a slight ramp around it so people don't trip and shopping carts don't get stuck. The company used that space -- a four-inch border -- to squeeze in a full-fledged Windows computer with wireless network connection.
All an IntelliMat needs to work is a power outlet.
The software is configured so installers don't need to know what they're doing. They plug it into the wall, and the IntelliMat boots itself and connects to the network automatically. An administrator, who does need to know what he's doing, then programs the content that will be shown.
And that can be just about anything. If it can be displayed on a PC, it can be shown on an IntelliMat, from images to movies to PowerPoint presentations to Web pages. As Currie said, "What's made for TV will work on it." That's good for ad designers who are used to working with television and Web sites.
As computer technology improves, so might the IntelliMat's capabilities. The company thinks an interactive version ("Step here for more information") could be next.
© 2005 The Roanoke Times
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