Sweden’s SF Bio Theatre Chain Wins Digital 2009 Apex Award The 2009 Apex Award for innovations in a digital signage hospitality installation has been awarded to Swedish movie theater chain SF Bio. SF the largest movie theatre chain in Sweden worked with Scala Partner Zone Systems to develop a digital signage network in eight movie theaters that consists of digital menu boards dynamic movie posters and screens for previewing film trailers. SF Bio uses the network to cut costs associated with creating printing and transporting menus and posters. They also realized that attention-grabbing and dynamic content would translate into more sales for the movie theaters. “It’s always an honor to be recognized but to receive awards in the retail and hospitality categories for two very different types of installations is especially exciting ” says Andrea Waldin Scala’s vice president of marketing. “Scala’s main goal is to help customers develop the most usable and flexible digital signage networks possible and in the cases of Sprint and SF Bio we’ve met those objectives.” For years SF Bio AB has been the leading theater chain in Sweden with 36 movie theatres and 242 halls across the country. In 2006 SF Bio AB introduced a project in eight movie theatres in Stockholm Jönköping and Göteborg to install a digital signage network combining screens for digital menu boards dynamic movie posters and for previewing film trailers. The implementation called for four screens in a group with as many as 16 groups in a given movie theatre. As an example Bergakungen Movie Theater in Göteborg has 85 screens and Sergel Movie Theater in Stockholm has between 40-50 screens. “The flexibility for local content combined with the reliability and scalability provided by Scala InfoChannel loomed prominent in the decision to deploy a digital signage network throughout SF Bio’s theatre chain” says Anders Broden manager digital signage at Zone Systems. “The benefits gained from the implementation of our digital signage network are many ” SF Bio’s Peter Timan says. “Our goal of developing the most modern movie theatre experience in Sweden by focusing on the overall experience including: picture quality sound and food service delivery to cater to the 15 million movie visitors throughout the country is being realized every day. “The most obvious benefit is our projected cost savings associated with creating printing and transporting menus and posters. While we still contract with Zone Systems for creation of our dynamic content our expertise in the area will grow over time and our costs associated with content creation will decrease” he says. “Our digital signage network provides for fast and easy change of menus provisions for day-parting special promotions and more modern and eye catching content to deliver a stronger more focused message to our customers. We have learned that while employing digital menu boards it is important to get a balance between still pictures and dynamically content. The advantage of dynamic content is that is seems alive and is attention grabbing. All of this translates into more sales for the movie theatres.” “Together with our digital signage network project SF Bio has rebuilt the entire counter experience. The result was a better sales channel with more revenue. “We can definitively see an increase in sales. We are very happy about our network; it just looks so much more stylish and ‘fresh’. We still haven’t discovered all the possibilities with the software so it will probably look even better in the future” he says. “We plan to continue this project during 2008 with several new movie theaters. We still haven’t decided where but both Malmö and Linköping could be relevant.” Scala www.scala.com Zone Systems www.zone-systems.com
