Sony Centre Reopens

One of my all-time favourite Entertainment Venues has reopened after going through an incredible facelift. The Sony Centre's doors reopened on October 1 of this year, exactly 50 years to the date of the originally named O'Keefe Centre's original opening night. We had the great pleasure and opportunity to design and manufacture an interactive Sony 3D TV display adjacent to the elevator, immediately visible as you enter the front doors.
Read the full article.

- November 29, 2010 by shawn@retail-roadways.com

Sony at Best Buy

We recently partnered up with Sony and Best Buy Canada to design a separate space inside the store that would entice, engage and entertain the consumer while educating them on Sony's new line of products at the same time. It starts with a 12' x 12' floor space separated from similar products nearby, but that's just the beginning. This designated area is not only positioned at the front of the home entertainment section of the store, it's open-concept design invites the customer traffic to notice it from 3 separate directions (270 degrees). We call it the "Vignette" and it's pretty cool.

When a Best Buy customer enters the Sony Vignette area they have the option of experiencing a number of Sony's latest and greatest offerings. As they approach a large pedestal in front of two Bravia TVs the customer is given the option of sampling a Sony 3D movie at the touch of a button while donning a pair of 3D glasses that are constantly powered and actually work. By simply pressing another button and picking up a Playstation 3 controller folks can take a test drive of Gran Turismo 5, one of Sony's most amazing games now available in 3D. Not only is this an amazing visual experience for the customer, the thunderous 5.1 Surround Sound System that delivers the audio portion of the demos is absolutely mind blowing.

The Vignette display execution allowed us to put the "consumer" back into the consumer electronics experience at retail. For Sony it was an opportunity to really elevate the brand by separating their products from the pack and showcasing them in way that encouraged the consumer to be curious, experience and be educated all at the same time. It's this type of connection with the consumer that helps build brand loyalty and in this super competitive market you need that if you want to survive.

- November 15, 2010 by shawn@retail-roadways.com

Sony TV at Future Shop

We recently worked with Sony Canada to help build a better retail presence at Future shop stores across Canada with the launch of the new line of LED TVs. This new line of TVs also included Sony's new 3D TV technology launch in June. We were asked to design two end caps that would hold a TV and Blu-Ray player along with a surround sound system and a 16 foot wall that would display three TVs and a 3D podium. The 3D podium features a demo button that Future Shop customers can press to get an on-the-spot demo of this new exciting technology.

The concept for the design was simple and elemental. These incedible TVs display images that are like works of art so we decided to matt the TVs against a white backing like a painting so that the colour imagery on the screens would do all the talking. The results we are getting at the store are amazing. The displays are getting a lot of attention and Sony sales at 140 Future Shop stores across Canada are up.

One of the biggest challenges for Sony was displaying the new 3D glasses while keeping them secure and charged via a USB connection. Another huge issue was that people were breaking the arms off of the glasses during demos in the 3D soft launch at the stores.

We worked with Sony to create new sets of glasses specifically engineered to stand up to customer abuse and stay charged and secure at the same time. We basically took the original pair of glasses, removed the arms, added a u-shaped holding device that replaced where the arms once were and had the power supplied constantly via a security/power cable that connected to the demo podium.

These displays were launched across canada in June and will remain in stores over the next year. Drop by Future Shop today to test drive Sony's 3D technology.

- June 15, 2010