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CRE Pilot Sedao/Plexus Combo for Progressive Homes4U
Having already established a digital infrastructure at its Central Manchester operation, which has an internet and coffee lounge incorporated, homes4u has gone one step further at its new Withington branch, installing Sedao Image Flyer.
Sedao Image Flyer is a development of the rolling poster, which can not only ‘roll’ the prospective property buyer through each room via a 42in plasma media display, but also give it a complete lifestyle focus.
Image Flyer allows users to create ‘multimedia themes’, incorporating moving banners and image carousels, similar to that seen on News 24 or Sky Sports 1’s score updates on a Saturday afternoon. homes4u combines this technology with Sedao’s QuickChange software, which enables the company to update its property images, easily and in real time.
The company’s assistant general manager Joe Slawinski, says this is proving to be a major benefit: “As soon as we receive a new instruction we just add the new detail to the end of the presentation,” he said.
The Sedao concept was discovered by homes4u chief executive Carolyn Mellor, who had seen the technology working in an airport terminal and approached multimedia integration company, Creative Retail Entertainment.
CRE has been heavily involved in both homes4u’s Manchester sites, which are networked via a mainframe computer. As a technologically-driven company homes4u has invested around £130,000 in new IT equipment to date. Joe added: “When we launched the plasma screen at the Manchester branch, we were able to put up a series of static images. But Sedao has enabled us to take this much further.
“We can run panels in different directions and at different speeds and it enables the presentation to be less about selling a property and more about recognising this is a complete lifestyle issue.”
As homes4u already had the same screen and computers in both lounges, linked by the same software, the company decided to introduce the new concept in Withington. The content creation is handled by Sedao which provides a series of templates to the client. “We simply select the colours and pictures and add our properties to Sedao’s template,” added Joe. The system is fired off a standard desktop computer running Windows XP on homes4u’s LAN.
At the same time CRE has supplied homes4u with its own proprietary Plexus hard disk music management system, which is played out to five sets of speakers in the zoned environment (covering the café, toilets, property sales, letting department etc). Plexus has been designed to replace standard music formats such as tape and CD. The added benefit of electronic updates (via ADSL, WAN, ISDN or CD-ROM) gives additional flexibility — although homes4u receives its monthly update via CD-ROM, as it grants no outside access.
The content can be programmed to meet customer profiles in a wide range of applications and enables clients to create different atmospheric zones within the same venue from a potentially unlimited database of music.
Carolyn Mellor said: “The combination of Sedao and Plexus is already having a significant impact on our business and is increasing customer dwell time. Being able to offer moving pictures is proving to be a very effective tool.”
homes4u believes it has established a successful model and, as the company rolls out the concept towards an eventual 30-plus sites, the relationship with CRE is likely to be extended. homes4u revolutionised the estate agency market when it launched in Manchester in 2001 with its unique estate agency concept, which incorporated a relaxed, lifestyle environment with the inclusion of a coffee and internet lounge.
In picture: Carolyn Mellor and Joe Slawinski — with their revolutionary digital signage.
4th May 2005
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