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Canadian Volkswagen Dealership Goes Digital With Advanced’s Help

In the constantly-evolving world of consumer tastes and purchasing trends, static signage and advertisements often leave retailers behind the competitive curve — particularly when it comes to selling automobiles, where full motion video is becoming a requirement to present and market the latest new car models to a style craving audience of buyers.

At the Humberview Volkswagen dealership in Toronto, Ontario, recent renovations provided the perfect opportunity to amaze customers with a massive new videowall and nine individual digital displays. According to the installation experts at Advanced, one of North America’s leading audiovisual and collaborative communications companies, this state-of-the art digital installation is a game changer for the dealership.

“When conducting renovations, retailers often look for the best way to improve on-site advertising and informational displays,” said David Weatherhead, president and CEO of Advanced. “Humberview Volkswagen recognized that the static, printed advertisements of the past simply cannot compete with a digital display’s ability to be updated at a moment’s notice, for negligible cost. We built a massive videowall that is guaranteed to capture the attention of every customer who walks into their showroom, and outfitted the entire dealership with digital displays that provide unlimited messaging possibilities.”

The main attraction of the dealership’s technology upgrade is the nearly 27-foot by four-foot videowall mounted above the customer welcoming area designed to stop customers in their tracks. Comprised of 16 ultra-thin-bezel 46” HD monitors in a 2×8 configuration, the display can present a single large image or up to four advertisements side-by-side. 

Advanced designed the videowall to have seams of just 5.5 millimeters and offer a maximum resolution of 7680×1080 for a single image. To maximize the videowall’s utility, the team installed a digital video matrix that includes five distinct video sources and allows the dealership to split the display into four 2×2 sections, each with an aspect ratio of 16:9 and maximum resolution of 1920×1080, or two 4×2 sections with 32:9 aspect ratios and maximum resolutions of 3840×1080. With all these different display possibilities, it was paramount that the system be easy to access and adjust quickly to respond to changing customer attitudes and desires.

“What’s truly amazing about this A/V installation is that it’s so simple to use,” Weatherhead continued. “With a modest addition to the system, we were able to organize control of all 13 separate displays that is easy enough for anyone to operate and adjust. That includes the audio played through the two speakers on either side of the videowall, the feeds for all four 2×2 sections of the videowall, and the feeds for the other HD displays located throughout the dealership.”

In addition to the videowall, the installation includes nine individual HD displays throughout the building that each have a dedicated video feed delivered through the matrix switcher. This affords even greater flexibility so the managers can decide what images or video they want on each screen throughout the day. The digital video matrix, audio amplifier and all the source input devices are conveniently located in a single equipment rack, completely hidden from view in the building’s telecom room. The signal for the two audio speakers adjacent to the videowall originates from the matrix switcher, so they can play audio from any one of the six input sources.

“The retail environment is constantly changing, as are consumer attitudes,” Weatherhead concluded. “With on-demand advertising made possible by captivating digital displays, retailers can quickly react and capitalize on trends to increase sales. To put it simply, paper is out, and digital is in.”

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