PLANAR ULTRALUX TOUCH DISPLAYS CREATE TRULY DISTINCTIVE DIGITAL SIGNAGE PLATFORMS IN INDUSTRY-LEADING SHOPPING MALL ENVIRONMENT
Aventura Mall is Miami's premier fashion destination. It includes more than 300 retailers in its 2,700,000 square feet of space. The mall's owners and operators – Turnberry Associates – have continually updated and modernized the space to further the high attraction and appeal to customers. Today it is an architectural design gem which provides an unrivaled shopping experience for 30 million visitors each year.
Aventura Mall has earned recognition as an exciting, always evolving environment that blends a distinctive aesthetic and design with the innovative use of advanced technology. Among the most recent examples of this are the dual-sided, interactive digital directories currently in place at each of the mall's entrances. The directories – Planar® UltraLux™ Touch 70" displays (LUX70-T) – which display touch-based wayfinding maps on one side and advertising on the other, create an engaging experience for shoppers not found today in any other mall in the world.
Display meets function, design and aesthetic objectives of mall's environment
"Up until now, directories in malls have usually been uninspiring and often not very helpful to the customer," says Cesar Cifuentes, CEO of CMA Digital, the digital signage integrator, technology consultant and developer, and content creator of the Aventura Mall directories. "Aventura presented new opportunities by having architecturally beautiful directories – featuring the very latest displays – which we could equip to entice shoppers and help them take full advantage of all the mall has to offer," Cifuentes says.
Thus, CMA turned to Planar Systems, for a leading-edge display that would look as if it were specifically designed for the unique white Corian enclosures being developed to house the directories. The goal was for the directories to blend seamlessly into the mall surroundings and also be functional and approachable by customers. Concurrently, CMA was creating software to drive the directories, enable a high level of interaction with them and deliver a new standard of operational reliability and serviceability.
The Planar UltraLux Touch displays selected are full-featured, multi-user interactive displays Planar engineered for retail brand communication, networked advertising, interactive wayfinding and other commercial applications, and which incorporates, for Aventura Mall, CMA's vector-based wayfinding maps. Planar UltraLux Touch displays feature Planar® ERO™ (Extended Ruggedness and Optics™), an optically-bonded Corning® Gorilla® Glass that covers and protects the display and makes it four times stronger and more scratch resistant than other touch displays. Also, Planar ERO improves perceived contrast by more than 300 percent, giving viewers the highest quality visual experience.
Features deliver image quality, interaction, reliability
CMA's Cifuentes cites several other important attributes of Planar UltraLux Touch that he says led to its selection. "The image quality is phenomenal in terms of brightness (700-cd/m2), native resolution (1920 x 1080) and contrast ratio (5000:1). It has an elegant infrastructure as well, where all components are contained within the display including redundant power supplies that automatically switch over to a secondary supply should the primary one fail. This gives Aventura Mall the very high level of reliability it wants, enables a 24x7 operation and all but guarantees 100 percent uptime.
The interactivity of Planar UltraLux Touch includes six simultaneous touch points and industry-leading touch point accuracy and touch responsiveness. Cifuentes adds that the display capitalizes on the CMA-developed mobile-ready capability (HTML5) which allows directory-side viewers to select a path to a particular store location and have that path, or map, show up on their smart phone or tablet without the need to download a native mobile app. "It's just another example of the integration of form and function that we, Planar and the rest of the team have envisioned for these directories," he adds.
On the advertising side of the display, high definition content is shown, owing to the Planar UltraLux Touch's exceptional image quality. Also as part of the total solution that CMA and Planar delivered, all the directories are networked; content such as specific store sales can be developed and day-timed for any/all directories; and the status and health of all of the directory displays can be remotely monitored, with maintenance or service dynamically scheduled as needed.
"The digital directories represent a new era in shopping center technology," said Anabel Llopis, Aventura Mall's Senior Director of Marketing and Sales. "They provide an immersive experience for our shoppers through advanced, innovative technology."
A graduate of DeVry Institute of Technology, Doug has been in the Technology industry since 1976 and actively oversees Fearing’s daily operations. Along with his wife, Lois, and three others, Doug started Fearing’s in a 600 square-foot facility in Portage, Wisconsin. In the 25 years since, the company has grown to over 30 employees with offices in Madison and Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Doug likes to say he’s a “TV Technician with a dream� going back to his history with the family’s original business-Fearing’s TV and Appliance.
Doug values time with family, watersports, hiking, snowshoeing and skiing. In addition to being a devoted member of his church, Doug serves as Board President for Kinship Mentoring of Columbia County, Board member of Schools for Haiti and Scripture Chair of the Gideons-Portage camp.
A graduate of MATC, Lois oversees Fearing’s daily book keeping along with various HR responsibilities.
Along with Doug, Lois is deeply connected to community outreach, serving as a Board member and Fundraising Committee Chairperson for Kinship Mentoring of Columbia County. She also serves on the Schools for Haiti Fundraising committee. In addition, Lois’ ongoing passion and commitment to provide care for the elderly comes from her 10-year history of working in a Reedsburg, Wisconsin Nursing home.
Lois enjoys singing, hiking, sunny days on the pontoon, and spending time with her 4 grandchildren.
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By consistently delivering an outstanding experience and outcome, Ben contributes to the Fearing’s legacy of long-lasting partnerships that truly make a difference. Whatever the Commercial AV need may be, Ben and team deliver at the highest level.
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Married for 19 years with 3 children, Chris enjoys skiing, hiking, fishing, boating, hunting, camping and golf. He’s also been actively involved as a Youth Football and Softball coach for his family and others.
