Illuminated advertising specialist Neopaul-signs and data analyst The Retail Factory are jointly launching Neolytics, the world’s first smart illuminated advertising with integrated technology that maps passerby and visitor behavior: “This will change physical retail forever.”
Insights into visitor flows
“We know that there is a huge gap between visibility outside and behavior inside. Retailers know a lot about their customers inside the store, but very little about their visitors and passers-by on the street, at the window, or in the parking lot,” says Jef Van Herck, commercial director at The Retail Factory (TRF). Hence the idea to subtly integrate TRF’s smart technology into Neopaul-signs’ illuminated advertising. “For the retailer, it feels like beautiful illuminated advertising, but it now also offers real-time insights into the behavior and movements of people around the location,” says Dries Martens, manager of Neopaul-signs.
The system records fully anonymized demographic data from everyone in the vicinity: passers-by, visitors entering the store, and people pausing at the shop window, including the duration of their attention, in full compliance with GDPR. The built-in AI technology works with 98% accuracy and provides in-depth insights into visitor flows, dwell times, demographic characteristics such as gender, age, and height, individual and group movements, routes, and parking and traffic flows at totems.
“Applying offline A/B testing”
“Neolytics enables retailers to measure the entire environment of their location, not just what happens inside. They get a clear picture of the movements and interests of people on the street, can strategically improve their visibility, and effectively tailor their marketing to the visitors who really matter. It is the offline way to apply A/B testing and achieve maximum impact.”
The system simply adds a smart layer to illuminated advertising and can be used in stores in busy shopping streets, on the façades of individual shops, in stores with parking spaces, in retail parks, in large shopping centers, or in public spaces managed by cities and municipalities. “At these locations, we can track not only pedestrians, but also vehicles, trucks, and cyclists. We map traffic flows and the origin of visitors. In addition, we track dwell time in parking lots, follow routes, and analyze how people move in and around the location.”
“Neolytics will change retail”
Both partners are convinced that Neolytics is not just a product, but a milestone for physical retail. “The physical world is becoming measurable in the same way as the online world. Retailers can finally track the entire journey from passerby to visitor and customer, and know which actions are actually effective.”
All insights from Neolytics are translated into clear, personalized dashboards in The Retail Factory portal. Here, retailers can work with the data themselves, analyze trends, and make immediate adjustments based on concrete facts, ensuring that every investment in visibility, window displays, or activations is measurably recouped.
