Loek Wermenbol, First Impression

The 16:9 PODCAST IS SPONSORED BY SCREENFEED – DIGITAL SIGNAGE CONTENT Things are changing - and both buyers and sellers are getting more knowledgeable about how to design and execute digital signage projects. But it's still nice to have a chat with an AV solutions company that resolutely insists on establishing the objectives behind a job before even talking about the technology that might get used. And how much of it. The Dutch firm First Impression made its first impression with me when it kept getting recognized earlier this year at the global Digital Signage Awards, which were handed out back In February during ISE in Barcelona. "Who are those guys?" I was asked. "No idea," I replied. But now I do know, because I met Loek Wermenbol, the company's Retail Strategy Director, at the recent Digital Signage Summit Europe in Munich. We found a relatively quite little area in the hotel lobby and had a great chat about the origins of First Impression - which is located down near Eindhoven. We talked about a lot of things, notably how it approaches engagements with clients, including the Dutch beauty brand Rituals. Subscribe from wherever you pick up new podcasts. TRANSCRIPT Tell me about First Impression. What do you guys do?  Loek Wermenbol: We are First Impression, what we call on paper an AV integrator, as many companies over here … But you're qualifying that. Loek Wermenbol: No, maybe other people qualify us as an AV integrator in the market and we still are.  They put you in that bucket, but there's more to it.  Loek Wermenbol: Yeah, there's definitely more to it and I think our proposition that we have is a little different than some of the other integrators in the market. First of all, strategy is a really important part of what we offer and we really try to help the customer to ask the right question, and sometimes that's needed in the process. Yes, they have knowledge, but most of the time, not all of the knowledge is needed to do really good integrations.  Because in part, they're fixated on a display or something other that's captured their imagination. Loek Wermenbol: Yeah. It can be technical or otherwise, if other departments are involved, information can be fragmented throughout the organization, and it might be hard to bring that together to form the right question, and sometimes there's just a lack of knowledge, and that's okay because it's a different field of play for a lot of retailers. Yes, they have big online marketing teams, etc. But doing in-store communication, it's a little bit of marketing, it's a little bit of formula, it's a little bit of data, and that combines and is needed for a good integration. So if you help your customer determine what that right question is and where we actually can help them solve problems or help them with the threats they have in the market, or enlighten their opportunities. In the end, the ROI on what we do right and what we are going to install in a solution will be much better. So rather than just answer… And it's gonna scale out as opposed to being one of. Loek Wermenbol: Yeah, of course, and we're in the scaling business too, but you have to scale the right solution rather than just a solution, and of course, we also integrate Windows screens and sometimes that is just step one.  Right, but then they're a customer and can ask you for more. Loek Wermenbol: Definitely, sometimes the challenge is bigger, sometimes they already have digital in place and need to replace us, or want to make the second step or the third step in the process, and sometimes it's the first step for retailers in the world of digitization on the retail floor. And then the steps are different, but still, you have to focus on where you want to be in three or four years also as a retailer. I think at First Impression, we help them really well in defining those steps towards that in three to four years, and step one can be an easy step. Let's do a rollout of Windows screens because it is alm