LevelVision draws shoppers’ gaze

by Heather B. Hayes
for Virginia Business
October 2007

In an age when advertising and messages seem to be everywhere, how can retailers break through to consumers? By putting the message in a shopper’s personal space, says entrepreneur Jim Currie.

He is CEO of LevelVision, a 2-year-old Roanoke-based startup that sells digital signage called IntelliMat and CounterVision. While other video signs in stores typically are mounted on walls. LevelVision signs are placed on floors, countertops or in front of product displays.

“The study of proxemics [the use of space] has found that anything within roughly four feet of you is in your personal space, so in this case, people will treat a close-in message as a personal, or one-to-one communication,” Currie says.

“Plus, people have a natural tendency to look down, so the research we’ve had done shows that having messages on a level surface, whether it’s the floor or a countertop, is much, much more effective than a sign on the wall.”

Virginia Tech Services Inc., a nonprofit organization that operates bookstores and other retail outlets in Blacksburg, tested IntelliMats. The result? Sales of advertised products rose 6 to 240 percent.

Another study done by The Source, a Canadian electronics retailer, found that the IntelliMats were effective in attracting customers when the devices were placed at store entranceways. A majority of customers responding to a survey said the mats enhanced their shopping experience.

“This isn’t really about another cool device,” says Currie, noting that the concept was invented by Roanoke-based incubator The Egg Factory. “This is really a brand-new, out-of-home media.”