Martin smartMAC™ the Smart Choice for Denmark’s Bilka Stores

Bilka is a popular Danish chain of hypermarkets, those big box stores where consumers can purchase just about anything for the home, including groceries.

Bilka’s original store in Tilst, a suburb of Aarhus, recently installed Martin Professional smartMAC™ color changing profile spot luminaires in the store’s electronics department with the goal of drawing more people into the area.

A hot market
Consumer electronics, including a surge in the sale of high definition televisions, is a rapidly growing segment. Yet stiff competition, including from online stores, as well as pressure from ever dropping prices, led Bilka to renovate the department in order to increase its visibility.

“Better visual expression”
That visibility included a number of changes: new product divisions within the department, a wall of televisions displayed in HD, and the use of eye-catching lighting effects visible from all over the store – a colorful flash of movement to first grab customers’ attention and then draw them in.

Finn Bak Klausmann, head of lay-out and interior decoration at Bilka Supermarked A/S, says that the aim was to give the department “a better visual expression.” Seeking something tall enough to be visible from all points in the store, three ‘towers’ lined with plasma screens were created and dispersed across the department. Each tower is approximately 2.5 meters high and houses two Martin smartMACs which project effects onto circular cycs “in order to catch the eye and give the impression that something's happening here if one is standing at the other end of the store,” Finn states.

One smartMAC is used to flash movements of eye-catching color while the other projects logos from brands such as JVC, Philips, Panasonic, Prosonic, Sony and Total Digital (Bilka’s own brand). Because the smartMAC houses interchangeable colors and effects, Bilka is able to customize the look any way they wish.

smartMAC – smart choice
The smartMAC is a bright 150 W moving head profile luminaire that offers superior reliability, long service intervals, total silence and reduced power bills thanks to a unique fanless cooling system (no dust and pollutants are forced into the fixture) and extremely bright output, bright enough to deal with the store’s high level of ambient light. The smartMAC is also compact and stylishly discreet, an ideal fit for retail stores like Bilka.

The benefits don’t end there. The smartMAC provides a total stand-alone solution with up to 20 preprogrammed scenes meaning no controller is needed and it is simple for employees to operate; gobo changes are easy so new promotions pose no problems – workers can do it themselves; and although the smartMACs run approximately 11 hrs/day, with no fans and a 9000 lamp, service intervals are long.



Pays off
“When we review the lay-out of our stores it's important that the things we do have an effect,” Finn says. “It must be reflected in the bottom line. Our analyses show that it has really paid off in the radio/TV department.

“We've collaborated closely with Martin Scandinavia which I can say has been very satisfactory. We've been able to work out all the aspects together. The changes gave the desired effect, and the customers appreciate it.”

Bilka and Martin Scandinavia are looking to incorporate smartMACs into other areas of the store as well, such as the toy department where the luminaire’s color and effects possibilities are a natural fit. Eventually all of Bilka’s 17 stores in Denmark will be equipped with smartMACs, eight of those to be completed this year.