You Don't Own a Salon. You Own A Business.
In his latest blog, Leon Alexander Ph.D., challenges industry conventional thinking to help owners add more to their bottom lines.
Mirror Technology To Display Videos in Reflection
Recently, while waiting to board a flight at Chicago's O'Hare airport, I was super excited when I approached the mirror in the restroom and was greeted not only by my face, but ALSO by some pretty cool mirror technology in my reflection.
May 4, 2012
3 min to read
Imagine my excitement when it wasn't just my reflection greeting me in the mirror!
As a big fan of all things beauty, I'm no stranger to getting excited and surprised by discoveries in the bathroom. Yeah, I know that sounds weird. But that's the place where I, like many, discover a great new conditioner, or a new lotion, or a gradual tanner, and, even after spending time at my vanity putting on my make-up and styling my hair, my final "appearance review" always happens in the bathroom mirror.
Recently, while waiting to board a flight at Chicago's O'Hare airport (or, as my co-workers and I like to call it, "O'Hair," har, har), I was super excited when I approached the mirror in the restroom and was greeted not only by my face, but ALSO by some pretty cool mirror technology in my reflection.
To avoid being a total creeper, I was only able to film a quick second or two of the technology whizzing by... here's a look at what I saw:
Pretty cool technology huh? Notice how the ad on the left went from full screen to just a frame and bounced back to full screen based on my location and proximity to the mirror. I couldn't help but think to myself how perfectly this technology would translate to the beauty industry—considering clients spend about 30-45 minutes staring into a mirror while at the salon.
Well, imagine my surprise when I get a phone call today from Brian Reid, CEO and Founder of Mirrus, which, completely crazily shockingly, is the manufacturer of the very mirrors that fascinated me just a week ago. Brian and I got to talking about the Mirror Image technology and we're both on the same page in terms of how fantastic it would be for a salon to implement this technology at its stations. (He was pretty surprised at my story, too... though, just having watched The Hunger Games, naturally I was a litttttle freaked out at the timing, "Did he see me filming the ads? Did he know I have a blog? Did he track me down?!")
I have two clips to show you... but I want you to use your imagination here. Imagine your client sitting in your chair, while her color is processing or you're blowdrying the style, and up pops an audio-less video on the mirror (NOT covering her reflection) that explains product benefits and knowledge, or WHY the stylist is using this line of hair care, or how to best work with textured hair, for example. Or, imagine if you will, images and videos appear that cross-promote your spa services or boost your promotions and in-salon activities? The options to reinforce your message are ENDLESS.
The way it works is Mirrus can license private label Content Management Systems that let the user (or you can work through Mirrus) schedule the ads (web-based) themselves... so it can be generic salon messages or product info, OR can be single-user specific: I'm going to ask you to imagine again: "Hi, Alison, welcome back! We hope you enjoyed your last visit with Stacey." Very cool.
What do you think? Could you imagine this technology at your salon station? How could it help in your operations, brand awareness, client loyalty and retail sales? Tell me in the comments below! And, stay tuned for more information as I certainly plan to get all the juicy details asap!
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