Cabela's Dynamic Signage Project

I was proud to be part of the team of designers, coders and operations personnel that created Cabela's Dynamic Sign System.
The system was fully implemented by 2010 and has been continuously updated.

Dynamic Signage led to initial three-year ROI of $1.08 million, including savings on:

• Expendables    
     – paper and color ink costs cut at the corporate and store level
• Time at both the corporate and retail level
    – up to 15 hours per week saved per corporate merchant
    – up to 80 hours per week saved per store
• Staff at both the corporate and retail level
    – corporate staff cut in half
    – store sign Outfitters could take on other retail tasks
• Brand dilution at the store level
    – stores created and posted signs without referencing brand standards

Previous State, Corporate Level:

 POP signs were requested by merchants on spreadsheets
• Product name, bullet points, sign size and pricing were hand-keyed
• Requests were printed, walked to creative traffic personnel, packaged and assigned to creative Outfitter
• Creative used information in package to create individual sign in Quark
• Paper proof of sign was printed and routed to merchants for sign offs
• Corrections made and rerouted if necessary for final sign off
• PDF was made and placed in Media Bank

Previous State, Store Level:

• One to three retail sign Outfitters per store had access to Media Bank and the one Mac in the store
• Floor Outfitters would hand-write sign requests and walk to sign Outfitter
• Sign Outfitter would search Media Bank for the individual sign needed, then output on 11x17 paper through a color laser
• Sign Outfitter would create new sign in Quark if:
    – Sign not found in Media Bank
    – Different sign size needed
    – Price on sign had changed
• Store-created signs were often outside of brand standards

Current State, Corporate Level:

• POP signs are requested by the merchants through the sign system
• Inputting the set or sku, the system will query the AS400 to pull in the product name
• Merchants can adjust this name as needed and will also input up to three bullet points
• Corporate creative reviews and edits the signs entered by the merchants to check for errors and brand compliance
• Signs are released to the system
• Pricing is pulled from POS
• Card stock templates designed by corporate creative to hold the signs are ordered by corporate signage Outfitters for each store location

Current State, Store Level:

• All Cabela’s Outfitters have access to query and print from the sign system
• Signs are queried by set or sku
• Multiple sets and skus can be queried at once
• Outfitter can choose sign size needed before output
• Pricing is pulled from POS, based in the store Outfitter’s location and the date
• Was/now pricing can be pulled in by changing the template type to SALE or CLEARANCE
• Multiple signs are imposed on 8.5x11 and output on any laser printer
• One to three specially-trained retail Outfitters can create basic POP and event signs through the system

Output Example

Customer-Facing Presentation