Gail Chiasson, North American Editor
VeriFone Media is big and thinking bigger as its continues to acquire new companies and develop new products.
Back a year ago, the DailyDOOH team had visited VeriFone Media ’s offices where we were told “We’re the biggest digital media company nobody ever heard of.”
Now we can see, through the VeriFone Media and its parent company VeriFone Systems Inc., there is potential for much further growth.
Last week Chris Polos, vice-president, VeriFone Media, discussed the company’s growth strategy through acquisitions and in ways it is working with other company divisions across the U.S. and in the U.K., during the Digital Signage Investor Conference in New York.
“We’re always looking for what kind of metrics we can bring,” said Polos, as who outlined some of the acquisitions the company has made, including Show Media in New York, whose taxi top offerings complement VeriFone’s in-taxi screens, and the earlier-purchased Taxi Media in London. “These were both bought to celebrate growth and relationships with taxi-owners.”
The buy of Global Bay Mobile by parent company VeriFone Systems offers opportunities on the sales side. Global Bay provides a suite of mobile software for smartphones and tablets that enable sales people to engage customers away from the POS terminal.
And VeriFone’s acquisition of LIFT Retail Marketing Technology Inc. extends the company’s convenience store digital media reach.
“Mobile is a bit scarey and messy,” Polos says. “However, we’re looking at the opportunties it offers. With Global Bay and Lift, VeriFone is building an acceptance network at point-of-sale for mobile to help close the loop with digital out-of-home.”
The company has pilots underway in Latin American, Central Europe, the Middle East and Asia.
VeriFone Media itself is now working towards digital within taxi tops that would allow video and targeting by dayparts and geozones and under a partnership with Linq3, it is piloting (in Minnesota) the sale of lottery tickets via its current screens. Linq3 secure payments platform transforms existing unmanned POS locations into highly interactive access points for the sale of lottery products.
Somehow, we get the feeling that VeriFone is on the cusp of becomming an even bigger player in the DOOH space than we could imagined a year ago.
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