DailyDOOH

The cloud and mobile were among the hot topics on the CIO Retail Summit agenda in Scottsdale last week, with Phil Shelley, chief technology officer of Illinois-based Sears Holdings, kicking off the topic with the risks and rewards of public vs private Cloud Computing.

Among his many comments:

• SAS is a real competitor to IT;
• If using open source, cost benefits can be big (40%-70% less);
• If you have a lot of credit card information, why would you want it to be outside (ie. in a public cloud)?
• Private clouds are going to force retailers to compete;
• 77% of companies will use internal cloud computing by the end of 2012.

Marci Troutman, CEO and founder of SiteMinis, Atlanta, Georgia, teamed up with Kevin Conway, global director of consumer brands, Savvis, Town & Country, Missouri, to discuss Mobile in the Cloud. They discussed working with such clients as Home Depot and Target; whether or not IT must be involved when launching campaigns; private vs public clouds and other details.

It’s a topic of which all retailers should at least be aware.

Akoo, U.S. out-of-home television network, has launched a new series of promotions designed to reward viewers with one-of-a-kind entertainment experiences.

The new Akoo ‘Hook-Ups’ include unique artist meet-and-greets, all-expenses-paid VIP trips, and concert ticket giveaways.

“The Hook Up is at the core of the Akoo experience – when our viewers participate in our programming, they get rewarded,” says Derek Koenig, Akoo chief marketing officer.

Akoo’s newest Hook Up includes an exclusive meet-and-greet with hot artist, producer, and DJ, David Guetta, at the Electric Zoo, a two-day music festival in New York, which also features Above & Beyond, Armin Van Buuren, Moby, Tiesto, and additional chart-topping electronic music artists.

Akoo continues its Coast 2 Coast concert ticket giveaway, which has already sent 15,000 viewers to concerts throughout the U.S. over the past 12 months. The network’s latest Hook Ups include free tickets to the hottest summer and fall tours from Jay-Z and Kanye West; Kesha; Blink 182; Brad Paisley; Rascal Flatts; Toby Keith; Sugarland; and Deadmau5, among many others.

The latest Akoo Dance Karaoke Hook Up invites viewers to create and submit their own shuffle to LMFAO’s Party Rock Anthem music video. One grand prize winner and guest will receive round-trip airfare, hotel accommodations, and tickets to LMFAO’s upcoming Los Angeles concert.

“These latest Hook Ups are just the start of some really amazing, one-of-a-kind promotions and giveaways that our viewers can expect to see on our network and Facebook page over the coming months,” says Koenig.

NFC or Near Field Communications generated a lot of questions, comments and ideas for its use at last week’s CIO Retail Summit in Arizona.

InsideSecure, a French firm with California offices discussed NFC as it involved, among other things, connections with the label on a bottle or one that’s built into a cereal package so that the shopper can get information on their mobile phone if it is held up near the product.

The company works with Kovio, Milpitas, California, which is developing a new category of semiconductor products using printed silicon electronics and thin film technology.

This new manufacturing technology combines the low cost of graphics printing with the power and functionality of silicon-based semiconductors.

Kovio’s vision is to enable embedded intelligence and connectivity in everyday products delivering price and performance unreachable by other technology. Once embedded in a label, for example, its product has a five to-10 year shelf life.

One product for which it could be suitable is wine bottles, suggested one attendant. The person with the smart phone could learn what kind of grapes were used in making the wine and other information about its origin, along with receiving a special deal.

The NFC technology is already embedded into some phones, but by holiday time 2012, it is expected to be in 100 different mobile devices. And with smart phones expected to comprise 44% of all phone shipments, both InsideSecure and Kovio really expect NFC to take off.

Outdoorplus‘s new digital billboard dubbed The Eye in Holborn, London went live Monday. It’s a Barco LED powered by Scala…

The launch client was Virgin Active (we don’t have any photography of that just yet) but shown above the the creative we spotted last week whilst they were testing.

David Eads, vice-president product marketing at Kony Solutions Inc., Orlando, spoke at length during the CIO Retail Summit last week in Scottsdale, Arizona, on the need to compete in an era where everything is changing.

“How do you develop a test for 250 variations of Android?” Eads asked.

“Do you want your customers to transact on the mobile web or an app?

Are you able to measure if the customer is using mobile? What does each change mean for your business? And your employees? These are among the many things to be considered in this era of constant change.”

Among the keys for getting innovation to market listed by Eads are:

• Analytics;
• Agility to deploy quickly;
• The need for complete development capabilities;
• The need for multichannel support.

Kony provides a suite of products and support services that enable Fortune 500 companies to offer consumers feature-rich mobile.

“We help business get around the mobile chaos,” said Eads.

One of the particularly interesting sessions at CIO Retail Summit in Scottsdale, Arizona, last week dealt with how the major retail chain Nordstrom moved into mobile in a major way.

In partnership with Infosys, Nordstrom in a period of six months deployed..

• WiFi in 115 stores
• 6,000 Apple iPod Touches with Commerce/Scan Sleds
• 115 mobile POS store servers
• 1,200 wireless printers
• 1,200 mobile wrap stands

Besides transforming the customer experience, InfoSys solution also helped unlock valuable customer, sales and inventory data locked in POS registers; brought efficiency in order fulfillment for in-store pick-up and direct-to-customer; and reduced infrastructure and training costs.

Founded as a shoe store, Nordstrom is a 110-year-old retailer, doing $9.31 billion annually. The company is known for its best-in- class customer experience, which is built on the four pillars of price/value; convenience; service; and selection. It wanted to strengthen key service, product differentiation and customer experience.

“We made a big capital investment at the cash level a few years ago,” said John Mayfield, Nordstrom’s director of IT. “Recently, we decided on mobility to enhance the customer experience and to keep the salesperson connected with the customer.“

Now that the mobile efforts have been deployed, Nordstrom is considering a number of new efforts, including the digital wallet, DMV readers, and NFC.

Nordstrom Inc. reported a 6.7% increase in same-store sales for the four-week period ended August 27, 2011, compared with the four-week period ended August 28, 2010. Preliminary total retail sales of $691 million for August, 2011, increased 12.4% compared with total retail sales of $615 million for the same period in fiscal 2010.

Due to many requests to extend the Content and APEX Awards deadline, Digital Signage Expo has extended the final entry date from September 1 to October 14, 2011.

In addition, the Digital Signage Federation is sponsoring the DSE 2012 APEX and Content Awards and Annual Awards Dinner! The $125 fee per entry has now been waived due to the DSF’s sponsorship.

The annual DSE APEX Awards honor innovation in the development and deployment of technology in the global Digital Out-of-Home industry.

The annual DSE Content Awards honor innovative and compelling content created for digital signage and digital out-of-home networks

We believe that Titan’s chairman, Bill Apfelbaum may well NOT be Titan’s chairman any longer.

We heard rumours earlier this week and an insider told us where to go and look on their corporate web site. It seems that Mr Bill Apfelbaum is no longer listed not even as an employee.

The url http://www.titan360.com/usa-company/management/bill-apfelbaum.html no longer exists.

If true this is big news. We all know that Titan is, let’s just say, operating within a challenging environment but this is too bad for Bill.

Bill always came across like a good guy to us.

VeriFone has acquired London-based Taxi Media. Taxi Media, its management team and staff will become part of VeriFone Media.

The move is undoubtedly aimed at strengthening VeriFone’s position as a media channel for UK advertisers, allowing clients to combine taxi wraps with in-taxi content on the VeriFone Digital Network (VNET).

The acquisition should also allow closer relationships with Taxi Media’s 6,000 licensed drivers as VeriFone rolls out in-taxi card payment and digital media solutions across the capital and throughout the UK.

Over a third of London’s licensed taxis carry advertising. Taxi Media’s cabs have included ground-breaking campaigns such as turfing cabs for a leading perfume brand for London Fashion Week and encrusting taxi with jewels for a luxury drinks company.

Leveraging Taxi Media’s traditional OOH taxi advertising with VeriFone’s payments-enabled media business and in-taxi VeriFone Digital Network (VNET) should create a powerful advertising platform for clients seeking an innovative way to broadcast their message.

Mark Roberts, Vice President and General Manager, VeriFone Taxi and Media Solutions told us “Taxi Media has been at the forefront of the taxi advertising industry since the medium was first established a decade and a half ago. No one understands the needs of taxi advertisers or drivers better. VeriFone wants to retain the experience, skills and approach which has made Taxi Media a success. Combining the strengths of both businesses creates a dynamic new media organisation that will help take London’s taxis into the digital age.”

Asher Moses, former CEO of Taxi Media was quoted as saying “We have been involved in many exciting advertising projects over the past 15 years. With a global player like VeriFone behind us, we look forward to extending the taxi advertising medium even further – creating new opportunities for our customers, creative partners and drivers. By combining in-taxi digital media with exterior wraps, advertisers will be able to create dynamic campaigns that resonate with an increasingly ‘on-the-go’ urban consumer.”

Former Taxi Media CEO Asher Moses and all existing Taxi Media employees are now part of the VeriFone Media team. They will remain based at their London offices, including the state-of-the-art livery installation centre in the East End.

Former Neo Advertising Director of Operations, Luca Enea-Spilimbergo has joined Gefen Distribution GmbH & Co. KG as Regional Manager Southern Europe