KioskCom Europe: Speaker sessions, networking were highlights

KioskCom Europe: Speaker sessions, networking were highlights
Tags: Advance Printing Systems (APS), Tradeshows
October 5, 2009

The show floor of KioskCom's Self Service Expo and The Digital Signage Show Europe was smaller than last year, but that didn't seem to affect the impressions of the more than 40 exhibitors present. While some commented that foot traffic was slow, many still appreciated the extra focus they got to have with attendees.

Jim Dalziel of Kiosk Manufacturing Systems, a longtime KioskCom exhibitor, said attendees were "more serious" about upcoming self-service projects and were asking more involved questions.

Cisco's Dos Dosanjh speaks at KioskCom Europe.

The conference sessions were the highlight of the show, with big names such as Cisco and Showcase Cinemas taking the podium. Cisco's Dos Dosanjh, who founded the Cisco Academy of Digital Signage, presented a case study on the show's first day about a digital signage project with Accent Jobs, a Belgian-based employment agency. Cisco implemented a business video solution that eliminated paper signage and allowed real-time posting of jobs via digital signage screens.

PHOTO GALLERY: KioskCom Europe and The Digital Signage Show Europe

Hungarian kiosk provider Onlinet gave a presentation the following day on queue-management kiosks and digital signage solutions. Onlinet's Laszlo Penzes offered some insight and outlined three reasons why digital signage and kiosk projects fail to be efficient.

1. Lack of motivation: There has to be a reason for the customer to watch or interact with the screen. 2. Lack of targeted content to a targeted audience: Many industry pundits are now saying "relevance is king," meaning no matter how good the content is on the screen, if it doesn't resonate with the viewer, it is worthless. 3. Results are not measured: If no measurement takes place, there is no way to judge the effectiveness of the campaign.

The solution Penzes offered was a counterpoint to his three reasons for failure.

"You have to create motivating content that's targeted to a specific audience, then measure results in order for these projects to become efficient," he said.

Down a third

In an interview several weeks before KioskCom and The Digital Signage Show Europe, event director Phil Hunter said European tradeshow attendance had been down as a byproduct of the global recession.

"I think people are still going to be very conscious about saving money, about cutting costs," Hunter said in the article.

This was reflected in exhibitor registration and attendance on both sides of the co-located show floor, in comparison to past years. Hunter said during the event that the number of exhibitors and attendees was down about a third from 2008. There were about 40 stands at the show, and several stand vacancies were evident. Hunter also said many companies have allotted any remaining marketing dollars to 2010 budgets rather than exhibiting in the remaining months of 2009.

Here are some other headlines from the tradeshow floor:

Nexcom showed its NDiS 540 and NDiS 162 media players, following an announcement that the company was partnering with software provider Scala. The joint venture is intended to pair Nexcom's media players with Scala software to simplify the digital signage solution for customers. Nexcom used the NDiS 540 to power a four-screen video wall, highlighting its quad-DVI output functionality. Nexcom also released its own simplified digital signage software at the show. Customers can choose which software package they need pre-installed on the player.

Nexcom's NDiS 540 player featured at KioskCom Europe.

Window.i was released at The Digital Signage Show Europe by PointandPress, a software programming company. The modular system uses low-energy touchpanels to enable users to control menus and access information through glass windows. The windows are just now moving from a pilot project from the Glasgow (Scotland) City Council to a full rollout.

ProTouch, a supplier of electronic point-of-sale kiosks, announced a partnership at KioskCom Europe with YesPay, a provider of card payment-processing services. The partnership resulted in several kiosk solutions designed to offer retailers the ability to process self-service card payments. Protouch said the solutions will be geared toward supermarkets, rail stations and cinemas that want to offer self-service chip-and-PIN credit and debit card payments.

Star Micronics showed a check-in kiosk designed for Premier Inn, equipped with the Star Micronics TUP992 kiosk printer. Star also announced that it is the exclusive kiosk printer manufacturer for Premier Inn, which is rolling out self-service check-in kiosks across its chain of hotels, as well as replacing traditional A4 laser printers at the reception desks with Star TSP800 printers.

One of the busiest booths was that of U-Touch, which showed a 103-inch, optical touch-enabled Panasonic plasma screen. The large-scale touchscreen may look familiar — it was used by both CNN and BBC to show exit poll results for the 2008 presidential election.

Clemthek is a vending-solutions company that got much attention showing two versions of the ShopRobotic automated vending machine. Used to sell everything from sodas to iPhones, the machines featured touchscreen selection, endcap digital signage and the ability to vend both refrigerated and nonrefrigerated items from the same machine.