Reluctant as I was to desert my stand to attend a conference, there was a second presentation in the Digital Media in Retail Conference at Screen Media Expo Europe that was an absolute must for me – Cyril Michel, President of Mirane [1] in France.
Mirane has had spectacular success in the last year [2] and I was very much looking forward to gaining some insights on how they achieved such results.
Cyril’s approach is very pragmatic – he deals with a variety of retailers from hypermarkets to banks, each with their own take on what they want out of their networks. So he’s dealing with a variety of different business models with varying degrees of brand-building and ad-funding according to the client’s requirements and the mind-set of the customer.
He identifies 3 possible objectives for a network owner: creating ad revenue; increasing sales; and boosting image. And he divides the public into 3 types of audience which he defines as : mass; retail & captive. He shows how these different objectives can match the types of public, and how the same individual can change status as he moves around a large supermarket. And all this is illustrated with real examples of successful networks operated for Mirane’s various clients – fascinating stuff!