Digital Media in Retail – Past, Present And Future

Adrian J Cotterill, Editor-in-Chief

When you start a sentence along the lines of “I don’t mean to be rude but…” you just know in fact that you are, going to be rude!! And so it is with this latest UK POPAI event coming up on 23rd April 2008 in London.

First, let us say that it is going to be well worth attending the event, just to have the (rare, especially in the UK) opportunity to hear Neo Advertising speak (we understand in fact that Dirk Huelsermann – an excellent speaker will be representing them). The event will be worth the entrance fee for that alone – trust us!!

Dirk who in his capacity as Direktor Business Development International at Neo Advertising told us today that in his presentation he plans to cover;

  • A pan-European perspective
  • Understanding how Edeka (Germany’s #1 retailer) use their in-store screens to generate advertising revenue
  • The future of advertising on screens in store – what does the business model of tomorrow look like?

Whilst we understand what POPAI are trying to do with a theme; ‘past, present and future’ we have to ask the question; does the audience really need to listen to yet another presentation from Dunnhumby about Tesco Screens?

Haven’t Dunnhumby / Tesco Screens got something else to do, errr like formally announce the winner of their Content RFP? This was due 13th February 2008 !!

There are lots of other really interesting retail case studies that can be done, to continually re-visit Dunnhumby / Tesco is we feel lazy and not very innovative.

We haven’t come across the middle speaker at all in the UK – MaxBox Digital Retail Ltd., on their web site they describe themselves as “an aggregator and software developer of digital based leisure, entertainment and retail content which is vended over its estate of MaxBox kiosks”.

They seem to have been tee’ed up for the ‘present’ slot if you like – again, having not heard of them we can’t comment fully but if you wanted to find innovative uses of retail Kiosks then there are several to choose from in the UK – we quite like the Avanti Screen Media kiosks in Marks and Spencer, VMG’s Infopods in shopping malls and various other people’s installations in HMV, 3 etc – in fact the 3 Telecom /mobile phone store is an often over looked ‘gem’ of an installation that should be quoted and held up as a model retail installation a lot more than it is / has been!

Anyway, the full POPAI event details are as below…

Wednesday 23 April 2008 from 9:30am to 03:30pm

Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA), 44 Belgrave Square, London, SW1X 8QS.

POPAI is pleased to announce this annual event which continues to appeal to professionals from a broad cross section of the digital media in retail industry.

The event takes a retrospective look at how digital media in retail has developed since the inaugural POPAIdigital meeting in 2002 as well as taking a peak at what’s in store for the industry over the coming years.

With a high profile set of speakers, attendees can look forward to some topical presentations with ample opportunity to network with industry peers. Speakers confirmed to date include:

Dunnhumby

The presentation is called, ‘Tesco Screens – A Creative Future’ and will cover:

* Background: Identifying the need to be creative in-store and engage our audience

* Understanding the process for selecting a creative partner

* Planning for tomorrow: What will the future hold?

MaxBox Digital Retail

‘Digital Retail…a solution to retail slowdown?’ will include:

* The evolution of the digital retail kiosk

* Where is digital retail now and what is its place in the retail environment?

* Where to next with digital retail – future growth opportunities?

Neo Advertising will also be presenting – more details about this session will follow shortly.

Members: £75.00 | NON-Members: £150.00

For more information and to book, contact the POPAI office –
info@popai.co.uk or tel. 01455 554848.


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