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Holy Cow! It's a Kiosk
The folks at Yahoo are taking their purple cow kiosks, developed for last summer's Cow Parade in New York City, on the road.
A purple cow that provides free Internet access is the latest outrageous attention-getter from the folks at Yahoo, the Internet search engine. Netkey, the kiosk company that designed the software, said it's a great example of custom kiosk design.
When Yahoo decided to participate in last summer's Cow Parade in New York City, it created MooMail to be functional as well as artistic. Yahoo called on kiosk developer Netkey to create a Web-enabled kiosk in the size, shape and weight of a real cow, but that would stand apart from the herd of hundreds of cows summering in the city.
The Cow Parade was a citywide promotion in which companies placed artfully designed and brightly painted cows throughout the city. But Yahoo's was the only one that provided visitors with information about the cows and free Internet access.
Netkey helped design the kiosk, providing software that enables users to open and access their own Yahoo Mail in a secure, user-friendly environment. The cow was built with a steel-enforced body so that it could withstand crowds of people leaning on and touching it. It has a 51-inch screen and uses a DSL connection.
"It's taken on a life of its own," said Linda Bennett, brand marketing manager for Yahoo, which has also equipped taxicabs with Internet access terminals. "Yahoo tries to do things that haven't been done before. In this case there was beautiful art all around, but it was also helpful. It turned into quite the tourist attraction."
The popularity of Yahoo's purple cow duo in New York led Yahoo's marketing team to an idea - take the cows to popular events and allow visitors to access them at these public venues.
After a summer grazing in New York's South Street Seaport, Yahoo's two cow kiosks are traveling to major events as a company promotional vehicle. One of them recently was showcased at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am golf tournament. And next month, it will be on display at the Whistler resort in British Columbia at the TELUS World Ski and Snow Festival. The event is from April 13-22.
When it's not traveling, one MooMail kiosk greets visitors at Yahoo's Santa Clara, Calif., headquarters. The second cow is currently in storage in Connecticut, but Bennett said plans are being made for it to travel to East Coast events later this year. She said that Yahoo executives wanted to display it in their New York offices, but workers couldn't get the 400-pound bovine on an elevator or up stairs.
Bennett said Yahoo's goal is to provide the public with "exciting, unexpected encounters with Yahoo," a phrase that rolls off her tongue several times in a brief interview. The cows encourage users to open new Yahoo mail accounts.
Netkey marketing manager Penny Crump said that the Yahoo project was exciting, and somewhat unusual. "Yahoo is an example of one of our best existing clients, an example to taking an online aspect and re-branding in a way that's appropriate," she said.
Since there were just two of the purple cows, it was an atypical order for the San Francisco-based kiosk software provider. Crump said the company's typical order ranges from tests of 5-10 units to thousands of units. But she said that the success of the Yahoo project might help in Netkey's sales efforts with other companies.
"The whole project was a fun and exciting way to get the word out and we hope others will follow their lead," she said.
