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KioskCom 2006 award winners: Nanonation

At the fifth annual KioskCom Excellence Awards, much attention was paid to a bright and inviting machine that brings smiles to parents and kids alike: Nanonation's Build-A-Bear gift card kiosk.

May 16, 2006 by James Bickers — Editor, Networld Alliance

This is the first in a series of articles on the winners of the 2006 KioskCom Excellence Awards. The author is also editor of SelfServiceWorld.com.

The annual KioskCom Excellence Awards were handed out April 10 in Las Vegas. For the second year, former CNN anchor Bob Losure announced the winners and presented the trophies. Nanonation sponsored the awards.

Awards in 12 categories plus three special awards were presented.

One of the big winners at this year's award ceremony was the Build-A-Bear Workshop gift card kiosk developed by Nanonation. The device won awards for best kiosk in a retail environment, best transactional-kiosk application, and the "Best of the Best" award, which is based on the overall highest score.

Build-A-Bear operates more than 200 retail stores in the United States and Canada. Each location allows shoppers to create a stuffed animal that is completely their own, customizing the animal every step of the way. Customers pick the animal, watch it being stuffed, give it a name and take it home with a birth certificate.

Nanonation and Build-A-Bear first worked together on a revamp of Build-A-Bear's "Name Me" station software, which allows young (or not-so-young) shoppers to personalize their new friends.

Since the entire concept of Build-A-Bear is based on customization, it was natural to allow customers to make their gift cards - not just their bears - uniquely their own. Most gift cards sit on a shelf or hang on a hook until a customer buys one and loads it. Here the kiosk offers a variety of colorful templates, each of which can be modified with custom text.

"Build-A-Bear is so successful because each customer can expect a personalized, fun experience from each store visit," Brian Ardinger, vice president of business development for Nanonation, said. "The concept of the custom gift card kiosk came about as a way to extend the ability for a customer to personalize the experience - to change the look, message, even the amount on the card. Everything about the implementation matched and blended with the customer's expectation about Build-A-Bear - the enclosure, the images, the fonts."

Ardinger said the entire program took about 90 days to design, create and deploy - just in time to hit his client's pivotal deadline, the holiday shopping season.

"We knew exactly what we wanted from a design perspective," said Dave Watkins, application "engi-bear" for Build-A-Bear Workshop. "A guest needed to be able to select a gift card, `pawsonalize' it, and have it activated when they left the kiosk. Nanonation brought their expertise to the flow of the gift card kiosk application. They have a lot of experience in UI design and were very helpful in making sure we had all of the bases covered."

Watkins said the program is still in pilot stage, with kiosks deployed in six stores. And Ardinger said the response at those six locations has been very positive.

"Customer acceptance has been great," he said. "During one of the first installations, we had people lining up to try it out as we were setting it up."

About James Bickers

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