Article

SmarteTouch has high hopes for low-tech

Advertisers understand signs, Robert Needham says. The CEO of SmarteTouch is hoping he can leverage that old-fashioned understanding into new advertising revenue for the kiosks his company makes.

March 27, 2002

Robert Needham is betting that low-tech additions to high-tech kiosks will be the best way to attract customers and create advertising revenue.

Needham, chief executive officer of Bessemer, Ala.-based SmarteTouch Corp., is placing special signs on top of the kiosks that his company creates. These lenticular and black line signs work by combining a series of images onto one sheet. The images are interleaved as a series of horizontal lines. The sign box masks all but one set of lines, so that only one image shows at a time to the viewer. As the mask changes, the images change, giving the viewer the illusion of movement.

Movement is the key

Needham's immediate aim is to use the signs to grab consumers' attention and get them in the kiosk.

"The secret to this signage is its movement," Needham said. "What you get is smooth morphing that fades so seamlessly that it's like watching a movie."

But his larger goal is to showcase the value of kiosks as a destination for advertising and a way for kiosk owners to land advertising dollars.

"We see that as a real smart thing," he said. "We can bring these signs to the machines, and they become small billboards."

The lenticular kiosk signs are generally 7 inches by 7 inches or 12 inches by 12 inches and run on a single AA battery. A clear plastic lens covers the images.

The larger black line or "light box" signs use backlit graphics and run on an AC connection. While both types feature motion, the black line boxes have sharper graphics and virtually seamless movement.

In addition to movement, black line signs can feature multiple advertisers. Currently, black line graphics can contain up to four screens, allowing one sign to feature four separate advertisers.

"We can create dynamic graphics for one advertiser or three or four advertisements in the same space," Needham said.

Cost savings

Needham also contends that the lenticular and black line signs are more affordable for business owners than video monitors. For example, placing a large monitor on top of a kiosk can cost between $2,000 and $4,000. Lenticular signs, on the other hand, start at $50, and the black line signs cost about $500.

And if you haven't seen the signs near you, don't worry. Needham and others are working to see that you do. SmarteTouch and several other businesses that supply hardware and services for kiosks as part of the Global Access Alliance (GAA) recently inked a deal with Phillips Petroleum to place 3,000 kiosks featuring the new low tech signs in Circle K convenience stores throughout the United States.

Consumers will see the first 40 or so kiosks in Phoenix, Ariz. this summer. Pilot machines will be in place by August 15. Needham estimates that the rollout will begin in earnest next January with kiosks being placed in Florida, Texas, North and South Carolina and throughout the Southeast.

Mamba Media, the Sarasota, Fla.-based vendor providing the signs to SmarteTouch, is betting that both the lenticular and the black line signs will enjoy success with kiosks as well as in other venues. One of the claims made by Mamba Media is that consumers spend an average of 12 seconds watching the signs in motion, according to Mamba Media president Jim Elliott. For an example of lenticular signs in action, visit Mamba Media.

Elliott and David McMahon, Mamba's senior vice president for sales, say that during a test of the lenticular signs with Mrs. Fields cookie displays late last year, approximately 200 people stopped over three-days to watch the movement. Those who stopped watched an average of 12 seconds.

They also say that the longer interest translates into brisk sales for products that have featured lenticular signs in retail store aisles. A test promotion last year for the Disney video of the movie "Tarzan" and Colgate products, for example, saw sales increase 12 percent.

"It makes people aware of the product and the message you're trying to get across," Elliott said.

Needham said that his company sells the signs to business owners at cost. The value, he argues, isn't in the money that can be made from the sale of the signs, but from the advertising that can be sold in them.

"Our goal is to make the hardware available and affordable, so that the money is made in the media, not in the selling of hardware," he said. "Our idea is to keep the cost of the hardware so low that it is amortized within the first month."

Coup for the GAA

While SmarteTouch's deal with Phillips Petroleum is enough to make Needham happy, the program is also beneficial to the Global Access Alliance, a group of six business, including SmarteTouch, that work together to design and manufacture the various components that make up a kiosk.

For example, with the kiosks that will appear in the Circle K stores, Toronto-based TouchPoint Technologies handled a portion of the software development while Advanced Technologies Media Network of Birmingham, Ala. will deal with customer service.

GAA's other partners are Digital Matter Corp., SPA Marketing, and TAP Computers.

"This really was a GAA victory," Needham said. "It was all the companies coming together."

Needham, who is also CEO of the GAA, says the overall goal is to make the kiosk as familiar to consumers as ATMs and pay phones. The company plans to eventually tie all its kiosks together in a network offering both free and for-fee services, like e-mail.

Needham said that the industry's growth has long been stunted by its focus on vertical markets. For example, if a business needed a bridal kiosk, it would go to a manufacturer for a bridal kiosk. The problem, Needham contends, is that such an approach does little to promote public access.

Eventually, Needham hopes that kiosks will be as familiar to consumers as ATMs.

"A person walks up to it, they pretty much know what it can do and what it will do for them, and we want to create that same environment in large venues," he said.