Kid City Kiosks boost sales

"It all comes down to getting customers to listen," says Wayne Zeitner, general manager of Everland Entertainment, a music publisher. "For some time, we've had award-winning music and video titles to offer, but until recently we had no means to draw in kids and parents to give them a fun, interactive, musical preview."

For Everland Entertainment and Integrity Just-For-Kids, two leading publishers of Christian tapes, CDs and videos for children, the solution was an interactive kiosk dubbed "Kid City." Each "Kid City" kiosk features a touchscreen display that enables customers (including pre-schoolers who can't yet read) to select songs they want to hear or preview actual scenes from videos.

"Kid City" kiosks are now installed in 340 Christian bookstores across the country. The results are impressive: sales of Everland Entertainment titles in every store equipped with a "Kid City" kiosk have increased from between 80 percent to 125 percent. Plans call for an additional 200 "Kid City" kiosks to be installed in the near future.

In developing the "Kid City" kiosk, Zeitner took a bold approach: He invited his top competitor -- Integrity Just-For-Kids -- to join him in the effort. The result was an overwhelmingly successful kiosk that has dramatically reshaped the market for Christian music and video products.

"I was third or fourth in terms of market share at the time," he says. "I needed Integrity Music, the number one player, as my partner in order to gain credibility with retailers and secure floor space in the stores. It was a unique approach but it has paid off. Now, half of the products on each `Kid City' kiosk are mine and this project has single-handedly redefined the market."

One of the keys to the "Kid City" program's success, Zeitner says, is the user-friendly touchscreen interface.

"A traditional keyboard would spell disaster in a kiosk such as ours," says Zeitner. "With a touchscreen, there are no incorrect keystrokes and there's no barrier between a young child and the variety of multimedia information available on-line."

Zeitner and his colleagues carefully considered various touchscreen technologies before selecting a surface-wave touchscreen from Elo TouchSystems, the company that invented touchscreen technology and has been a market leader for more than 20 years.

"We looked at capacitive touchscreens but weren't satisfied with the image brightness nor the durability they offered," says Zeitner. "The IntelliTouch touchscreen offers outstanding light transmission, which was critical for us because we want our visuals to be as bright as possible.

It appears there's no touchscreen attached at all because the Elo touchscreen does not degrade the image. Plus, the Elo touchscreen is impervious to scratches and doesn't get fooled by foreign objects, such as candy stuck to the screen."

Working with Chesapeake Display and Packaging (Winston-Salem, N.C.), Everland Entertainment developed the "Kid City" kiosk for maximum impact. A cartoon character named "Boomer" (in the form of a portable stereo, or "boom box") invites kids and parents to use the system at set intervals. Upon touching the screen, Boomer asks, "What would you like to hear?" Two big pink buttons then pop up, separating the choices into Artists or Topics.

After pressing Artists, for instance, the screen shows 12 buttons with the faces of the artists or cartoon characters who sing the songs. Once a selection is made, all of the artist's music is listed. Pressing a selection pulls up the album graphics and plays roughly 25 seconds of up to three songs from that offering. For videos, live-action clips are shown, along with a voice-over describing the product.

"In the past, our sales suffered because we represent so many different artists and our product line lacked a uniform look," Zeitner says. "With `Kid City' we've eliminated that problem. Our products still look different but now they're all located in one place-in an interactive kiosk.

"What we're offering children and parents," Zeitner concludes, "is a fun way to sample different artists on their own. All they have to do is touch the screen."