Microsoft Develops Digital Kiosks For Grocery Stores

I know, I know, we've heard this kind of news bite several times before and it's always garnered mixed results at best. Yet, according to this article in AdWeek, Microsoft is obviously determined to provide a more interactive grocery store experience that is tied into shopping carts.

There is definitely reason to be skeptical with this kind of announcement, yet there is also reason to be at least partly optimistic. From a tech stand point, Microsoft is certainly a name to be trusted. If the right advertising and marketing know-how can get behind the kind of well-developed technology that Microsoft is capable of, then it could work.

Reading this article, and then looking back at articles about similar attempts, I got the same feeling that I had when I read Nielsen was going to try to put together a way to better measure digital signage/out-of-home ads. No matter how many attempts have been made at a promising idea and how badly they may have failed (which has certainly been the case with measurement systems), I feel it's worthwhile to look past those failures if an organization with a strong reputation shows up to tackle the issue.... Maybe I just haven't been working in this industry long enough :)

Microsoft is obviously putting a lot of stock into digital advertising because according to the article:

"While Microsoft has trailed large rivals like Google and Yahoo! in selling Web ads, it is moving to extend beyond the computer with its digital ad platform. It bought Massive, a provider of advertising on video game platforms. Last May, it bought ScreenTonic, a tech company that serves ads on mobile phones."

It's no secret that Microsoft isn't quite the dominating presence it once was (I'm sure they aren't hurting for money, but Apple, Google and Yahoo! are gaining strength) so if they can successfully move into the out-of-home digital ad realm and gain dominance before the others then it could be a pretty big victory.

With this, and the recent upfront announcement from NBC, it's obvious that very big names are circling this industry. So now it's just a matter of seeing which ones get things right...

Tags: interactive kiosks, smart carts, mediacart

MediaCart aims to bring multimedia, interactivity to shopping carts

MediaCart, the latest venture that aims to bring the lowly shopping cart into the 21st century, has announced the start of real-world trials of its interactive shopping cart technology, and claims it has "generated interest" from the nation's top 10 retailers. Of course, interest doesn't pay the bills, and Google is always ready to remind us about the numerous failures for this kind of project, however for some reason Advertising Age, a publication not exactly famous for their love of in-store media, seems to think that MediaCart has "cracked the code" and will be successful in its endeavors. The system uses a video screen at the front of the cart, where it's impossible to miss, unless you really over-load your cart. To promote acceptance, the system promotes a variety of "smart shopping" features, using navigation buttons on the cart's handle to let the user access features, promotions and coupons, and even activate a self-scanning feature that can dramatically speed up the checkout process when properly used. As the Advertising Age story also notes, the system integrates with loyalty programs that provide users with even more valuable information and offers in exchange for some personal and shopping information:

About 80% of MediaCart features will work without using individual consumer data, Mr. Carpenter said. That could overcome a sticking point not only for privacy advocates, with whom he said MediaCart has been in contact, but also for such retail giants as Wal-Mart Stores, Target and Walgreens, which don't have loyalty programs.

But the company concedes that at retailers with loyalty programs, shoppers will probably have to swipe their ID cards to benefit from promotional offers or special features such as downloading shopping lists from their computers or uploading recipes from the carts to their computers.

Whether MediaCart will be the one that makes it, or whether it will go the way of many other attempts to enable shopping carts with advanced technology remains to be seen. But obviously there's a lot that needs to be done before a company goes from "a few pilots" to long-term relationships with major retailers. So I say, good luck, MediaCart! If your predecessors were any indication, you may need it.

Past articles about this sort of thing include:
Giant experiments with grocery store of the future
Group suggests using shopping-cart kiosks...
Another article on the Shopping Buddy Kiosk

Tags: MediaCart, Shopping Buddy, Cuesol, shopping cart, in-store media, retail media