The future of marketing
Maynard co. offers digital shopping through a touch screen
There's a difference between the trade show floor and the show room floor, to be sure.
Limited space at a trade show means a limited ability to showcase products, options and available upgrades. Products need to be shipped to remote locations, set up in a limited amount of time and monitored closely to avoid damage by potential customers eager to check out every nook and cranny before committing to a purchase.
It's an expensive proposition.
Imagine instead an "endless aisle" of products able to be manipulated in almost every conceivable way, all within the confines of a trade show booth or kiosk.
Welcome to Maynard-based Kaon Interactive's v-OSK, or virtual kiosk, designed for use at trade shows and the like, but adaptable to fit just about any sales, marketing or training situation.
Almost real
"We have a platform that allows us to create these lifelike representations of the models, and that platform is then used to deliver solutions in different environments," said Gavin Finn, president and CEO of Kaon Interactive.
Founded in 1996, Kaon Interactive employs 20, mostly in its Maynard headquarters. The company also has offices in California and Texas, Finn said.
The v-OSK consists of a custom-manufactured high-resolution, touch-screen, flat-panel display loaded with Kaon's proprietary software. The software allows Kaon engineers to create lifelike digital, 3-D renderings of any given product based on blueprints and photographs supplied by a client, Finn explained.
These renderings can then be manipulated on-screen simply by touching and dragging a finger, allowing users to view the product from any angle and see what it might look like with available options.
Customizable animations make it easy to see just how simple (or not) it is to change a toner cartridge in a copier, say, or replace a water filter in a refrigerator, without having to cart a demo fridge or copy machine onto the trade show floor, exposing it to potentially costly damage or wear and tear.
The renderings can be as detailed as a client wants, Finn said. In some ways, the virtual demonstration is more beneficial to a customer, as it allows the product to be "taken apart" digitally to show various components or mechanisms, which allows customers to gauge the ease and/or cost of replacing defective or worn out parts.
Some accolades
The technology is getting noticed in trade-show circles. In June, it was recognized by the Massachusetts Information and Technology Exchange as the best "Interactive/Online Business" technology at its annual awards ceremony. It has also been recognized by Trade Show Executive Magazine and Event Marketer Magazine, which named it one of the top 10 technologies that are changing event marketing, the company said.
But trade show displays are only one aspect of the technology's potential applications. The market for interactive tools of this type is vast and untapped, Finn said.
"There's an enormous market opportunity for us to broaden out within each company to deliver a series of applications and solutions that re-use the same digital assets, said Finn.
"What I really found compelling was the ability to really take this into multi-channel selling and marketing," Finn said. "What the real difference has been over the last couple of years, when we work with manufacturing companies, they see a platform now instead of just a single product solution."
Finn outlined ways in which the technology might be used to train service technicians and salespeople on the ins and outs of new products, for example, or how the applications can be used to spruce up a product's web presence.
The application is also designed to work within a standard PDF file, so users can manipulate an object or view animations inside Adobe Acrobat reader without downloading any extra software.
The PDF compatibility could allow customer service centers to email customers personalized troubleshooting techniques, Finn said.
Perhaps one of the biggest advantages of the technology is the ability to view both a single product in almost infinite detail, or to "zoom out," Finn said, and view the product as part of a series of products or tools designed to complete an entire process.
In this way, Finn said, salespeople can demonstrate an entire suite or line of products in much the same way as an "old-fashioned" catalog would.
WBJ Web Partners
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