BMW Italy deploys digital signage kiosks in showrooms


Multimedia designer Excogitare and digital signage solutions manufacturer friendlyway recently worked with BMW dealerships across Italy to replace their paper point-of-sale displays with interactive digital signage kiosks, according to an announcement from Excogitare.
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The BMW digital communication system has been deployed in key locations across Italy, installing 100 totems in dealerships. The friendlyway kiosks are placed in strategic locations in every friendlyway BMW kiosksshowroom with dynamic digital content to reinforce branding and engage BMW's customers at critical decision points.

A representative from BMW FS says: "We wanted innovation! The friendlyway totem solution proposed by Excogitare was what we wanted: a robust and well designed unit that is easy to use and allows customers to get the information instantly."

The new totems combine interactive digital signage with the traditional paper brochure, which customers can take away with them.

Klaus Trox, CEO and founder of friendlyway, said, "BMW FS asked for a 'plug-and-play' solution. So we pre-installed our software in each totem. The dealer only had to connect the totem to an electrical socket and plug in the Internet cable.

"The entire solution is based on Intel Core CPU technology, which uses a powerful Core 2 Duo Processors. The digital signage engines are USFF (ultra small form factor) units from Dell. We have chosen Dell with Intel inside, because of its performance, robustness, 24/7 use, ability to upgrade."

Alex Curti, Excogitare's networks and communications engineer, said, "The system is a mix of interactive and one-way communication content. When the totem is not being used, information is displayed as screen saver. But as soon as a person stands in front of the totem, it comes alive. The units come fitted with proximity sensors, which detects when a person is standing in front of it and reacts displaying a relevant interactive information page."

The Kiosks operating system uses Windows7 and the suit of kiosk-related products from friendlyway: Composer 9 and Secure Browser. The friendlyway Secure Browser software provides protection for public workstations against misuse. The product protects the operating system from manipulation, deactivates system key combinations and enables restriction of the search area, according to the company.

To make the content available to every totem as and when it's needed, Excogitare created a cloud base solution by which the content can be modified remotely. All totems are IP addressable and connected to the internet.

"All content is hosted as a service," Trox said. "It can be remotely updated nationwide within minutes. This solution allows BMW FS to provide fresh and relevant information to its clients at a fraction of the cost that it would incur if it had to change paper signs."

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