Acronym Alert: YCD and HP show RAMP at NRF

January 10, 2011 by Dave Haynes

YCD Multimedia is at NRF this week showing off some technology that at least suggests it auto-generates content to screens based on the integration with a partner’s POS back office system.

“YCD’s solution will be changing the playing field for grocery and convenience store retailers. We are allowing retailers’ digital signage campaigns to be fully integrated with their point-of-sale platform, ensuring 100% compliance with their in-store promotions,” said Noam Levavi, CEO of YCD Multimedia, in a release.

The company has integrated YCD|RAMP™ (Retail Advertising & Merchandising Platform) with Retalix^® Store and Customer Marketing solutions and HP’s retail hardware solutions to bring a solution that fully automates the creation of in-store campaigns. By integrating YCD|RAMP with the Retalix^® Customer Management and Marketing Suite (Loyalty and Promotions), retailers get a fully compliant, synchronized, in-store digital campaign solution.

The idea is that consumers are only presented with the most relevant content – such as product price and availability – triggered in real time, and based on Retalix^® Promotion Management application. Together with optimal suggestive selling capabilities, which can be integrated with the loyalty system, retailers also have built-in measurement and reporting tools at their disposal, allowing for real-time campaign impact analysis and optimization, and resulting in an increase in sales and a positive impact on ROI.

The combined solution is fully compliant with HP’s new line of retail products, which are especially designed to address the unique requirements of retailers using POS digital media.

Levavi sums up by saying: “We have taken the personalized marketing model used online and moved it offline. Brining it directly to the retailers’ physical stores.”

So … I think this is integration work that throws very simple creative up on screens based on what the POS system is saying – ie someone’s buying a latte, suggest a biscotti to go with it. The online world does indeed have many auto-generate ad tools out there, most notably Google.

Video or at least images would help immensely in explaining this (I don’t understand why that is still so rarely done). The release is too technical, cliche-ridden and jargon-heavy for its own good, but the development is still a good thing that will serve YCD and its partners well. However, I think YCD has been doing this for several years and this is just new integration with a new partner.

I also don’t think it’s any great leap and throwing the playing field off level, as suggested. Back office integration is less a question about whether it can be done and more about how much work and time is needed.

Interesting that HP’s retail hardware side is playing with YCD, given all the hoo-hah a few weeks ago about that company’s deal with Scala.