April 2008
CONTACTLESS INTELLIGENCE HONOURS KINGS OF CONTACTLESS JUNGLE IN MONKEY AWARDS
Berlin, Germany, and London, UK, 11th April 2008 – The significant increase in contactless deployments over the past 12 months was recognized at this week’s inaugural Contactless Intelligence Monkey Awards, held at the Tower Bridge Hilton in central London.
Recipients of the awards – established to honour those businesses working at the coal face of contactless deployments – were nominated by HSBC, Barclays and RBS, and chosen because of their success in using the new technology and heightening the profile of the payments industry.
“The payments industry has a lot to shout about following a successful year of contactless rollouts,” says Steve Atkins, CEO – Krowne Communications Group. “However, success has only happened because of the dedication and belief of retailers, restaurants and other customer-facing organizations. Contactless Intelligence (CI) events are focused on taking a realistic approach to business by providing a platform where all stakeholders can engage in open and honest dialog so as to accurately examine both the triumphs and the challenges associated with deploying and using contactless technology.
“We felt it was fitting to open this year’s spring conference by celebrating with the retailers who have taken a leap of faith to be the early adopters of the technology – showing how a business case can be established for rolling it out. It also served as an excellent platform to remind delegates of the sheer variety of businesses now accepting contactless payments before we examined in depth some of the road blocks that need to be overcome for mass market usage.”
McDonald’s (Billingsgate) won a Special Award for being the first public venue to offer contactless payments in the London Launch. Costa Coffee won the award for Constant Contactless Growth Since Contactless Implementation, while O2 was honoured with the Trailblazer Award for its comprehensive contactless consumer-oriented partnerships and the O2 Wallet trial.
Full list on the night included Yo! Sushi (In-house Contactless Dining Award), Subway (Competitive Advantage Through Technology, large company category), Ned’s Noodle Bar (Competitive Advantage Through Technology, small company category), Krispy Kreme (High Throughput Food Award), Coffee Republic (High Throughput Beverage Award), and Chop’d (Healthy Lifestyle Award).
“We would like to congratulate all the winners for the dedication and success they have shown as early adopters of contactless technology,” says Sandra Alzetta, senior vice president, Innovation and Acceptance, Visa Europe, sponsors of the awards. “These new awards are a great way to recognize and support the retailers who have taken the first step with this new exciting technology. We look forward to rewarding even more retailers for accepting contactless payments in the future.”
The awards were followed by CI’s second spring conference, which was attended by delegates from throughout Europe and Asia. “Momentum is definitely building,” says Susan Hicks, program director, Contactless Intelligence. “London, which is pioneering the way in Europe, has a lot to learn from the Asian experience. Likewise, it was heartening to see delegates from other parts of Europe who were keen to learn from the London experience ahead of their own country’s implementations. While there has been a lot of success in a fairly short time frame, the payments industry is not complacent, and it was refreshing to hear the words of retailers and restaurants which were able to point out some of their concerns and offer their views on the best way forward.”
Notes to editors
About Contactless Intelligence
Contactless Intelligence is an innovative marketing platform for contactless technologies and applications. Using such products as C-ITV video news channel, a magazine called C-IQ and their C-IC events (including executive roundtables), CI works to get industry messages and brands out to audience outside of the industry through their weekly news feed or their quarterly issue of C-IQ, or through the use of interview-format and custom-made video and audio broadcasts, focused on tightly targeted news and industry information and delivered to a specific industry segment of ‘live’ readers and respondents.
Krowne Communications GmbH is the media marketing company behind Contactless Intelligence. Founded in Munich, Germany, in 2000, and headquartered in Berlin, the company works in partnership with Krowne Communications (UK) Ltd in developing a number of media products (including Contactless Intelligence) that have a more ‘on-line broadcast channel’ approach to communications.
For more information on Contactless Intelligence, visit www.contactless-intelligence.tv
About Visa Europe
In Europe, there are more than 348 million Visa debit, credit and commercial cards. In the 12 months ending September 2007, those cards were used to make purchases and cash withdrawals to the value of more than €1.3 trillion. 11.4% of consumer spending at point of sale in Europe is with a Visa card.
Visa Europe is a membership association – an organisation owned and operated by its 4,600 European member banks – that was incorporated in July 2004. In October 2007, Visa Europe became independent of the new global Visa Inc, with an exclusive, irrevocable and perpetual license in Europe.
As a dedicated European payment system it is able to respond quickly to the specific market needs of European banks and their customers – cardholders and retailers – and to meet the European Commission’s objective to create a true internal market for payments.
Visa enjoys unsurpassed acceptance around the world. In addition, Visa/PLUS is one of the world’s largest global ATM networks, offering cash access in local currency in over 170 countries. For more information, visit www.visaeurope.com.
July 2007
CONTACTLESS-INTELLIGENCE.TV TAKES CARTES
TO A NEW LEVEL
Berlin, Germany, and Paris, France – 23rd July 2007– Leading annual smart cards industry event CARTES has teamed up with Contactless Intelligence to bring the contactless cards message to a bigger audience than ever before through the contactless-intelligence.tv portal.
In an industry first, Contactless-intelligence.tv has become the official Podcast partner of the annual expo, being held in Paris in November 2007. During the event, a team of Internet broadcast reporters from Contactless-intelligence.tv will be scouring the stands and lecture halls to get the latest news and views from industry experts and customers alike.
“We’ll be discussing all the hot topics, providing the low-down on the latest technology developments and filming demos from our studio and from exhibitors’ stands,” says Susan Hicks, Contactless Intelligence’s Program Director. “And because delegates want to know how the technology can work in the real world, we’ll be getting insights from leading thinkers involved in deploying the technology to both the public and the private sectors, as well as discussing show highlights with CARTES organizers.”
“Contactless-intelligence.tv is the industry’s first and only Podcast and video broadcast channel,” says Steve Atkins, Managing Director, Krowne Communications. “This is a perfect opportunity for businesses of all types and sizes to reach people through a new medium. For many companies starting out, or operating in an industry that is becoming commoditized, the cost of regular TV is simply not an option. However, our approach is to deliver a new medium that can be used as a corporate tool by all organizations operating in the contactless world – regardless of whether they are government bodies with experience to share or NASDAQ-listed firms wanting the world to know about their latest product launches.”
In the months leading up to the show, a special broadcast web page at contactless-intelligence.tv/cartes2007 will be dedicated to the latest news and views from CARTES 2007. “Anyone wanting us to visit them before or during the show to film their demo or main show messages through interviews should contact us now,” says Susan Hicks. “We’ll be on the road in the coming months with events planned for Berlin in August, Paris in September and London in October, and will be Podcasting several times each day at these events.”
Contactless-intelligence.tv has a simple philosophy: to help organizations get their message out to the widest possible audience through innovative means. “We’re not preaching to the choir,” says Steve Atkins, “Drawing on the expertise of leaders from the marketing, PR and journalism sides of the communications industry, we know the importance to audiences of seeing and hearing opinion from an expert human face. People want to see the individuals behind the solutions and find out about what makes their business and products tick. Podcasting from CARTES is a fantastic opportunity for cards businesses to extend the dialog of the conference room and exhibition floor to the rest of the world.”
In addition to interviewing leading players from its booth-based studio on the show floor, Contactless Intelligence will be holding a retail roundtable to bring together UK and mainland European retailers to discuss the impact of contactless technology on their retail outlets and share their experiences of contactless payment so far.
Notes to editors
About Contactless-intelligence.tv
Contactless-intelligence.tv is the contactless cards’ industry’s first and only audio and video Podcast channel. Contactless Intelligence – an innovative marketing platform for contactless technologies and applications that uses web 2.0 to deliver the latest industry news and views via a variety of media including Podcast and weekly news feeds, operates it.
Find out more at www.contactless-intelligence.tv
About Krowne Communications
Krowne Communications is the marketing specialist behind Contactless Intelligence. The company was founded in Munich, Germany, in 2000, and is now headquartered in Berlin, Germany. With its subsidiary, Krowne Communications (UK) Ltd, it offers agency services developed specifically to fit the requirements of major organizations operating in the high-tech world of contactless, security and identification applications. The company also develops and manages marketing communications projects for special interest groups and companies. Find out more at www.krowne.de
About CARTES 2007
The world leading event on digital security, smart card and identification will bring together all the international players of the sector who will present their innovations to the 20,000 expected visitors. For this 2007 edition, Japan will be the guest of honour. An exposition on card design and a “Mobile Transaction TechZone” will also be organized. Finally, highly awaited by the professionals of the sector, the Sesames Awards will be awarded on the eve of the exhibition in a prestigious venue in Paris.
Find out more at www.cartes.com
For further details please contact:
Susan Hicks
Program Director Contactless Intelligence
Tel: +44 (0) 7799 898 432
E-mail: susan.hicks(at)contactless-intelligence.com
June 2007
CONTACTLESS INTELLIGENCE LAUNCHES CONTACTLESS INDUSTRY’S FIRST PODCAST BROADCAST CHANNEL
Berlin, 1st June 2007
Contactless Intelligence, the innovative marketing platform for contactless technologies and applications continues its web 2.0 strategy by launching the industry’s first online broadcast channel.
The contactless-intelligence.tv site offers a unique format to the community with access to audio newscasts, industry event updates, video interviews and viral videos. Since its launch in late March 2007, more than 2.500 unique visitors have made over 18.000 visits to the site (average 7.2 times a month) and have already viewed or downloaded information and listened to or watched individual shows through Contactless-intelligence.tv, creating the ideal link to the weekly industry news feed and networking events.
Steve Atkins, Managing Director of Krowne Communications, the marketing specialists behind Contactless Intelligence comments, “With Contactless-Intelligence.tv we have continued to enhance our Media 2.0 offering of relationship marketing products for the contactless industry and have developed a communication vehicle that takes advantage of the increasing usage of digital video news releases (DVNR) and combines them with the explosive growth of Podcasts and content generated sites such as YouTube. By creating content with interested partners we are able to get far more insight into the messaging and direction of their companies and their solutions and allow viewers to experience information more intimately, without editorial content control. So far, the response to this newly available medium has been overwhelmingly positive.”
Contactless Intelligence is currently in negotiation with some of the premier show organizers within the contactless industry to offer video Podcasting to their customers as a promotion and commercial tool within their conferences and exhibitions worldwide.
The video and audio Podcasts can be found at
www.contactless-intelligence.tv and video interviews at www.youtube.com/contactless.
About Krowne Communications:
Krowne Communication GmbH was founded in 2000 in Munich, Germany and is now headquartered in Berlin, Germany. With its subsidiary, Krowne Communications (UK) Ltd. it offers agency services developed specifically to fit the requirements of major organizations operating in the high technology world of security applications and identification technologies. The company also develops and manages marketing communications projects for special interest groups and companies alike. More information at www.krowne.net.
April 2007
MOBILE PAYMENT INDUSTRY
CHAMPIONS CONTACTLESS INTELLIGENCE
First Contactless Intelligence Conference sold out
On-site video podcast studio in high demand
Berlin, 11th April 2007
Contactless Intelligence, the innovative marketing platform for contactless technologies and applications successfully launched its integrated conference format last week in London, UK. The exclusive one-day conference was sold out, with more than 100 delegates listening to speakers and panels on the top issues of the mobile payment industry. Additionally, in order to offer the growing Contactless Intelligence community further insight, live interviews with key decision makers of up to 5 minutes length were recorded in the on-site video podcast studio.
Sponsors and delegates were convinced that the innovative format is a perfect match to the fast pace of the mobile payment industry. A spokesperson of one of the key sponsors, Visa Europe, stated: “…You did a great job inviting the right people and creating the right atmosphere to encourage open dialogue and information sharing. The pod cast was a great value-add too. You managed to pack into a single day more value than most multi-day events I attend…” Industry analysts ICT Frost & Sullivan said: “…It was indeed extremely insightful to see different players express their views and at the same time understanding from them the whole ecosystem."
The next Contactless Intelligence Conference is scheduled to take place on September 18th in the South of France.
The video podcasts will be broadcasted on
www.contactless-intelligence.tv
About Krowne Communications:
Krowne Communication GmbH was founded in 2000 in Munich, Germany and is now headquartered in Berlin, Germany. With its subsidiary, Krowne Communications (UK) Ltd. it offers agency services developed specifically to fit the requirements of major organizations operating in the high technology world of security applications and identification technologies. The company also develops and manages marketing communications projects for special interest groups and companies alike. More information at www.krowne.de.
March 2007
FROM OYSTER TO THE LAUNCH – THE LONDON REVOLUTION HAPPENS IN A DAY
Mobile Payment industry brought together by Contactless Intelligence
Berlin, 12th March 2007
Contactless Intelligence, the innovative marketing platform for contactless technologies and applications, presents the leading players of the mobile payment industry during an exclusive one-day conference that is taking place on April 3rd at the Hilton Tower Bridge in the heart of London. Visa International, Oberthur Card Systems, Gemalto and Ingenico have taken exclusive sponsorships, amongst others.
Two key projects based in London will be addressed during the morning sessions: The Oyster Project panel, with an introduction by Visa International and the London Launch panel session, which is headed by MasterCard. Unique insights will be given also by the panel, representing companies such as Barclays and Transport for London and, for the London Launch, retailers such as Boots and McDonalds.
The afternoon sessions concentrate on payment via mobile handsets with key players, such as Oberthur Card Systems and O2, giving the latest updates on this exciting application.
Contactless Intelligence conferences set out to allow participants to get an exclusive insight into the most exiting contactless topics by the “who’s who” of the industries involved.
Steve Atkins, Managing Director of Krowne Communications, the marketing specialists behind Contactless Intelligence, comments on the immediate take-off of the April Conference: “This conference has surpassed our wildest dreams in terms of immediate interest, excitement and commitment on behalf of everyone involved. It has been the ideal case study on the positive effect of Media 2.0 communication activities. Global players in the contactless industry suggested the conference and because we worked hard to make their requests a reality, these global players have reciprocated through their visible support. We look forward to continuing and enhancing this marketing approach in the future”.
Further details on the spring conference can be found at
www.contactless-intelligence.com/spring.
About Krowne Communications:
Krowne Communication GmbH was founded in 2000 in Munich, Germany and is now headquartered in Berlin, Germany. With its subsidiary, Krowne Communications (UK) Ltd. it offers agency services developed specifically to fit the requirements of major organizations operating in the high technology world of security applications and identification technologies. The company also develops and manages marketing communications projects for special interest groups and companies alike. More information at www.krowne.de
February 2007
INDUSTRY CONVINCED BY “CONTACTLESS INTELLIGENCE”
Krowne Communications launches Innovative Media 2.0 marketing platform
Berlin, February 2007
Krowne Communications GmbH successfully launched “Contactless Intelligence”, an innovative communications platform designed to support the marketing activities of all companies involved in the contactless technology industry. Initial sponsors include Mastercard, Visa International, Inseal, Smarttrac and Ingenico.
The integrated communication approach of Contactless Intelligence combines technology conferences and roundtables with retail workshops and vendor days. The publishing vehicle consists of a weekly news-feed and a monthly digest. Sponsors of Contactless Intelligence can also use Audio and Video Podcasts to demonstrate projects or to communicate opinions.
Steve Atkins, Managing Director of Krowne Communications, explains the unique Media 2.0 strategy: “Web 2.0 was based on the idea that it was possible to engage like-minded individuals in conversations that ultimately created the feeling of a more involved relationship through continual feedback. These conversations and relationships could include hundreds and thousands of individuals or perhaps just a handful of people who saw the world in the same way. We like to think that what we were finally seeing was the birth of content over packaging.”
Atkins further explains: “With Media 2.0 we have tried to take the same lessons we learned from the move of Web 1.0 to Web 2.0 and adapt it to our particular brand of trade media development for the contactless industry. We see this as the ability to customize messaging in smaller degrees and create numerous communication vehicles. These vehicles are more defined and easily customizable to the sponsor or advertiser and are aimed at specific groups of customers. We believe that it is more effective that simply advertising in the all-encompassing, vanilla-flavored brand of media out there in the industry today.
If we can deliver industry content to readers and viewers that have relevance to what they are doing, then they will be more receptive to what we have to say. When people are receptive to you they are also more responsive and this allows a relationship to develop. This is what we call the fundamentals of Media 2.0 and this is what we are developing with Contactless Intelligence. We like to refer to it as the point where a partner program or industry association meets the publishing industry, with all of the resources and ability of one and the focus and customer relationships of the other.”
Further information about Contactless Intelligence can be found at
www.contactless-Intelligence.tv
About Krowne Communications:
Krowne Communication GmbH was founded in 2000 in Munich, Germany and is now headquartered in Berlin, Germany. With its subsidiary, Krowne Communications (UK) Ltd. it offers agency services developed specifically to fit the requirements of major organizations operating in the high technology world of security applications and identification technologies. The company develops and manages marketing communications projects for special interest groups and companies alike. More information can be found at www.krowne.de
