Ireland’s Instillo Launches Android-Driven, HTML5-Powered Audience Measurement Tools

August 31, 2015 by Dave Haynes

Video analytics tools have been around for many years now – and the key players have changed through the years, with the exception of France’s Quividi, which has been a constant.

An Irish company called Instillo has announced its own video analytics platform – Instillo Audience, and changed the proposition around quite a bit in the process.

Here’s how:

• It’s based on Android, and uses low-low cost Android media devices and webcams;
• It can be run separately or bundled with Instillo’s digital signage CMS and players;
• It uses the hell out of HTML5’s capabilities, raising the game on the sorts of charts you normally see from video analytics systems.

I’ve looked at reporting from a variety of companies that do this sort of audience measurement and they tend to look like what software engineers and analysts want to see – very conventional, eye-straining charts and graphs. Instillo’s charting, by comparison, is all nicely rendered, easily viewed and clickable dynamic charting that would seem far more friendly to a marketer or merchandiser who might use this kind of system in a retail setting.

I like (website looks great, as well).

Here’s the press release:

Instillo’s advanced Audience Analytics Platform anonymously tallies customer traffic in stores and other venues, generating metrics on everything from foot traffic and age and gender breakdowns, to how long people dwell in areas and how long they look at things like marketing displays. Instillo Audience even provides HTML5-driven reporting and charts on the emotional reaction customers have to marketing messages.

Conventional audience measurement systems require complicated systems that are too costly for most businesses, even in single locations, never mind across chains. Instillo Audience runs efficiently on reliable, low-cost Android media devices, and uses simple webcams – allowing retailers and other business operators to affordably make audience insights a standard part of their operations.

For example, a retailer using digital displays in its store to promote its products and services can use Instillo Audience to build an ongoing profile of the types of shoppers in its store and their general consumer behaviors and responses. A cloud-based portal provides managers with deep, highly visual charting that shows how shopper profiles and responses shift even by time of day and location, allowing them to tweak and optimize messaging.

Instillo’s Hourly Gender Variation Chart reflects the gender breakdown of total viewers on an hourly basis. A marketing consultant can analyse customer shopping behaviour at different times of the day and schedule gender-specific messages and promotions to run at identified peak times.

All reports are dynamic and clickable. By comparison, other third-party audience solutions on the market still only provide generic data, such as daily viewer counts.

Click here to watch a step-by-step video walk through of audience analytics reports.

“Understanding consumer behaviour and gauging the effectiveness of marketing efforts have always been a challenge for retailers and their advertising and marketing agencies,” says Instillo founder Shankar Jayagopi. “We’ve developed a system that not only makes it affordable and scalable, but also very easy to use and understand.”

“Instillo worked with data analysis experts, and its existing customers, to develop highly-visual, chart-driven metrics that anyone can understand at a glance,” continues Jayagopi. “Every report comes with a definition of what the data represents, and the benefits of the data in each format. It gives users the insights and confidence to make timely, tangible changes that raises viewer engagement and makes a difference to bottom lines.”

Instillo Audience is part of a suite of retail marketing solutions developed and delivered by the Galway, Ireland firm. Instillo’s core digital signage platform uses the Google-developed Android operating system and low-cost media playback devices to deliver a solution that is highly scalable, reliable and affordable. Unlike most low-cost signage solutions using Android, Instillo has deep, advanced remote diagnostic and management tools to maximize uptime and control operating costs.

Audience can be used concurrently with Instillo’s digital signage platform, or run independently – with cameras mounted for measurement with, for example, merchandising fixtures, mannequins or information displays and posters.

Instillo products are marketed through reseller partnerships and are readily white-labelled, meaning service providers can market the solution as their own. Instillo’s business model is also designed to generate much higher than normal margins for its reseller partners.

“We provide advertising agencies and resellers with different software models to suit their client’s commercial needs,” says Jayagopi. “The solution itself provides businesses of all sizes and budgets with the opportunity to increase sales, optimise marketing spend and inventory control, streamline staffing levels and deliver an attractive return on investment (RoI), by understanding consumer behaviour and responses to messages, broadcasts and promotions.”

Instillo Audience is now available for end-users and the company is open to developing partnerships globally. The Instillo signage platform is already driving signage networks in countries around the world.