"While digital signage and out-of-home networks remain the big buzz for in-store entertainment and advertising, many businesses continue to rely on audio as their main resource for reaching customers at the point of purchase," said Johannes G. Rietschel, CEO and founder of Barix AG.
"Recent studies have proven that the right mix of music and advertising can have a significant influence on brand perception and in-store atmosphere, de-stressing both customers and employees to respectively increase purchasing and raise productivity. The Barix Store and Play application can deliver these benefits to retailers and hospitality businesses that need a less expensive, premium-quality alternative to professionally produced, branded in-store audio programmes."
Store and Play gives businesses more control over the audio content playing in one or more store or branch locations, without requiring the same level of investment in resources as a branded radio solution. The same inexpensive Barix hardware supports both store-and-play and branded radio streaming solutions, which delivers a low-cost upgrade path for businesses should they later decide to further enhance their in-store audio platforms.
Store and Play is written in Barix' BCL (Barix Coding Language) programming language and can be customised by the system integrator. It downloads configuration data and playlists with the corresponding music files, stores them on a USB flash memory and plays back the downloaded music according to the schedule held in the configuration. Music and configuration updates can be automatically retrieved from a central server via FTP or HTTP according to a controllable schedule.
Playlists, music and advertising can be regularly updated, with outdated files being automatically deleted from the local device to ensure storage efficiency over time.
(Jim Evans)
