Translucis

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TELentice drives world first innovative pub entertainment system

Translucis, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Diageo, the world's No. 1 spirits company, has chosen Fujitsu's digital advertising system, TELentice, as part of a revolutionary new in-house broadcasting system. The new media company Translucis is using TELentice Enterprise as the backbone of its innovative satellite-delivered entertainment system to broadcast ads and promotions, as well as short films and entertainment on a network of plasma screens in pubs and bars across the UK. The system is linked to POS points, enabling Translucis to measure the correlation between a brand's exposure on-screen and its sales at each venue.

Says Liz Paxton, commercial director at Translucis: "To the customers within participating outlets, Translucis is an entertainment system which creates atmosphere and attracts their attention through the engaging visual content. For the outlets, however, it represents a real opportunity to generate revenue from advertisers wishing to expose their brands to a captive, receptive and highly attractive 18-24-year-old audience."

The screen element of the Translucis system has been developed as a means of enabling bars, clubs and pubs to profit by giving brand owners access to their 18-24-year-old customer base, which is notoriously difficult to reach via traditional marketing methods. The system therefore provides a revenue stream for the outlet, while also creating mood and atmosphere through the skilful blending of the brand imagery paid for by advertisers with art, short films and other high impact visual material.

The award-winning and Australian-developed Enterprise application includes all modules required to provide Translucis with a complete point-to-point multimedia advertising and entertainment system.

With TELentice Enterprise, Translucis centrally manages the booking, scheduling, distribution and display of advertisements and other multimedia items in outlets across Britain. In addition to managing hundreds of individual multimedia items, TELentice Enterprise allows Translucis to schedule unique content to each individual plasma screen on the network. Suppliers can choose which plasma screens they want to advertise on and at what time of the day. Never before have suppliers been offered the capacity to broadcast multimedia advertisements with this degree of precision and it was for this reason that TELentice Enterprise was chosen.

Behind the scenes, the system has an additional role as a business tool for the licensee. Internet technology has enabled Translucis to collate different resources to assist on-trade management; each will be available to every outlet with the Translucis system. These range from trade news to training resources for bar staff and chefs. Entertainment such as bands can be sourced, booked and even sampled over the system, as can brand promotional schemes and merchandise.

A specially-designed ready reckoner also helps to calculate profitability on different types of stock. Translucis has been successfully piloting Enterprise since March 2000 in a variety of locations across the South East of England. The pilot scheme, for which the system has been tested under the working title 'Ignite' shows the on-screen advertising to be highly influential on customer choice. Early results from outlets such as those in the Whitbread Pub Partnership indicate significant sales increases for the brands promoted.

The system will be deployed in thousands of pubs and bars over the next few years.