ICXA honors 2022 Elevate Award winners at annual Summit| Interactive Customer Experience (ICX) Summit 2022

Top performers in the expanding interactive customer experience space were honored Wednesday as the Interactive Customer Experience Association presented its annual Elevate Awards during ICX Summit at the Hilton Columbus at Easton in Columbus, Ohio.

Presenting the awards were Morgan Petty, ICXA executive director, and Cherryh Cansler, vice president of events for Networld Media Group.

Honorees are:

Influencer of the Year — Coca-Cola in partnership with TMI Agency and Hypervsn

Coca-Cola HBC Switzerland, Hypervsn and TMI Agency installed a holographic display to launch the Coca-Cola Zero flavor.

Coca-Cola HBC Switzerland partnered with TMI Agency and Hypervsn to launch the new Coca-Cola Zero flavor. The companies installed holographic slot machines and a single holographic display. The activation campaign was referred to as #bestcokeever.

The interactive gamification technique brought entertainment and cold refreshments to over 18,000 people.

“Coca-Cola HBC successfully activated customers, but more importantly, created memorable and positive experiences for consumers,” Petty said in presenting the award.

This award recognizes individuals or companies that have contributed substantially to the field of interactive customer experience technology. The award is in honor of Lyle Bunn, a long-time consultant in the digital signage industry who passed away in 2018.

Best Mobile ICX — Jersey Mike’s Subs mobile app in association with World Wide Technologies

Cherryh Cansler and Morgan Petty of Networld Media Group (left and right) present the Best Mobile Interactive Digital Signage Customer Experience award to Suzanne Lange, Krista Gruenwald and John Hopper of Jersey Mike’s Subs.

The ICXA received a flood of nominations for this award, which was not a surprise considering the restaurant industry continues to bring the heat with its mobile ordering experiences.

Jersey Mike’s Subs updated its app experience to allow for the quick addition and enhancement of custom features. The update included an order feature on the app’s home screen which was enhanced to better incorporate customized messages and creates a cohesive omnichannel brand experience.

The judges were looking for a mobile experience that acts as an extension of the brand’s presence into the most important devices in customers’ lives.

Best Mobile Interactive Digital Signage Customer Experience — Citizen Watch’s transparent augmented reality OLED merchandising displays

Citizen Watch presents consumer facing augmented reality product display cases.

Citizen Watch’s transparent augmented-reality OLED merchandising displays, in partnership with Pac Team Group, Luminary Design Co. and LG Business Solutions, won the Best Mobile Interactive Digital Signage Customer Experience.

The Citizen Watch’s Herald Square store in New York City presents consumer-facing augmented reality product display cases.

Leveraging LG Transparent OLED technology, the retail displays overlay digital visuals onto the watch display cases. This visual experience pulls the viewer in as it showcases the real watches behind the digital graphics.

The project was conceived by Citizen Watch, Pac Team Group, Luminary Design Co. and LG Business Solutions.

Best Interactive Retail Customer Experience — House of Rituals in partnership with First Impression and BrightSign

Tim Chluda of BrightSign and Loak Wermenbol of First Impression accept the Best Interactive Retail Customer Experience award from Cherryh Cansler and Morgan Petty.

Customers at House of Rituals’ new flagship store are able to create their own customized fragrance at the perfume bar.

The customer is invited to enter their favorite perfume on an iPad, prompting the system to find the closest scent from the Rituals range. A further quiz invites customers to enter the basic ingredients that they like, prompting LED lights under all the bottles of perfumes aligned with this scent — narrowing it down to three possibilities, which the customer can then sample and purchase.

If the customer picks up the glass pipette from the perfume bottle, a video plays to showcase the perfume’s ingredients and information.

Alongside creating an engaging customer experience, the application delivers purchasing data to Rituals, detecting which perfume families are most popular amongst their clientele.

Best Interactive Restaurant Customer Experience — Sodexo in partnership with Virtual Dining Concepts, Aifi, Yo Kai Express, Bite App and Kiwibot

Aj Francavilla of Sodexo accepts the Best Interactive Restaurant Customer Experience award from Cherryh Cansler and Morgan Petty.

Sodexo, a food services and facilities management company, partnered with Kiwibot, a Colombian semi-autonomous robotic sidewalk delivery robot, which offers in-field customer support and integration with a point-of-sale to distribute food products without the usual commission rate for food delivery services.

Students place orders via the mobile app and specify a delivery location on campus. An interactive map allows users to watch as the robot makes its journey to them.

The zero-emission robots use a combination of machine learning, artificial intelligence and sensors to navigate, mapping their environments to the nearest inch. The robots can cross streets, climb curbs, travel at night, and operate in both rain and snow.

Best Interactive Travel And Hospitality Customer Experience — DFW International Airport’s Digital Gate Experience

DFW Airport revamped its customer experience at four of its gates to expand global flight offerings.

DFW Airport added four new gates in Terminal D to expand international flight offerings.

The revamped experiences include: digital screens; large-scale media walls; transparent displays; an interactive gaming experience; electrochromic glass for automated tinting; smart restroom technology; 100% power to the varied seating options; and mobile food ordering and delivery to any individual seat within the space.

With this digital gate experience, DFW creates an overall stress-free and seamless experience for travelers.

Best Interactive Kiosk And Vending Customer Experience — Hudson Automated Specialty Retail in partnership with Elo

Luke Wilwerding of Elo accepts the Best Interactive Kiosk and Vending Customer Experience award.

The Hudson Automated Specialty Retail (Duty-Free Americas) in partnership with Elo and Signifi Smart Vending Retail Wall Solution won the Best Interactive Kiosk and Vending Customer Experience award.

This award recognizes self-service kiosk or vending-based interactive customer experiences that create engaging brand experiences that solve a challenge or provide a new method of customer interaction and service.

The Smart Vending Retail Wall solutions offer an opportunity for flagship products to bring in new customers and expand existing customers. The solutions have deployed in airports and retail locations for self-service vending of PPE, high resolution electronics and brand merchandise.

Signifi tapped Elo to provide an open frame touchscreen monitor for the solution.

Best Emerging Tech In Interactive Customer Experience — ConverseNow

Ben Brown and Spencer Goodman of ConverseNow accept the Best Emerging Tech In Interactive Customer Experience award.

ConverseNow, an artificial intelligence powered omnichannel voice ordering technology with machine learning capabilities, powers order-taking with accuracy, enhancing guest experience while allowing staff to double order volume during peak hours.

The virtual assistants eliminate the friction caused by busy signals, hold times and long drive-thru lines. They also upsell automatically and remember customer names and favorite orders.

The AI integrates with POS systems, base stations and any additional hardware and software setup.

The voice AI can complete orders independently, but the solution keeps a person behind the scenes during every conversation to give the customer the option to speak to a person without taking time away from the restaurant staff.

Best Omnichannel Interactive Customer Experience — Orbit Retail Experience by HBO Max in partnership with AT&T, Hush and SNA Displays

The Orbit interactive experience at AT&T flagship stores more than 150,000 HBO Max clips with a gesture or a few spoken words.

The Orbit, an interactive experience at AT&T flagships in Dallas, Chicago and San Francisco, features an interactive LED display that serves up more than 150,000 HBO Max clips with a gesture or a few spoken words.

The purpose is to promote and showcase HBO Max’s brand promise of providing the top quality entertainment properties available and create a scalable retail experience that communicates HBO Max’s depth of content, accessible at the speed of 5G infrastructure.

The Orbit’s experience was created with the power of machine learning to process terabytes of content and create new relationships and interfaces to engage with HBO Max’s library.

Best Employee-Facing Interactive Experience — AT&T in partnership with DIRECTV and The Industrious

Jim Grandahl of DirectTV accepts the Best Employee-Facing Interactive Experience award.

DirecTV’s Aurora project provides its third party sellers with a sales tool that requires no training, promoting DirecTV products and services with engaging interactive technology.

The solution helps third-party sellers capture prospects, build relationships and drive sales all with the most recent content custom-composed down to the zip-code level.

In the eight months that Aurora has been in service, it has been deployed on over 4,000 IOS and Android devices, offering 3,000 unique pieces of content, from offers and pricing to selling tips and customer support.

The sellers across the entire program have contributed over 14,000 new DirecTVStream activations generating over $5.5 million in video service revenue.

To date, AT&T has invested just over $1 million in development, deployment and maintenance of the program and has generated over $5 million in video service revenue.

Photos by Willie Lawless.