Leading corporate music provider DMD2 of Switzerland has updated the music delivery capabilities of the newly remodeled Victorinox retail stores (best known for its Swiss army knives) on two continents using IP-based in-store media solutions from Barix.
DMD2, which also handles Barix device configuration, service monitoring and music licensing, says it chose Barix Exstreamer IP audio decoders for playout due to their high audio quality and reliability. DMD2 delivers the program as a single stream across seven Victorinox stores in Europe and five in Hong Kong (cities such as Zurich, Dusseldorf, Hong Kong and Geneva).
Swiss event and corporate architecture supplier Habegger engaged with DMD2 to develop the in-store music concept, which had to match the new Victorinox store designs. The channel development phase gave birth to the “Victorinox music mix,” constantly updated with new releases as part of an eclectic music mix from the 70s to the early 2000s.
The solution is a new concept to the Victorinox stores as many used CD players, FM tuners or iPods to play music previously. The music originates from datacenters in Bern, Switzerland and is delivered to Barix Exstreamer devices in each store as 64kb/s mp3 streams, with expectations to add AAC+ streams moving forward.
“We’ll eventually switch to AAC+ 48kbps encoding to increase stream stability for retail stores in the more remote areas,” said Alexander dal Farra, owner and president of DMD2. “The flexibility of Barix devices is a big benefit in this regard, as the Exstreamer offers both MP3 and AAC+ decoding functionality. This makes migration to AAC+ an easy task.”
“It’s no longer an ‘everybody is a DJ’ approach within the different store locations,” said dal Farra. “This streamlined process has also brought a fair amount of convenience to the store staff as there is no more music editorial work, licensing or normalizing of tracks.”
Dal Farra added that the new solution also provides Victorinox headquarters with the option to introduce real-time advertisements using ad injection software — a potential revenue generator that would quickly monetize the new in-store audio network.
