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Ciena Reimagines Sales App for Channel Partners, Doubling Global Usage in 7 Months

“We needed something to show partners what the vertical landscape looks like,” said Ciena’s Global Director of the Managed Service Provider (MSP) Partner Program Kevin Baranowski, “to enable partners to tell the complete solution value story.” Ciena recently made the decision to evolve to a ‘solution selling’ methodology to help better address the needs of the main market verticals they sell into through their partner network. The new application needed to contain industry insights, collateral, training videos, multi-language support and a virtual drawing function. The solution had to visually capture partners’ and end-customers’ focus and attention. It had to enable channel partners to better connect with end-customers’ pain points in their industry vertical to accelerate the sales cycle and to…

Kaon to be Apple Launch Partner for 3D AR

Show Interactive 3D Products in Enterprise Environments Kaon Interactive, the leading provider of 3D marketing and sales applications for global B2B brands, today announced that its augmented reality (AR) solution, Kaon AR®, is now available on over 340 million Apple devices. With the release of iOS 11 and the launch of Apple’s ARkit, Kaon Interactive is driving AR adoption in the B2B space, with 50+ live enterprise AR applications in use, by hundreds of thousands of customers, sales teams, and channel partners globally. Deployed on the Kaon High Velocity Marketing Platform®, Kaon AR allows customers to make more reliable buying decisions by placing photo-realistic, interactive, 3D product models ‘at scale’ within a real physical space, seeing how the product works…

Why AR & VR Will Be Important for Your Business

If you clicked over to Entrepreneur.com yesterday, you may have noticed a featured article on “Why Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality Will be Important for Your Business“, penned by Kaon Interactive President and CEO Gavin Finn. It’s still on the homepage today if you want to go take a look! With the recent release of Apple iOS 11, we’re seeing a new era of mixed reality interactive features for a wide variety of enterprise and consumer applications that will, yet again, elevate the utility and value of all of our mobile phones and tablets. The value case for augmented reality and virtual reality in both the B2B and B2C space is mounting as retailers like Wayfair and IKEA are finding ways to use…

How Kaon Interactive Became the Leader in Enterprise Sales and Marketing Apps

Kaon Interactive President and CEO Gavin Finn recently met with Editor and Contributor Colin Barry from VentureFizz, a digital platform for technology, entrepreneurship, and career inspiration in Boston, Mass. Colin was interested in how Kaon is using augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) for the enterprise. Gavin presented a VR demonstration using Google Daydream and an AR demonstration of Kaon’s 3D product models, as well as Kaon’s story of how we started and how we got into this business of creating engaging, interactive stories around our customers’ products. Colin was impressed. What resulted is the following story by Colin Barry. Kaon Interactive – Creating Engaging Customer Experiences With AR and VR August 14, 2017 By Colin W. Barry, Editor & Contributor, VentureFizz Out in the small Massachusetts suburb of Maynard, there is…

Kaon Interactive’s B2B Virtual and Augmented Reality Launch on ASUS ZenFone AR

Kaon Interactive, the leading provider of 3D marketing and sales applications for global B2B brands, announced that its augmented reality solution, Kaon AR®, and virtual reality solution, Kaon VR®, are now available on the new ASUS ZenFone AR. Both solutions are deployed on the Kaon High Velocity Marketing Platform®. The ZenFone AR is the world’s first smartphone equipped with Google’s augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) technologies, Tango and Daydream. With the release of the ASUS ZenFone AR, Kaon Interactive can immediately provide its Fortune 500 customers with the most advanced B2B marketing AR and VR solutions all on one device. Kaon AR works on all Tango-enabled devices and personalizes the B2B marketing and sales experience. It allows companies to…

Sensus Uses Virtual Product Demonstrations to Increase Trade Show Impact and Traffic 100%

Sensus was looking for an engaging way to showcase its technology at industry trade showsand provide interactive demonstrations, while decreasing the cost of its trade show expenditures. They needed a way to show how their products worked, while eliminating shipping costs and bringing less equipment to events. With three diverse utility audiences and product lines, Sensus was challenged with explaining and demonstrating key product features and technology at over 7 of its larger trade shows each year. To demonstrate the full breadth of its offerings, Sensus would regularly take between 10-15 physical products to its trade shows, from multiple utility divisions. Most of the products being shipped to shows were static and could not be demonstrated live, such as natural…

Fujitsu Generates $25 Million in Online Sales Opportunities by Reusing Trade Show Virtual Product Demos

Fujitsu’s significant outbound marketing efforts include exhibition in nearly a dozen major trade shows and up to 75 regional events per year. For inventory control purposes, products for demonstration must be ‘rented’ from the company’s inventory department for use. While the cost represents only a fraction of the value of the product, based on the time it is out of stock, these expenses still total hundreds of thousands of dollars annually. To illustrate how significant product costs can be, take for example a 10X10 booth. In a smaller space, one rack of equipment would likely be required. A single rack, which weighs approximately 700 pounds, holds two to three shelves which support 20 to 25 cards. The total “street” value…

Legrand Accelerates Direct and Partner Sales Using Virtual 3D Product Demos

With a product suite spanning from connectivity components to 1,000lb server racks, Legrand needed a practical way to showcase all of their products simultaneously. Utilizing ‘miniature racks’ and ‘suitcase demos’, sales representatives and channel partners would use a briefcase of product demonstration materials that cost Legrand thousands of dollars to assemble and provide. Prior to each meeting, a sales rep would have to have the right suitcase of samples, materials and presentation to meet a prospect’s interest, but obstacles often arose when a prospect wanted to discuss an offering not included in the particular demonstration Sales had brought. This significantly hampered cross-sell opportunities, as sales teams could only present the products physically available on-site, and many of Legrand’s larger products…

Nimble Storage Amps Lead Generation to Create Dozens of Opportunities in 3 Months

“At trade shows, people like to explore technologies before talking to a sales rep,” said Fred Love, Marketing Director at Nimble. “That’s why the interactive 3D product models and immersive 3D storytelling was a great fit for us. Customers can interact, drive, and own the conversation and not feel like they’re being sold to.” Although they would reuse the trade show equipment, Nimble was spending up to $100,000 in hardware expenses to populate physical racks with both their hardware and partners’ equipment (switches/networking gear), $5,000 in shipping/drayage costs per show, as well as additional fees for a dedicated technical expert at each event to keep everything running smoothly The Solution After seeing their partner Cisco Systems at VMworld utilizing virtual…

Kaon Issued Patent for Interactive 3D Product Demonstrations

Changing How B2B Companies Communicate Unique Value MAYNARD, MA (Sep 8, 2014) -- Kaon Interactive, the leading provider of interactive 3D product marketing applications, announced the issuance of US Patent 8,797,327, which relates to the visualization of, and interaction with, virtual 3D product demonstrations. The patent covers Kaon’s technology platform for delivering realistic interactive 3D product demonstrations, giving users the ability to view, experience, and manipulate digital representations of products (e.g. zoom, spin, open drawers, add components, show workflow and process), eliminating the need to have a product physically present for demonstrations. It further protects the Kaon technology used to demonstrate 3D products on one or more large displays; for example, mirroring a 3D product demonstration on a large screen driven…

Schneider Electric Accelerates Opportunities with Global Virtual 3D Product Catalog

The Solution Schneider Electric recognized the growing need for their customers to have an intimate one-on-one experience with their Solutions, Products and Services without having to physically go somewhere to get it. As a solution, Mark repurposed the interactive 3D product demonstrations already used by Schneider on large Kaon v-OSK® touch screen appliances at trade shows to put their story and virtual 3D products (which look and behave exactly like the actual products) onto laptops, iPads and mobile devices. This put an interactive portfolio into the hands of their sales representatives and channel partners, ensuring all customers have the ability to interact with their offer. Developed by Kaon Interactive, the 'Schneider Electric 3D Interactive Product Models' for the data center…

Malvern Turns Lost Sales Into $150,000 in Annual Savings

With a fast-growing portfolio of products, Malvern was challenged with finding new, consistent and interesting ways of making the market aware that the company had a much larger portfolio of products. Beyond just awareness, the company also needed to develop tools to sell these newer products to their existing customer base. While the sales venues and channels remained the same, the ability to show the expanded line of products at meetings and within their exhibit space became an ever-increasing challenge. On average, Malvern brought two products to a show due to space limitations. However, when it came time to introduce the Spraytec™, a particle-sized distribution analyzer for nasal sprays and aerosols, the launch posed a challenge for the company. Further,…

Juniper Drives Down Demonstration Costs from $100 to $2.33 Per Minute

First, they needed a better way to demonstrate products at shows and avoid expensive product shipping costs. Juniper attends multiple trade shows per year around the globe and the cost of shipping products, paired with expensive travel for product specialists, power/AC for the hardware, and other personnel to assemble bulky products of racks and gear, posed a challenge for Juniper. Despite spending a significant amount of money getting physical products into their booths, Juniper wasn’t showing as many of their hot new solutions asthey wanted to at events. Video was integrated alongside the physical products, but they found it too scripted to really captivate prospects, especially in a landscape whereevery exhibitor is competing for attendees’ attention. Second, the company wanted…

Using Innovative Marketing Tools to Market Innovative Products

Challenge: Product Growth, Visibility and Differentiation Scott Ciccione, Director of the Unified Computing Services group at Cisco, talks about connecting with their 13,000 customers in just over 2.5 years of selling UCS. The UCS group, a division that experienced 57% growth last year, recognized a change in their selling environment as customers are becoming savvier and were looking to rise to the occasion and provide a different level of discussion at CiscoLive 2012. Solution: Using Marketing Tools as Innovative as Their Products Cisco has utilized cutting-edge marketing tools, like Kaon’s interactive 3D product demos (which look and behave like the actual products) to virtually showcase their entire product portfolio at any time, demonstrating internal product features, benefits, and workflow, all…

BD Increases Medical Device Global Reach and Eliminates Product Shipping Costs to Save $168k in 2 Years

The Solution Núñez turned to Kaon Interactive to create an interactive photo-realistic 3D Product Model to be used at trade shows that would not only help reduce marketing costs, but also better communicate the complexity of BD’s products, even if the real product was present. Kaon’s 3D Product Model (which looks and behaves exactly like the actual product) allows customers to view the BD Viper System from every angle, exploring options and features (open drawers, show process, etc.), controlling their own, customized experiences based on personal preferences. This engaging 3D virtual product experience was showcased on the Kaon v-OSK® HD touch-screen appliances, sales laptops and iPads®, making the virtual product demonstrations accessible anywhere, anytime, including at sales meetings, numerous regional…