Staying in touch with South East Asia (From Gazette & Herald)

Staying in touch with South East Asia

A North Yorkshire firm behind a touch screen marketing technology used in cinema foyers by patrons who want to see screen trailers is preparing to expand its operations to South East Asia.

Save9, based on Hopper Hill Road, Scarborough, and established four years ago, provides multimedia, e-business and ICT solutions that enable organisations to manage information and communicate effectively with their customers.

The firm's iPos Touch plasma screen allows cinemagoers in certain parts of the country to select and view trailers.

From next month, anyone with a Bluetooth connection who is in the West End of London at any given time will receive messages via iPos Mobile advising them that a showing of, say, Pride and Prejudice is about to start at a nearby cinema.

With help from Tony Hurlow, UKTI International Trade adviser at Business Link York and North Yorkshire, the firm identified global potential for its products and took them to two international trade shows.

The result was that Save9 secured meetings with global cinema groups and initiated follow-up talks with several more.

Now co-directors Steve Bromham and Jason Hayhurst are preparing to fly out to South East Asia in May 2006 to make final preparations for the launch of their Malaysian subsidiary next June.

Mr Bromham said: "Business Link has really helped us in three key areas.

''Firstly, Tony helped us take a step back, look realistically at how to approach international markets with our products and assess the potential for export.

"Secondly, he helped us access financial support that made our trips to Cine Expo in Amsterdam and ShoWest in Las Vegas possible.

''Thirdly, he recommended the Passport to Export programme, from which we were able to develop our international marketing strategy for the two products."

Mr Hayhurst said: "The products have been taken up initially by cinemas, but they provide an incredibly wide range of retail applications, from digital signage to the development of sophisticated relationship marketing services such as Wi-Fi, PIN code entry or biometric fingerprint scanning attached to touch screens."

Updated: 12:31 Wednesday, October 19, 2005