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Intel's Avalos on the CognoVision acquisition

A short e-mail Q and A with Intel's Jose Avalos sheds just a little light on the company's latest acquisition in digital signage.

November 18, 2010 by Christopher Hall — w, t

Intel's Jose Avalos, the company's director of retail and digital signage, took some time while traveling abroad this week to respond via e-mail to a few questions about his company's recent acquisition of Toronto, Canada-based audience measurement firm CognoVision, via an Intel spokeswoman.

Q: First, could you confirm Intel's acquisition of CognoVision?

A: Intel's strategy in the digital signage market segment includes developing and delivering scalable platforms, collaborating with ecosystem partners and making strategic acquisitions. As such, the company acquired CognoVision as a part of the overall strategy.

Q: What was the logic behind Intel making this purchase?

A: The acquisition is intended to accelerate adoption of Intel architecture and strengthen Intel's position as a leading provider of technology in the digital signage market by adding software-based Anonymous Video Analytics (AVA) capabilities to Intel's portfolio.

Q: How does Intel plan to integrate Cognovision and its executives into the company?

A: The Cognovision employees, based in Toronto, Canada, will join ECG's Embedded Computing Division (ECD) headed by Joe Jensen and will report into a Digital Signage team under me.

Q: What does the acquisition mean for Intel's digital signage endeavors? How will Intel work to further integrate Cognovision's AVA into their digital signage solutions?

A: More information will be available early next year (January).

Q: How does the acquisition reflect the importance of audience measurement for digital signage and digital out-of-home advertising?

A: Intel certainly sees audience metrics as an important part of the future of retail and digital signage. Anonymous video analytics software — algorithms that measure demographic metrics such as gender, age and dwell time of the viewer — become increasingly important for advertisers to have measurable ROI, as it aggregates and reports the measured data averages by hour and by day, providing key metrics, such as Proof of Play and Proof of Impression to the advertisers for measuring the success of their advertising campaigns and targeting campaigns for increased effectiveness.

Q: How much did Intel pay for CognoVision?

A: Intel is not disclosing the amount at this time.

The answers may not be the most revealing, but that comes, frankly, as little surprise. It does sound, though, like Intel has some news it plans to spring sometime after the turn of the year.

Avalos has been saying all year that providing ad agencies with quantifiable analytics is one of the three core requirements Intel sees for continued success in digital signage, so this latest news is, really, Intel just following though on what it says are its priorities in the space.

The proof-of-concept they've been showing around tradeshows for a while now already incorporated AVA, so it's — again — not shocking they'd pick up Cognovision, but if they can come up with anything that slick for their next prototype, or better yet for wider distribution, then that might be news worth waiting for.

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