James Heller, CEO and Co-Founder of Wrapify talks to us about the company’s recent (first-of-its-kind!) bot delivery campaign in this quick chat:

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Hi James, welcome back to SalesTechStar! We’d love to hear a little more about your recent autonomous bot delivery campaign with Kiwibot and Gong?

Leveraging our Boost by Wrapify offline-to-online advertising platform for transit out-of-home (OOH), Gong launched a first-of-its-kind advertising campaign with Kiwibots on the streets of San Jose. Kiwibots were wrapped in Gong ads, and through our Boost platform, Gong was able to measure the effectiveness of the ads and retarget the audience exposed to these bots online. This partnership was a match made in heaven. Kiwibot was looking at ways to further monetize their bots, and Gong — who is a loyal brand advertiser on our core platform — was interested in exploring fun and innovative ways of reaching an OOH audience.

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Can you share a few thoughts on how social distancing and other Covid-19 precautions are giving new rise to need for new tech advances across industries, especially consumer-facing services and retail?

Aside from mask mandates by region or simply per business, we have begun to see accommodations made for lines wrapping inside and outside of businesses, digital temperature checks and sufficient time for store cleaning. I’m certain this will continue to be a necessary part of the retail experience for workers and shoppers alike for some time. We have already seen some unique-to-the-times tech advances such as mounted tablets at doorways for temperature checking, for instance. In order to remain efficient and provide a better shopping experience in 2021, the development of new tech will be required.

How do you feel bots will grow in demand in retail and delivery services; what are some of the ways in which you are already seeing marketing and sales or operations teams focus on implementing strong measures here?

 I believe bot delivery can only be sustainable with the inclusion of a tertiary revenue source. This form of delivery benefits grocers and restaurateurs by taking less of a cost, if any. It also helps drive down the cost of delivery for the consumer and brands love the unique, measurable and high-recall OOH exposure it creates. 

A few thoughts on how Out of Home and Media performance measurements (and use) are now changing due to changing consumer patterns and Covid-19?

OOH media providers were going to great lengths to improve OOH advertising even before the current pandemic by creating digital platforms, enabling programmatic buying and implementing audience targeting and new measurement capabilities. Now, we’re seeing that the coronavirus has left consumers craving physical experiences more than ever before, paving the way for an increase in OOH investments. We will see more brands incorporating digital-enabled solutions into their OOH efforts, but I believe that with a unique creative, brands have the ability to cut through the digital noise and produce memorable campaigns that leave a lasting impact on consumers.

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A parting thought on your biggest leadership learnings through 2020 and the 5 things you would tell any tech founder to do in 2021. 

I write this wearing a mullet with a baby girl draped over one arm; life can change fast. Speed to adapt and course correct is critical when dealing with dramatic changes in society and the global economy. It is hard to make these changes when you have a team that is accustomed to being micromanaged. Empowering your team to make the right decisions and entrusting them to keep the machine moving comes from the top. It separates companies that survive from the ones that don’t!