Local Hero Convention and Awards more successful than ever!

 

Frank Lüttjohann, CSO Sales Specialist Retail

Our Local Hero Convention and Awards entered the tenth round on 12 March. The Vogel Convention Center in Würzburg was the center of our unique industry event one day and one night long. When the evening drew to a close we all agreed: The event will be a very hard act to follow next year.

Our top 200 entrepreneurs were invited to our popular industry event: Cooperation partners, partner stores and independent retailers, but also entrepreneurs who Brodos knows to be successful and suited to the Local Hero concept.

LOTS OF NEWS FROM THE INDUSTRY

The Local Hero Convention, the industry gathering for the retail industry, started punctually at 10am. Leading manufacturers and network operators were there, displaying their latest and special offers. 


The retailers were extremely interested in the new innovations.

A particular highlight was the presentation of the new CAT® S60: The first smartphone in the world with an integrated thermal camera. There are currently only 5 such phones available worldwide, and we were able to present one of them to our retailers at the Convention as we are an exclusive partner of CAT®.

The manufacturer Bullitt was represented by its founder himself, Colin Batt, who demonstrated  to the enthusiastic audience the unique thermal imaging camera in the smartphone, which is used predominantly in the construction industry, but also in the medical and veterinary fields. 


Bullitt founder Colin Batt proudly presents the new CAT® S60.

The specially developed FLIR thermal imaging camera app with MSX technology can be used to take still pictures, panorama pictures and videos, as well as providing various thermal images which show the temperature of the object as well as the minimum, maximum and average temperatures.

EVOLUTION OF THE CONNECTED STORE

The Convention focused predominantly on our Local Hero marketing, but naturally also the cross channel concept of the connected store, which is taking off more and more. Whilst in March 2015 there were 68 kiosks in place, today 284 connected stores have already been fitted out with a kiosk. That is a growth rate of 417 percent!

And our online shop is booming too. Since our first workshop at the end of July 2015, 100 online shops have gone live. 66 further applications have been registered. That means we have gone from 0 to 100 in just 6.5 months! The great success shows that our retailers have understood the concept and are putting it into practice in their stores.

However, it is not only our online shop which has convinced the retailers, our Local Hero strategy is also being greeted with enthusiasm and is continuing to develop. In his keynote, CEO Dominik Brokelmann presented the new outdoor advertising for shops with which the my-store.TV digital signage solution can be used to run advertisements outside the store as well. The monitors can be attached to the outside facade of the store, and are a real eyecatcher.


A real eyecatcher: The new outdoor advertising for our shop owners.

But that is not all that is new. We want to continue to evolve, improving the advice and support we can provide to our retailers even more. With this in mind, we had the idea of not only offering our retailers the opportunity of positioning themselves as Local Heros online and in store, but now also on mobile devices.

With the new app Kiosk2Go, our partners’ customers can carry the Kiosk with them at all times on their smartphone, in other words the entire product range of over 200,000 products. Our retailers are now represented online, with a brick and mortar store and on mobile devices. The app is naturally included free of charge for customers with a Kiosk and an online shop.


The Kiosk2Go app is very simple to use and is free of charge for Kiosk owners.

LOCAL HERO AWARDS: THE BEST OF THE BEST

The excitement rose in the evening, which belonged to our top 200 retailers. After a fitting red carpet welcome, the prestigious Local Hero awards ceremony started, including a gala dinner with several courses. The coveted Local Hero trophies, especially created for this purpose over six months of Katharina Heubner, artist of the Akademie für bildende Künste Nürnberg, were awared to the best Local Hero retailers in seven different categories.


Retailers were treated to a red carpet welcome.


In the limelight at the press wall Roman Felger from my-eXtra Altenkirchen with his wife.

The big winners among the network operators included Ralf Greulich, from my-eXtra Ansbach in the category Best Telekom Seller, Sascha Bartel from Premiumfachhandel Leverkusen in the category Best Vodafone Seller, Milad Zarinkar from Student Mobile from Bochum as Best Telefónica Seller and André Zimmermann from Handy MV from Malchow as Best Kabel Deutschland Seller.

In our own categories Best Local Hero Campagne Peter Mandic of the Mandic Gruppe from Braunfels won an award, the category Best Local Hero Service was won by Sven Lötzsch of the Telefonmännern from Plauen and last but not least Stefanija Kersten of T.S.P.R from Rheinberg won the coveted trophy for Best Entrepreneur. Everyone was of course thrilled. 


Emotional moments at the Awards ceremony: Winner of the category Best Telefónica Seller Milad Zarinkar is clearly moved.


In the limelight:  All nominees and prize winners gathered on the stage.

The award-giving ceremony was not the end of the evening, however. Afterwards at the after show party the band Barbed Wire, which has been awarded the title of the best show band in Germany, kept the party buzzing until the early hours of the morning.


Let the after show party begin!


The show band Barbed Wire got the audience buzzing.
 

More pictures on our Brodos eventpage brodos.de/events/wp
 

Click here for the video of the Local Hero Convention & Awards:

THANK YOU TO ALL OUR RETAILERS AND INDUSTRIAL PARTNERS

After this wonderful evening, I would like to be sure to take this oppotunity to thank all our employees, who put such a lot of effort into ensuring the event was such as success! Naturally, however, the biggest thanks goes to all our retailers and industrial partners, who made this an unforgettable evening.

THANK YOU VERY, VERY MUCH AND WE’LL SEE YOU NEXT YEAR!

COMMENTS

Become partner block