Left: KATE iCON BOX / Digital, Mobile, & Interactive Media category / Client: Kao Corporation. Right: RED°TOKYO TOWER counter sign / Service Retailer > Permanent category / Client: TEG, inc. 

Two AI-based solutions win in POP advertising awards held by global retail industry organization

Tokyo – Toppan, a global leader in communication, security, packaging, décor materials, and electronics solutions, has been recognized with awards in two categories in the Shop! Global Awards 2023, held during Shop! Market Place (April 25—27), the international retail industry trade event organized by Shop! Association. “KATE iCON BOX” and “RED°TOKYO TOWER counter sign,” both produced by Toppan, won in their respective categories. The Shop! Global Awards recognize outstanding point-of-purchase (POP) advertising from around the world. Toppan has now become the first and only Japanese company to win the awards.

Shop! OMA (Outstanding Merchandising Achievement) is the global standard for retail industry awards. In 2019, Shop! Association, a global organization striving to enhance the in-store experience, granted a Shop! OMA program license to Japan Promotional Marketing Institute Inc. (JPM), of which Toppan is a member. This means that category (gold) winning POP advertising at the JPM POP Creative Awards is eligible for entry in the Shop! Global Awards, and Toppan’s winning entries this year were submitted under the scheme. In the Shop! Global Awards 2023, Toppan’s “KATE iCON BOX” for Kao Corporation won in the Digital, Mobile, & Interactive Media category, while the “RED°TOKYO TOWER counter sign,” produced for TEG inc., won in the Service Retailer > Permanent category.

About the winning entries from Toppan

?KATE iCON BOX
The KATE iCON BOX is a fixture in the form of a vending machine. It provides original eyeshadow palettes selected from approximately 350,000 color combinations based on the results of AI-powered analysis of the customer’s face. It gives customers their own unique palette, personalized with their name on the clear filter that protects the eyeshadow.

?RED°TOKYO TOWER counter sign
This is a clear partition installed in an esports facility inside Tokyo Tower. It has a function for converting speech into text and displaying it in real time. As a countermeasure to COVID-19 infection, it helps to prevent spread via airborne droplets, and can increase visitors’ sense of anticipation at entertainment facilities. It also solves the problem of people’s voices being difficult to hear clearly through a partition.

About the Shop! Global Awards 2023

?Number of entries: 76
?Entries by country: U.S.A. 9, Argentina 8, Australia 20, Brazil 19, Czech Republic 6, Germany 3, Hungary 2, Japan 8, Mexico 1
?Number of winning entries: 24
?(U.S.A. 3, Argentina 2, Australia 9, Brazil 6, Czech Republic 1, Japan 2, Mexico 1)
?Panel composed of 14 judges from the following countries:
?U.S.A., Saudi Arabia, Czech Republic, the Netherlands, Hungary, Argentina, Brazil, U.K., Australia, New Zealand