ARMONK, N.Y. - 11 Jun 2015: IBM (NYSE:IBM) today announced that Honest Caf , a new type of unmanned coffee house in London, is using Watson Analytics to unearth client insights to help determine everything from coffee products and pricing, to marketing and promotions.
Honest Caf is a new venture from Revive Vending, one of the leading vending service providers in the UK, designed to encourage healthy eating and social engagement.
Unique to the Honest Caf plan is staffing: the three caf s currently in operation, and four more planned, are all unmanned. Instead, the company deploys and positions high-end vending machines at the Honest Caf locations. The caf s offer a mix of health-conscious snacks, locally-sourced and low-calorie organic options, juices, fruit teas, flavored popcorn, baked vegetable snacks, and Fair Trade hot drinks.
Although the absence of wait staffs, cooks, and baristas can mean greater efficiencies and lower overhead costs, it makes understanding clients' needs and desires a little more challenging.
Because Honest is unmanned, it's tough going observing what our customers are saying and doing in our cafes, said Mark Summerill, head of product development at Honest Caf . We don't know what our customers are into or what they look like. And as a start-up it's crucial we know what sells and what areas we should push into.
What Honest Caf did have was data. All those vending machines were capturing important information, from product sales and selections, to the timing of purchases, and more. But even then, the company realized it was not getting the value out of its transactional files.
We lacked an effective way of analyzing the data, Summerill said. We don't have dedicated people on this and the data is sometimes hard pull to together to form a picture.
That's when the company turned to Watson Analytics, IBM's breakthrough natural language-based analytics service that provides business professionals across disciplines fast access to powerful, predictive and visual analytics. With the help of IBM Business Partner, EBI Solutions, Summerill uploaded its transactional information and quickly began discovering insights.
We identified that people who buy as a social experience have different reasons than those who dash in and out grabbing just the one drink, Summerill said. They also have a different payment method, the time of the day differs and the day of the week. Knowing this, we can now correctly time promotions and give them an offer or introduce a product that is actually relevant to them.
Honest Caf is a great example of how young new businesses are leveraging predictive analytics for the first time to make better, more strategic business decisions, said Marc Altshuller, Vice President, Watson Analytics, IBM. The company is harnessing the power of Watson Analytics to not only be responsive, but proactive.
Since its release in December 2014, more than 40,000 people around the globe have registered for and are using Watson Analytics. Through IBM's relationship with Twitter, Watson Analytics also enables customers to analyze social sentiment for insights around programs, products, trends and more.
Because of his early success with Watson Analytics, Summerill is in the process of upgrading to Watson Analytics Personal edition which offers access to 25,000 tweets per dataset.
Having direct access to Twitter data for insights into what our buyers are talking about is going to help augment our view and understanding of our customers even further, he said.
In addition to providing clearer insights into purchases, the combination of Watson Analytics and Twitter data could help Summerill predict what customers are likely to buy. For example, since the company has technology to dispense drinks remotely, it can provide drinks to customers for free remotely when they engage with a vending machine.
Watson Analytics could help us make sure we offer the right customers the right drink, possibly their favorite drink, Summerill said.
But for Summerill, the key aspect of Watson Analytics is its ease of use.
I'm no analyst and data sometimes leaves me feeling cold, but Watson Analytics has helped me understand the data and the story we can tell, Summerill said. We can be focused on what really matters rather than what we think might matter.
Watson Analytics
Watson Analytics is offered in three editions: Watson Analytics, which is free to users and supports up to 500MB of data storage; Watson Analytics Personal, which is $30 per user/month and supports up to 2GB of data storage and analysis of up to 25,000 tweets per dataset; and Watson Analytics Professional edition, released last month, which supports up to 100GB of data storage and up to 50,000 tweets per dataset. Watson Analytics Professional is $80 per user/month.
IBM, the IBM logo, are trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation, registered in many jurisdictions worldwide. Other product and service names might be trademarks of IBM or other companies. For a current list of IBM trademarks, please see www.ibm.com/legal/copytrade.shtml.
IBM's statements regarding its plans, directions, and intent are subject to change or withdrawal without notice at IBM's sole discretion. The information on new products is intended to outline our general product direction and it should not be relied on in making a purchasing decision. The information on the new products is for informational purposes only and may not be incorporated into any contract. The information on the new products is not a commitment, promise, or legal obligation to deliver any material, code or functionality. The development, release, and timing of any features or functionality described for our products remains at our sole discretion.
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
ARMONK, N.Y. - 11 Jun 2015: IBM (NYSE:IBM) today announced that Honest Caf , a new type of unmanned coffee house in London, is using Watson Analytics to unearth client insights to help determine everything from coffee products and pricing, to marketing and promotions.
