Reality matters

Memphis, Tennessee. Home to some killer barbeque, Elvis Presley and the Graceland estate, and the Memphis Grizzlies. Most notably though, it’s the birthplace of rock and roll! And Memphis isn’t shy about representing that badge of honor. There’s no shortage of stops to soak in all the appreciation of rock, soul, and blues. Two of these exhibits in particular are boasting unique and technically advanced solutions, pinging their visitors with contextual content viewable on their personal smartphones. And yep, you guessed it! They’re both powered by Estimote.

ThinkPROXI is a proximity platform built to connect businesses with their customers. They started up in 2015, supporting various proximity protocols like NFC, GPS, iBeacon, and EddyStone. Once they realized the value of proximity marketing and it’s potential in museums, real estate, and retail, they focused their platform on these domains. With their home base set in Memphis, it was only natural to bounce into the music scene with their smart city and museum apps.

The Memphis Music Hall of Fame The folks at the Memphis Music Hall of Fame were interested in engaging with their visitors of all ages in a new and exciting way. By their own research, the National Endowment for the Arts recently reported a sharp decline in museum-going rates among young adults in their 20s and 30s. The Music Hall of Fame said, “Heck with that!” They connected with ThinkPROXI, who put together a remarkable solution to intrigue millenials.

Key exhibits are assigned an Estimote beacon (nearly 40 altogether), pushing artist and artefact relevant media via the Memphis Music Hall of Fame app. Want to know more about B.B. King, Ann Peebles, or the Reverend Al Green? Listen to an audio guide, or a musical snippet to jog your memory. Johnny Cash fan? There’s memorabilia everywhere, with his handwritten lyrics out on display. If you want to learn more, your trusty app will act as your own personal guide, taking you around the area and providing background on what your eyes are feasting upon. And to add another layer of cool, they’re profiling visitors by asking them a few questions from the start. This profiling enables the app solution to give a completely different experience, depending on your interests. A couple of key features ThinkPROXI has enabled are social sharing, selfies, likes, and capturing comments. And, actionable insights are collected as visitors are engaging with the beacons, making moves based on demographics and other criteria. It’s like an assistant giving you a VIP customized ride!

Take a walk down Beale Street Beale Street is a wonderland of attractions, rich with history. It was a significant landmark in the Civil Rights Movement, as Beale Street was the home to an NAACP co-founder, an anti-segregationist paper, and the oldest surviving African-American Baptist church in Tennessee. Blues legends Muddy Waters, Louis Armstrong, and B.B. King all performed on Beale Street in their heyday. Walking down the open boulevard, you can practically feel the rhythm guitar kicking up your feet.

It’s no doubt one of the most popular places for tourists in the United States, drawing in millions of pedestrians a year. ThinkPROXI has installed nearly 100 Estimote beacons along the route of historical buildings and local businesses to provide a virtual tour guide application. The Beale Street App guides visitors in a walking tour, complete with information about every building and the history behind it. The clean design is intended to educate in a fun and engaging way with audio, video, and infographics. Apart from the historical buildings tour, the app additionally gives contextual updates from the local businesses, providing coupons and special offers to it’s users. These campaigns are tailored to visitor demographics, with businesses opting in accordingly to design something specific to their needs.

Key parts of the Estimote stack in making this solution a success include Estimote Cloud along with the Beacon Health Check feature, as well as Estimote’s Configuration app. Of course, building a solution of this scale isn’t without it’s hurdles. Buildings on Beale St are very close to each other. It was very challenging to use one beacon per building. The team at ThinkPROXI arrived at an answer using GPS and beacons in combination to support multiple building navigation. Going forward, our latest Proximity SDK would be perfect!

In their next iteration, Sridhar Sunkara and Sanjeev Bora, CEO and CTO of ThinkPROXI respectively, have expressed an interest in moving toward wayfinding and user positioning using our Indoor Location SDK. Be sure to keep an eye on these Memphis heros as they continue to push solutions that educate the public, while engaging in a fun and fresh way! And don’t forget to download their apps from the App Store before you head to Memphis next.

Download the Beale Street App / / Download the Memphis Music App

Written by Jess Anderson, Content Creator + Community Manager @ Estimote