Customer Story
Wovenmedia, Olyns & BrightSign Power Smart Recycling in Retail
Olyns is a Silicon Valley startup innovating at the intersection of recycling and retail media. Their flagship product, “The Cube,” is an AI-powered reverse vending machine equipped with a 55” digital screen that promotes sustainability and brand engagement in high-traffic retail environments.
The Challenge
Only 14% of plastic is collected for recycling, leading to significant waste that pollutes ecosystems. This widespread plastic accumulation remains one of today’s most persistent environmental challenges.
Olyns set out to address this by encouraging everyday recycling through The Cube, a compact, AI-powered reverse vending machine equipped with a 55” digital screen. Positioned at the entrances of high-traffic retail locations, each Cube incentivizes recycling while delivering targeted brand messaging to consumers before they shop.
To succeed, Olyns needed more than smart hardware. They required a digital signage solution that could:
- Operate continuously and reliably in unattended retail environments.
- Support remote management for quick updates to dynamic advertising content across a growing fleet of Cubes.
- Scale easily as the network expands nationally.
- Ensure seamless playback to maximize ad visibility and engagement.
- Work with their chosen Programmatic Advertising platform for network monetization.
To meet these demands, Olyns partnered with Wovenmedia and BrightSign — combining a robust content management system (CMS) with purpose-built media players to power the full digital experience.
The Solution
Olyns selected Wovenmedia and BrightSign to deliver a digital signage solution that could meet the unique demands of The Cube.
- Wovenmedia’s flexible, cloud-based CMS allows Olyns to scale effortlessly — adding new units, localizing content, and updating campaigns in real time across the entire network or by designated marketing zones.
- BrightSign’s digital signage players, powered by their purpose-built operating system BrightSignOS™, offer reliability, durability, and unprecedented longevity — ensuring seamless playback across Olyns’ network.
The combination of Wovenmedia’s software and BrightSign’s hardware and operating system gave Olyns a dependable, scalable solution that supports its dual mission: improving recycling rates and enabling brand storytelling at the point of purchase.
Results & Impact
The collaboration has delivered measurable benefits across multiple fronts:
- Sustainability at Scale: Ad revenue helps fund the recycling platform, enabling a financially self-sustaining model that reduces plastic pollution and increases the supply of high-quality recycled PET.
- Retail Integration: The Cube’s compact footprint (12 sq. ft.) and minimal power requirements (120 V outlet) make it easy for retailers to adopt, and for customers to integrate recycling into their daily routines.
- Network Reliability: BrightSign’s consistent performance and Wovenmedia’s full-featured CMS allows Olyns to rapidly grow its network without compromising uptime or user experience.
Why Change Was Necessary
The Olyns solution is a win-win for the environment, retailers, customers, and brands. As Olyns continues to grow its network across the US, it knows it can rely on Wovenmedia’s CMS to support that growth regardless of how geographically dispersed its network becomes.
The consistent performance of BrightSign’s media players is additional assurance that Olyns’ network will fulfill its promise to retailers, consumers, and advertisers.
