Volume 5, Issue 12 — December 16, 2013

There are several things I really like about what I saw on the George Mason website. First, they allow anyone on campus to post announcements, ads and other items of interest to the signs. Right on their website there are instructions on how to post an ad, etc. For on campus organizations there are no charges. It is a very easy and open system for anyone who has access to a web browser.

A few days later I was reading the student newspaper on my campus and noticed a large half-page ad for Papa John’s pizza. It was your typical targeted ad, indicating a special if you used a certain code word. That is when some things started coming together for me.

At Bates College, and many other smaller colleges, we don’t do a very good job of monetizing our signs. At my institution we don’t monetize them at all. In fact, I have written in this column before about how we need to look beyond money, and find other ways to identify total cost of ownership. It is possible, I was wrong and we need to re-assess how we manage these signs.

It seems to me that we need to follow the model that larger universities like George Mason have implemented, albeit on a smaller scale. Certainly we have students on campus who have disposable income and are interested in knowing about deals and opportunities. In previous columns I have written on targeted bulletins. This means that we identify our audience, and we identify the times that they may be near the sign.

There are some landmines particular to education that we need to be wary of before selling ads. Some pretty easy ones to think about are the content of the advertisements (e.g., schools do not want to promote alcohol use), and the timing of the advertisements (we probably don’t want to see an ad for pizza at 10 in the morning). Particularly, you need to be sensitive to why the signs were installed in the first place. They are in place to make announcements of the college, and to celebrate academic, artistic and athletic achievements. If faculty are seeing ads for restaurants, clothing stores and department stores when they expect to be seeing announcements of upcoming lectures, they may be appropriately upset.

So, one needs to be careful about how these ads are approached. A couple of suggestions: First, one of the prime target times for college age students is in the evening. They are awake and they are up and about. It is also a time that most classes are done, and the students are on their own time schedule. Second, be thoughtful about your advertisements, and make them tasteful. The faculty and staff may not be around at 10 or 11 at night, but good taste is still in order. Typical advertisements that sell with sex, tobacco or alcohol may not fly with academics.

Being creative — one can think about a lot of places to which you could sell advertisements. Our small town has a semi-professional hockey team, and our students are potentially a major customer. Using our boards to sell tickets and specials to games is a great use. We have one of the largest outdoor retailers headquartered in our state. Our student activities office regularly sends buses up to the flagship store, again, how about hitting that retailer up for some advertisements, that tie into when our buses are scheduled to go to the store?

If you are an integrator, your creative mind should be starting to hear some cash register ringing right now. Why? Two reasons: First, this is a fantastic way to sell digital signs to colleges and universities. I think there is even possibilities of using this method to sell digital signage to large high schools. People understand return on investment when you speak in real cash.

Second, what if you, as the integrator managed, and/or consulted your customer on how to sell ads and to whom to sell them? As an integrator you could offer you customer a steeply discounted digital signage install, provided that you had rights to sell and collect money for advertisements. Now obviously you would need contracts and understandings on what type of ads you could sell, when they could run and for how often. You also have people with sales experience on your payroll already. Sales is something that most schools don’t have in house expertise on. In addition, if you could develop a good relationship, with a school, or a number of schools, you have created yourself an income source for years. I think this is an example of new sources of income that integrators need to start looking into.  After all, many companies already do a lot of the creative work for their digital sign customers, this is just one more step.

I also understand that this may be more to bite off than some of the smaller integrators are able to chew. So, you certainly could consult to some of your customers about this. Let them know that these possibilities exist. Show them other customers of yours who have been successful with this model. If you can not provide the direct service, being a resource to your customer will still allow you to show your value.

What are your experiences? Are you in a school that has done this successfully? Are you an integrator who works with schools on this type of solution? Let me know, I would love to follow up on your stories in future columns. I look forward to hearing from you.

While we love to talk about technology, we must never forget the real reason we create these solutions.

I love to surf the web. I just love it. I cannot believe how much stuff there is out there. Tons of it. What I find particularly enjoyable is the randomness of discovery. There are even links that encourage you to do it. If you enjoy Reddit try this link.

It takes you to any number of subreddits on just about any topic you can possibly imagine. And what do you know? There are subreddits for digital signage and digital out-of-home. Although I would gather that Reddit is not the greatest forum for discussion on these.

Here is a link to find any random Wikipedia page. The other day I stumbled on to this one: List of Emerging Technologies.

The page contains emerging technologies in a number of fields, including agriculture, biomedical, IT/communications, transport and bunch of other ones. It also contains a section on displays. If you’re keeping track at home, there are 16 different display technologies under the subject of displays.

Of course, I had to ask myself, “What am I having for dinner tonight?” After that, I asked myself, “Are any of these what we think of as digital signage?” More questions: Where would these work? In kiosks? On walls? On billboards? Would these work in hospitals? Universities? Hotels? Libraries?

At that moment, I had to remind myself of something that I learned 15 years ago. Regardless of the technology, you need to begin with the end in mind. The end is the user, the audience. It’s the person who is trying to find the next point on the journey through the hotel using a touch screen kiosk. It’s the person trying to pay for his groceries at a self check-out. It’s the person who wants to download something onto her cell phone from the interactive screen in front of her.

I worked in professional sports for seven years — major league baseball, minor league baseball, the NFL and even minor league hockey. Every place I worked, I reminded myself to never forget that I’m a fan, a customer. I would often go into the seats and enjoy the game. I would look at the video screens in the suites, and at the giant jumbotrons and I would watch these screens as a fan. Would I enjoy what I was seeing and hearing? At Best Buy, we did a lot of work on understanding the customer. We were encouraged to go into stores and be the customer, to try the solutions we were creating and see if they worked or not.

Now I’m in a position to help steer this organization, and this industry, in new directions. But these directions are not provided by the technology. We get direction from the user. We learn how people use technology. Then we work to build solutions that will create the ideal relationship between the user and the technology.

It’s impossible to prescribe a certain technology to a certain vertical. We can assume some fundamental best practices based on years of research, but the truth is that the user is evolving as quickly as the technology.

If we forget about the user, we’ll forget why we’re here. And that would be tragic, because I really want to see if any of these emerging technologies would help hospitals, and retail, and universities.

I think most of us do, too.

This column was reprinted with permission from the Digital Screenmedia Association and originally appeared here.

CETW is attractive as an event because it gathers several hundred diverse exhibitors that span the engagement spectrum, along with an even more diverse group of end user and agency presenters who put the big picture of digital screenmedia disciplines into focus. The Digital Screenmedia Association content awards and various networking receptions offer the opportunity for in-depth discussions and introductions. The result is a potent mix of currently applicable approaches and a forward-looking view of viable technology-enabled options. The focus is on the application of contextually relevant, location aware, enabling customer messaging, interaction and engagement communications.

Laura Davis-Taylor, senior vice president and managing director, Shopwork, BBDO noted, “The code on ‘experience’ has not been cracked, but there are some principles that we know are important.” These top 10 principles (to paraphrase Laura’s presentation points) include:

1. The brand must be more than their product
2. The experience of the use of the product/service must inspire the brand and affinity with it.
3. In building worthy experiences, you must know the life pattern, influence upon and wants of the targeted consumer.
4. “Participation” is intrinsic and fundamental to experience.
5. Experience must solve a problem or make it easier.
6. Making people happier increases brand loyalty.
7. Involve others (and all) stakeholders and possible contributors.
8. Prove it out. Experience analytics must be applied.
9. Focus on the experience factors that matter in the buying decision. For example, a baby stroller buying decision is made on social media influence.
10. Make it a moment that matters – or don’t waste your time.

“Content: is the atomic partical of engagement,” declared Rebecca Lieb, media analyst with the Altimeter Group and author of Content Marketing — Think Like a Publisher — How to Use Content to Market Online and In Social Media. She used many examples to illustrate how customer engagement truly exists at the convergence of paid, owned and earned media.

“Without multi-channel planning and execution,” she declared, “messaging can be fragmented and branding inconsistent. Marketing efforts are often redundant and departments end up competing for budget, while a lower level of customer engagement is actually realized. Media cacophony serves nobody’s goals. Planning at the convergence of paid-owned-earned offers the opportunity for owned and earned media to inform the paid media strategy, while assuring the integrity of brand attributes and closer to real-time messaging optimization.”

In describing participant engagement during the 60,000-delegate South by Southwest (SXSW) conference, Scott Wilcox, executive director SXSW, admitted, “Everybody is trying to figure out how to engage customers. The “backchannel” in earned media is what can ultimately drive and become the main engagement content.” He reflected on the technology challenges of providing adequate engagement technology infrastructure where, for example, “Wi-Fi is expected to be available, and where as many as 7,000 people attending a conference session or concert could place extraordinary demands on Wi-Fi and connectivity. Let us realize, while the iPhone was released in 2007, by 2009 we were seeing the massive demands that iPhone and mobile apps place on those seeking to engage consumer on mobile.”

The active presence of exhibitors offering mobile solutions was a welcomed addition to CETW. Urban Airship, Vibe and Mogiquity each distinguished themselves in presenting comprehensive mobile engagement offerings. Look into these providers.

“Analytics” were part of every discussion because they are the key to gaining budget/investment and to optimizing results. While data is the foundation of growing levels of value that include statistics, information, knowledge and wisdom, the breakdown in data value is occurring at the information level. “More often,” said Jeff Dickey, managing director of OmniChannel Marketing Project, “analytics are used as a predictive tool, but the true value of data from multiple inputs is in being able to adjust actions in real time based on the insights that aggregate data (i.e. information) can provide.”

Customer Engagement Technology World (CETW) is a very different event since it focuses fully on the issues impacting consumer interaction with messages and brand attributes. A lot of water will go under the technology-enabled bridge over the next year, so put CETW in New York, November 2014 on your calendar and plan to be part of these conversations.

Lyle Bunn (Ph.D. Hon) is a analyst, advisor and educator in North America’s digital and enterprise media sector. In August 2013 he was recently named as one of the “11 Most Influential People in Digital Signage” and in October 2013 was recognized as one of the “Innovators and Influencers” of the static sign industry.

This article is reprinted with permission from the Digital Screenmedia Association and originally appeared here.

The focus of this series “Power of Content” is to help people with content strategies and how they relate to digital screen media.

Having a number of pieces ready to be placed into the loop at any time is critical and having them vary a specific messaging while maintaining the integrity of the category flow. A loop that has a safety message in it, for example, would play through the entire playlist and then each safety message would advance to the next safety message in the queue. This resets the safety message up to the top each time it goes around. So you’re always are getting a new safety message that is different every time — just in case you did sit through the loop twice, you’d get a new safety message.

Keeping ahead of content demands begins with the development of a significant pool of assets prior to launching the network. Think of these as basic building blocks that will be available for a relatively long period and can be mixed and matched in different ways. This is not stockpiling the content around a specific campaign, but rather it is about the overall look, feel and identity of the site. This involves creating key graphic elements and templates to develop a large library that can be manipulated as you create and present your content. It’s crucial to know the current and upcoming campaign objectives (at least for the quarter, and preferably for the year) to be able to create the necessary content elements well in advance. This is an area that requires full attention, and procrastination is not an option. The more planning for content, the more successful a digital signage implementation will be.

Creating a multitude of assets that can be tapped into at any time will allow flexibility in most any campaign. Start with creating graphic elements that can be put together in a number of diverse ways. This enables one to change the look slightly by shifting the elements around on the screen. These graphic elements span the gamut from logos and labels to photographs and icons. A network that will be selling coffee drinks will want to gather images of the coffee cups in use, the logo of the brand, and any logos of the drinks themselves. An in-store network at a consumer electronic retailer would want to gather images of its key products, manufacturer logos and brand marks, such as Blu-ray.
An internal communications network that will mix messages about safety with those about corporate policy might want to develop several sets of related designs to go on top of the relevant text — a red striped bar for a safety warning, a blue striped one for policy — that will carry consistent elements of the network’s design across various content segments. In some ways, this is similar to the idea behind designing a web site or a print publication. Although there will be a constant stream of shifting content, there are certain graphic elements that are used all the time and that let viewers know visually what site or publication they are looking at. These elements help create a sense of connection and comfort with viewers yet provide a great deal of flexibility in terms of how a particular piece of content can be presented. Because these elements are important to a network’s identity and used so frequently, they are considered and developed ahead of any other content.

Author and speaker Keith Kelsen, chief visionary at 5th Screen, is considered one of the leading experts on digital media. More information about his book, Unleashing the Power of Digital Signage – Content Strategies for the 5th Screen, published by Focal Press, can be found on the book’s companion website. Reach him at keith.kelsen@5thscreen.com or on Twitter @Kkelsen.

By Adrian Weidman
Founder, StoreStream Metrics

Prospective end-users from a variety of vertical markets including retail, financial, healthcare, corporate communications and QSRs, continue to struggle with defining and implementing these concepts in a meaningful, tangible way within their organizations. Whether it’s identifying or defining an agreed objective or calculating a credible ROI based upon sound financials and ‘believable’ assumptions that pass the scrutiny of an investor or CFO, these concepts remain hollow promises, but are in fact fundamental to launching and maintaining a successful and viable digital signage initiative. In an effort to ‘air’ the challenges between the hollow discussion and fundamental reality of accomplishing these concepts, this session will be a moderated point-counterpoint debate between Matt Schmitt, president and founder of Reflect Systems, representing the industry/vendor perspective and Rebecca Walt, vice president of retail digital strategy at Integer, a shopper marketing agency representing the end-user point-of-view.

As an independent consultant specializing in quantitative intelligence and digital media valuation that drive valued business solutions incorporating digital signage, I have been party to the market’s inception and experienced its growth to what Frost & Sullivan’s recent research predicts will become a $2.55 billion global market by 2018. Yet despite this growth people who have been tasked with either exploring or implementing a digital signage solution struggle with presenting a solid, credible Return on Investment (ROI) argument to the executive decision makers.

Why? There are a number points that have undermined a meaningful advance for digital signage ROI.

1. From a historic point of view, digital signage was a brilliant tactical solution in desperate search of a strategy. Technologists combined the ‘new’ plasma flat panel display, a computer and IP network technology and were able to demonstrate a fantastic and compelling solution. In all my years, I never heard anyone say that digital signage “sucks.” An early encounter with a marketing executive at a major retailer set me straight when, during a technology demonstration, he stopped me and reminded me that “we sell stuff.” In short, despite its visual appeal, if digital signage could not be proven to help sell more “stuff” — and enough stuff to offset its cost, then it was a solution to a problem that didn’t exist.
2. Those that loved the technology, interested in implementing digital signage into their environment, would inevitably ask, “How do I pay for this?” The technology vendors, whose business relied on selling digital signage software and hardware, jumped on the third-party advertising bandwagon. Without going into all of the details, suffice it to say that there were many years lost in pursuit of this financial holy grail — not to mention the millions of dollars wasted pursuing these gambles.
3. Then along came the term ROO — Return on Objectives. Really? A digital signage initiative for a national retailer will require a capital investment in the millions. There isn’t a retailer where that level of financial commitment would not require approval by an executive committee where one of its members would certainly be the chief financial officer (CFO). There is no CFO who values her job that would approve a project costing millions of dollars based upon ROO.
4. Do the math! Most corporations have an understood internal rate of return (IRR) by which every prospective project is measured. This rate is typically between 8 percent and 14 percent. The IRR of a particular project is defined as the “annualized effective compounded return rate” or discount rate that makes the net present value of all cash flows (both positive and negative) from a particular investment equal to zero. In more specific terms, the IRR of an investment is the interest rate at which the net present value of costs (negative cash flows) of the investment equals the net present value of the benefits (positive cash flows) of the investment. Internal rates of return are commonly used to evaluate the desirability of investments or projects. The higher a project’s internal rate of return, the more desirable it is to undertake the project. Assuming all other factors are equal among the various projects, the project with the highest IRR would probably be considered the best and undertaken first. A digital signage initiative that requires millions of dollars of capital investment and is understood to be disruptive in its implementation will require a calculated IRR (based upon real dollar ROI or EVA calculations) to be significantly higher than the organization’s minimum IRR in direct relation to the perceived risk of the project. Perhaps that’s why we haven’t heard of many (or any?) noteworthy case studies of digital signage at retail.

No body will argue as to the importance of digital signage. Digital signage is here to stay and grow. So too, is the question of ROI. ROI can take on many forms but in the end it must be based on specific initiatives and their associated dollar values. Intelligent ROI investigation and quantifiable calculations made with repeatable client data must support viable initiatives. Those are but a few of my personal observations and experiences with regard to digital signage ROI. With the help of our participants at the forthcoming DSE session I will shed light on some of the key ROI challenges in a forum that will hopefully strip away the glossy veneer of this important topic in order for you, our audience, to make intelligent and sound business decisions with regard to digital signage.

Author Adrian Weidman will be moderating Session 8 entitled, “Articulating Objectives & Realizing Tangible ROI,” on Wed., Feb. 12 at Digital Signage Expo 2014 at the Sands Expo & Convention Center in Las Vegas (4:00 – 5:00 p.m.). For more information about DSE or to register for this seminar, click here.

Our vibrant industry is evolving its technology base faster than ever. 4K was first talked about at CES, and already screens are appearing everywhere from high end to low end. Integrators are now using more and more full-HD streaming media servers to lower the cost of video distribution. Content developers are incorporating their HTML5 Web assets into digital signage content, leveraging an investment already made in content creation.

The social media generation expects to interact with signage rather than just view it, and the technologies that support this interaction, like touch control and swipe, continue to be deployed more and more. Customers’ expectations are calibrated by the devices in their pockets. Signage networks are increasingly enabling customers to engage through Twitter, Facebook or other platforms. Local store managers also expect to be able to control their signs from their smartphone with an app — as well as via a Web browser.

The Internet is driving digital signage technology in other ways too, making it essential for signage to update in real-time in response to fluctuations in the market, weather or news events. Displays installed at 40-plus Western Union International Bank currency exchanges, for example, are updated continuously with the latest exchange rates by intelligently pulling data from their business system.

Some of these changes started in 2013, and many have now transitioned from being a nice-to-have to an essential feature during the year. As you consider your investment in digital signage in 2014, make sure that the products and equipment you are selecting not only fully support the changes that have already taken place, but also have a good roadmap for supporting new technologies as they evolve. Future-proofing is a key issue for digital signage network owners.

All of the trends will develop and extend in 2014, and new paradigms will emerge. Don’t get stranded with products that are static. Be sure you are buying into a flexible platform that will evolve in lockstep with emerging technologies.

This column was reprinted with permission from the Digital Screenmedia Association and originally appeared here.

The focus of this series “Power of Content” is to help people with content strategies and how they relate to digital screen media.

A simple approach is to change the loop of content three times a day: morning, midday and afternoon. This will keep associates happy and also creates programming that is diverse to the customer. It’s also important to think about changing the order of the content within each playlist as it is repeated. The content can still be delivered in an overall pattern that is effective for the marketer in reaching different customers, but that doesn’t appear to be overly patterned to either customers or associates. A more sophisticated approach is to add and delete pieces of content throughout the day and week to keep playlists fresh. Like a radio station playing popular music, hit songs are repeated often, but not at the same time every hour, and new songs are brought into the mix as others are taken out to create variety and interest and keep people listening. The same idea applies here; continuous small changes to the overall content, plus shuffling its order, will prevent customers and associates from tuning out.

Another concept that one will address is the idea of messaging to the consumer according to time of day — not just keeping the loop pattern changing, but also the messaging. Driving to work for example, our consumer encounters a large billboard along the highway. The messaging is all about coffee, beagles and office supplies. On the way home the content is day parted to be relative to the consumer in the evening. It’s messaging about dinner restaurants, flowers and super market specials. The concept of changing content according to the mindset and time of day is what is great about DOOH technology and how this can be precisely driven with the right content and the right time of day.

Although this may sound like a lot of work, the process can be automated through the use of cloning tools for playlists that are built into some software. These tools take one playlist, create a clone and then change the order of the content according to certain rules. In effect, one now has two interchangeable playlists. This can be done several times depending on the length of the playlist and the length of the day segment for which that particular content is intended.

Software can also greatly help in delivering relevant content at the right time, right place, and right target. One can profile day parts with the demographic information, and that profile can be applied to each screen. Then, if one applies that same profile to a piece of content, that content can automatically match up to that screen. As networks become larger, automation is a must have to apply maximum relevant content to the right audience at the right time.

Author and speaker Keith Kelsen, chief visionary at 5th Screen, is considered one of the leading experts on digital media. More information about his book, Unleashing the Power of Digital Signage – Content Strategies for the 5th Screen, published by Focal Press, can be found on the book’s companion website. Reach him at keith.kelsen@5thscreen.com or on Twitter @Kkelsen.

The 40-pound PN-U473 is 2″ deep and is both LEED and ADA compliant. It offers 1920×1080 resolution; VGA, HDMI, DVI and DisplayPort inputs; 700 cd/m2 brightness; and a 1,300:1 contrast ratio. It also has integrated audio via a 10-watt speaker and an optional media player for digital signage applications. It lists for $2,160 and all the specs are here.

Here’s the full day’s agenda.

During the AOPEN Forum, you will hear all about the latest developments and future trends in Digital Communications Technology and you’ll get to meet the experts in the industry and listen to their views, trends and plans for 2014. And, it’s FREE to attend and, best of all, you won’t miss any of the ISE Show since it’s being held the day before the show open — Mon., Feb. 3 2014.

You can register here.

BrightSign this week announced new software and firmware for its BrightSign XD line of solid-state players that adds the ability to upscale 1080p video content to 4K, enhanced IP streaming and some very useful HTML5 support features. The software release, BrightAuthor 3.7, and its companion 4.7 firmware, are available to all existing and future users for free.

The software update allows users to identify user variables in other databases and pull them into HTML. Using features and settings within BrightSign’s web server and on-device database of BrightAuthor user variables, users can display database data in HTML5 within a presentation. For example, the model number of a TV display entered as a user variable can pull all the information about that display into the signage presentation.

Here are all the specs of the update.

Features include 10.75″ pull out extension from wall for easy wiring, quick release latch and click-to-closed position feature and lateral shift.

Here are all the specs.

The new S310 screen from Christie now pushes the seams between MicroTiles that are stacked on top or next to one another to less than .07 millimeter thin — from 1.3 millimeters on the original S300 screen. Like the original, the S310 offers 600 nits cd/m2 brightness, has a 65,000-hour LED lamp life and uses less than 70-watts (typical) power (and 16 watts in standby).

Here are all the detailed specs of both the S300 and S310 options.

While waiting at an airport security checkpoint, you are verbally instructed by a woman to “please power down all electronics for screening purposes.” You glance over and notice the woman’s name tag reads “AVA.” She stands in front of the long, crowded line guiding everyone to ensure a speedy, yet efficient pre-screening process. With a second glance you realize, she is not a real person at all, but an avatar…

Developed by Airus Media, AVA, also known as the Advanced Virtual Assistant, is a lifelike, virtual mannequin primarily used for communicating messages in high volume areas such as airports and other mass transit locations.

AVA combines a hidden projector with a specially designed screen that has been cut to look like a live presenter. As a result, a realistic virtual presenter captivates visitors by speaking and engaging as a live presenter would. AVA enhances customer service and welcome centers by answering basic and routine questions asked by arriving visitors. Employees and security personnel are able to focus on more important things while the AVA makes announcements.

Powered by a Casio Signature XJ-M250 projector, AVA is nearly maintenance-free. Arius Media chose Casio’s XJ-M250 projectors because they are LampFree, running on Casio’s laser and LED hybrid light source. This means lamps do not need to be replaced every few months, even for a 24/7 operations. With the light source having an estimated lifespan of 20,000 hours, AVA can run 24 hours a day, seven days a week, which is crucial in airports, for years.

“Airports are among the busiest places in the world, and AVA plays an extremely important role in helping them run as smoothly as possible by helping increase the efficiency of security checkpoint lines,” said Patrick Bienvenu, chief operations officer of Arius Media. “Using Casio’s Signature XJ-M250, AVA can run for long periods of time and eliminate the time and cost associated with lamp replacement, as well as dark periods during critical high volume periods throughout the day.”

Currently, five airports across the United States are equipped with AVA at security checkpoints and customer service areas: LaGuardia Airport and JFK Airport in New York, Newark Airport in New Jersey, Northwest Florida Regional Airport in Florida and Long Beach Airport in California. Installation for each AVA unit took approximately two hours, including set-up and calibration. Clients say that AVA is an incredible time-saver and a very efficient way to deliver a clear and consistent message.

Learn more about Casio LampFree projectors here and about AVA here.