I wonder how similar their screens are to the ones in some of the US mass transit systems. I think Atlanta's MARTA has something like this. It would also be interesting to see where they're placing the displays in the buses, since you typically have some people sitting and some standing, and people can be facing any of several directions while riding.

Wonder if they eventually plan on adding credit card transactions too given how resistant the culture seems to credit cards

Contactless payment is pretty big in Asia, so they probably have something like that in place for paying fares. Those transactions may be linked to prepaid accounts, credit cards, etc. As for showing direct-response ads on the digital signs where you can buy a product or request more info via your mobile phone, that's a whole other interesting application :)

You know, I spoke to Bruce Rasa at IBM about contactless payment a couple of months ago, as I still don't see what the big deal is about it. His feeling was that, in the US at least, its success is a function of speed, not necessarily convenience. In other words, in transactions where it's too time consuming to go and find your credit card, contactless payments will take hold.

Does anyone know of any movies that portray digital signage in a positive (or at least neutral) light? If we get enough of them listed here, maybe people can start referring to those instead of "Minority Report". I'll start the list by mentioning the 3D billboards in "Back to the Future".

Two that immediately come to mind are Blade Runner and The Fifth Element.

I think Blade Runner was the first to really illustrate the potential of digital out-of-home media

Hi Bill,

Excellent post-- extremely thorough and well put, as always. I've been thinking around the same topics lately, and trying to get at the root of the audience fear... An interesting discussion has ensued, both from inside and outside of the industry, which I think is a really great sign.

See you at the DSE!

Hey Jayne,

I just read up on your "creepy digital signage" thread (http://www.theweboutside.com/?p=49) - the comments are really excellent.

The main source of negativity towards digital out-of-home thus far has been from folks that feel that any kind of advertising blights the landscape (rightly or wrongly). I think privacy issues are starting to crop up (thanks to crappy e-voting, e-passport and federal ID action), but not many people have put two and two together yet.

Hi Bill, you hit upon the right note here..
Recognition Technologies, Recommendation Engines & Screens are a lethal combo for a marketer, but it need not be otherwise for shoppers.

my guess is that retailers who decide to have a ambient system where shoppers cannot opt-out will suffer. also, one must not ignore that we're already experiencing something very similar with online. It took us less than 7 years to start seeing everything around us through the google lens. we depend on it to make sense of the what's around the internet. with clutter becoming commonplace, the choices before consumers are overwhelming and my guess is we'd be happy to accept anything that makes our lives simpler. making content relevant, making it personal beyond the internet has already begun..

Excellent post as always Bill...and a much needed POV for the industry as we attack new measurement tools slowly and steadily. Just looking at recent articles within DMNews about activity with Do Not Call, Do Not Mail and the new Do Not Track online proposal, it's not hard to assume that privacy advocates will not take this kind of scenario lying down. Philips Design did an extensive worldwide research study on the subject 6 years ago (they were thinking ahead I suppose!) and found that customers would be open to being tracked IF they could control what level, what brand/s and when. Otherwise, no way. Seems we need to tread very carefully here and be sure that initial tracking is not personalized in any way unless 100% opt-in.

Excellent post Bill!

The film Children of Men is (IMO) a bit depressing but it is set in the near future and shows digital screens everywhere (including a nice shot of a red London Bus complete with digital screens on the sides - but then, hey! we have those already!)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children_of_Men

Hi Bill,

Thanks for checking out the thread... It's great to have the slippery and elusive mass audience involved in these conversations, since for a "not-so-new-but-still-new" medium like DS, the kinks (both content and platform wise) are still being worked out in huge chunks... The more the end-viewer gets involved, the more like we are to have a medium that's worthy of their eyeballs.

Laura, Do you have a link to the Philips Study? Would love to take a look.

Laura: Hopefully you can dig up that Philips study, as it's gone against most of the research that I've seen recently (at least wrt online privacy, which is admittedly a bit different from the end-user's perspective). In fact, I don't know if you remember, but I asked Dave Polinchock about privacy back at ARM 2006, and his take was that most shoppers don't really seem too concerned about it right now. Of course, we don't know if that's because they're unaware of the potential havoc on the horizon...

Adrian: Ah, Children of Men. I knew that movie wasn't totally forgettable for some reason :)

Although the discussion about online privacy is certainly more advanced than anything we're seeing in out-of-home media right now, it does seem like most consumers don't really care what's being collected about their behavior. In fact, most of the articles I've seen about the "Eraser" feature that was just introduced by Ask.com (see http://sp.ask.com/en/docs/about/askeraser.shtml) have pretty much said the same thing: it's a neat idea, but until more consumers start demanding it, the big players like Google and Yahoo won't be volunteering to erase their valuable data when and how consumers see fit. I just hope that the companies that are collecting this data within the digital signage industry are using it responsibly and taking steps to protect it. Just think about how scary it would be if the viewer tracking data from your local grocery store ended up on the web, and people could look for your face and then cross-reference it to find all the times and dates that you shop there.

Bill,
Love your columns. Very insightful and speak to the plain and simple minded folk like myself. :)

Just posted a entry on our company blog:
http://www.nmotiontech.com/displaydiary/2007/12/13/which-space-has-the-most-potential-for-advertisers/

was wondering if you wouldn't mind commenting on it?

thanks
Matthew J. Olivieri

Hi Matthew,

So your question relates to the efficacy rather than the ethics of using traffic data to target content towards users. It's slightly off-topic for this post, but obviously quite central to the development of the industry...

If you're an advertiser looking to bring in foot traffic, a multi-venue approach is usually best, as it lets you focus on the places where your target customers are most likely to be found. You can do this by studying the venues and their audience by hand, subscribing to research data, or using a booking platform like SeeSaw. In any event, you need to figure out who you're trying to reach based on their demographics and psychographics, and then target the places they visit so your ads reach them accordingly. Of course, the holy grail (from a marketer's perspective, anyway) would be tracking every consumer individually rather than just looking at aggregate groups.

This takes us back to the privacy concerns covered in this article. Once the technology is there to allow this level of tracking (and it's not far off), we need to be very careful as an industry to disclose what we're collecting and what we do with it, and provide people a way to opt-out, particularly if data-sharing arrangements between multiple vendors or retailers become commonplace.

Another aspect you may consider is that many Americans do not like confrontation or talking to "strangers" and as the trends are going, the general population tends to lean towards depersonalization. This depersonalization is kind of sad in my eyes, but would and most likely will become the fuel to jettison the demand for contactless payment options and advanced kiosks. Perhaps even retail stores outfitting themselves with advanced kiosks that would allow a consumer to view, pay and have a product delivered directly to their home. If that became the trend then stores would only need to stock perishable groceries as everything else would be available on screen... Just a thought.

Hi Shawn,

You make an interesting point: there are certainly a good number of people who would prefer to do things anonymously, and nearly everyone would like to take care of low-thrill activities like filling up at the gas station as quickly and efficiently as possible, so the market for these kinds of services may already exist.

Lots of people have suggested that the Internet is fostering this trend. While I know I do lots of shopping online, whenever I go to our local mall it seems as busy as ever, so I don't know how true this "common knowledge" really is.

I think the internet is fostering the idea and as for the traffic at the malls, a good chunk of people like to see the product before they buy it, others just don't want to wait on the shipping time.

I'm not sure how many people do this, but I have known a few people who only go to the malls and retail locations to see the price [difference] and to handle the product before they purchase it. A lot of it can be accredited to the internet being cheaper while the remaining part is "I don't want the checkout hassle." Oh, and those people LOVE the self checkouts at Walmarts and other locations.

Facial recognition software is already hot off the presses and being used in the security industry. I promote interactive digital signage that offers the ability to data mine, but you still have to opt in by touching the screen. Once Retailers starting using the facial recognition software under the "security" guise, the Marketing Department will slip in and data mine the tapes which will reveal the shopping habits of unaware shoppers. They can mine for product placement results, shopping behavior and how different ethnicities purchase or respond best to products. These are only the first offers from facial recognition software companies. Forget about it if you so happen to look like someone earmarked on their system for shoplifting. I think we should warn our customers about what is too much big brother marketing.

Josh Tonasket

The two biggest things that struck me in this article were this:
1) "clients either came in with creative assets that weren't appropriate for the store environment, or had no creative assets at all."
2) "It simply means figuring out a way to help companies match the right kinds of digital signage projects with their core competencies."
From my perspective as someone who seeks to be a VAR, these two points are critical to my business. I think companies like mine must effectively find ways of educating the world on not only the potentials, but also the requirements of different digital signage systems-thus lowering the amount of perceived time, effort and money it will cost to get involved and create positive network effects.
The further opportunity to have a ‘creative’ department which assists companies that don’t have the budget to go through an Ad Agency is simply icing on the cake in my opinion.

I am curious as to your thoughts on our latest blog post as well, if you wouldn't mind:
www.displaydiary.com

Thanks Bill,
Matthew

I applaud your efforts to try and help educate the world on the potentials and requirements of digital signage projects, but after nearly five years of blogging, traveling and working the trade show and conference circuit, I can tell you that we haven't yet created the ecosystem necessary to quickly bring newcomers up to speed, share knowledge, etc.

I do know that there are a number of groups working on that very problem right now, but as of right now there are too many people jumping in head-first without first arming themselves with the necessary information.

My response is that perhaps the world wasn't quite ready to fully embrace digital signage in the past- at least not in the ways I envision they will be in the near future...I seem to vaguely remember large record sized laser disc movies that came out 3-4 years before people were ready to start tossing out their VHS cassettes of course later came the first DVD and now that is the industry standard.

Why weren't people embracing D.S. in the past? I don't know if any one reason reigns supreme, perhaps of number of reasons...hardware limitations, government regulations? New technologies always have a high $$$ cost associated with them as well until enough players enter into the industry which makes things more scalable and brings costs down overall, which is what I foresee happening in the next 2-3 years BIG TIME.

Case in point, I asked a random 25 people what the term digital signage meant to them and only 5 were in the ballpark.

Within the D.S. industry I think you will have one company that steps up and who makes D.S. the cool, hip, fresh and exciting medium to advertise on and this group will not only help shape the industry but also society's willingness to absorb the switching costs necessary in learning how to capitalize on this medium.

Do people really want to watch TV out of home. It's an attitudinal psychographic aspectof people, that we believe that they do not watch much tv out of home and as such vehicles which work more quickly and which reach out to grab the eye, represent superior and simpler vehicles,

People are enamoured with setting up the next media network. This is a major stretch for it is not going to happen..what we have left is a network ofpromotional shelf talkers for the business that wants to make moneyin-store. My network of 23,000 electronic signs in 5,400 supermarkets has never been beaten. Time to go round once again!


Robert Polansky
917-902-0049

Hi Robert,

Not quite sure what angle you're going after here, and if anything I'd say that Thomson's involvement and the rapid growth of the industry indicates that people do believe in the medium.

The questions that remain (in my opinion) are a) how do we make digital signage efficient and desirable while remaining as unobtrusive and not-annoying as possible, and b) where do they perform best - there are going to be some jobs they simply don't work well for, but others where the excel. We need to find more of the latter.

Awesome 4-part series Bill. Summarizes hours and hours of reading I have done from many other sites and books to give readers a solid baseline understanding.

Thanks :)

-Matthew

A very interesting piece of information here. As a newcomer to the business I am surprised to learn that there are many companies with little experience in in-store marketing projects. I believe those who would capitalize on it will gain a serious long term advantage.

Thank you Bill for a very interesting arguments.

BILLBOARDS HAVE A 15YR MACRS LIFE.

WHAT IS THE MACRS LIFE OF THESE ELECTRONIC
BILLBOARDS AND/OR SIGNS?

Hi Matthew,

Thanks very much for the feedback. If you're just starting out in the industry, I also recommend you read Laura Davis-Taylor and Adrian Weidmann's book Lighting Up the Aisle. It's cheap, a quick read, and pretty entertaining to boot. You can find it at:

http://www.lightinguptheaisle.com/

Hi Ghassan,

I agree with you - those companies who can truly articulate the benefit of the network and then implement it in such a way that it actually delivers on that promise are going to be in huge demand over the next few years. For now, though, there's still enough of a "Wild West" mentality out there that all sorts of companies are jumping into signage head-first, without truly understanding how it works in different kinds of environments.

Hi Yigal,

Thanks for the feedback. Granted I'm coming from a particular point-of-view here, and I have some vested interests (namely, we make Linux-based kit and we think there are numerous advantages to doing so), but even after nearly four years I think the above arguments still hold true, so that's pretty neat.

Hi Richard,

Great question, but unfortunately I don't know the answer to that. My guess is that it varies from product line to product line.

If it's something that interests you, I suggest you get in contact with one of the major producers, like Daktronics, Barco or Lighthouse Technologies.

The Modified Accelerated Cost Recovery System (MACRS) is the current method of accelerated asset depreciation required by the United States income tax code. Under MACRS, all assets are divided into classes which dictate the number of years over which an asset's cost will be recovered (see Wikipedia).
15YR MACRS LIFE - because there is an average LED Billboard time life. It means that after this time LEDs used to build the LED Billboard will not be enough good for advertising (usually 70% of initial brightness - perceptible by user).
A little more about LEDs you can find on http://www.ledbillboards.co.uk

enjoyed your article. what are your thoughts on other alternative forms of ooh, such as scooter advertising? a stylish and unique, in your face approach to advertising, that limits the choices a consumer can make about viewing yor ad, i.e. tivo, digital radio, online news, by bringing the message to them in an impactful, yet unaggressive way?

"The channel ,not the brand manager, controlss the brands" is really something which is insightful for students like us who are pursuing post graduation in retail management. kudos to you !! keep writing informative articles like this.

Thank You

Hi Scott,

There are a lot of "experiential marketing" experiments going on out there. I've seen everything from hot air balloons to regular people covered over with LCD screens and sent out into the world, so scooter advertising (which would just be another form of mobile billboards, in my mind) doesn't seem too strange.

In each of these cases, you're of course trading message availability for impact, since a moving billboard might be eye-catching, but it's hard to impart a lot of information to a viewer, and the message is never in the same place twice, so you essentially have to track both your message and your potential audience at the same time.

That having been said, I'm a big believer in getting the right message to the right person at the right place and time, so armed with sufficient information, I think that mobile billboards will continue to play a role, albeit a niche one.

Hi Adam,

Thanks for that information, I'm sure lots of people who haven't yet felt the pain of trying to depreciate large, expensive assets were unfamiliar with the MACRS method.

The items listed in the gallery section of your site are mostly monochromatic, and relatively small in size. Do larger, smaller pitch, full color LED screens have a similar longevity? Does it vary from LED maker to LED maker?

Hi Dravesh,

Thanks very much for your kind words. Of course, the very concept of the channel controlling the brand is still up for debates, as there are many brand managers, product manufacturers and consumers who would likely disagree.

Still, this information is straight from the source -- Saatchi X and POPAI, two very reputable industry players, so my feeling is that it probably is accurate.

Hi Matthew,

Thanks as always for your perspective. While I think your comment is mostly correct, I continue to believe that the issue is not so much the cost, but the determination of benefits. After all, ROI is basically just

$Benefits - $Costs

While the latter is pretty easy to calculate nowadays (and yes, it can be a big number), people continue to struggle with the former, even after nearly a decade of "serious" digital signage deployments.

The way out of this, of course, is to be able to effectively and accurately value the benefit portion of the equation, and as we've seen, that has a lot to do with the specific model that the signage is being used for (check out our articles on digital signage business models for more info on that).

I think there is huge progress in this field. Every mall you go in now has digital signage everywhere. Our company has built a very successful and unique model not in malls but in other high traffic areas. I could care less if a var ever figures out how to pull off a successful way to do this. I do see someone showing up and buying the thousands of digital signage locations and tying them all together.
There is a lot to be said about struggling to find advertisers. There is lot's of hard work going into learning how to sell that space but the bottom line is if you have eyeballs seeing your displays then you will have advertisers.
Add to all of this an interactive component that actually tracks usage and prints out information for the buyer - GENIUS!!
What I recommend is just staying focused and do not try to be all things to all potential clients.

Hi Greg,

You hit on an excellent point -- too many VARs try to be all things to all people, instead of focusing on the deals and areas where they have a competitive advantage. In doing so, they participate (or try to, anyway) in ways that don't best showcase their strengths, which is why I think there are so many mediocre-looking vendors out there today.

It's a big enough problem that I probably should have written about it in this article, but we did touch upon it a few weeks ago in an article about the trends that separate the winners from the losers in our industry:

5 crucial steps that can make or break your digital signage project

Specifically, VARs (and everyone, really) need to be able to completely articulate their business model and competitive advantages so that they can pick areas where their time/effort/money is most likely to yield a positive return on investment. Likewise, they need to set challenging but achievable goals so that they have a clear path and hopefully some way to measure their progress.

While I wouldn't necessarily say that those who don't do these things are doomed to fail, those who do do them have a better chance for success.

Another great post from the mighty Bill Gerba - a really, really good read. I do like the way you have 'scaled' innovation from not very, somewhat, a little more, quite, and most!!! You should register / trademark the idea as the "GERBA INNOVATION SCALE"

DaiilyDOOH was just about o publish its TRENDS AND PREDICTIONS FOR 2008 but your description of "corny industry predictions" has put us off ;)

Happy New Year to you and all your readers by the way!

Hi guys,

As a manufacturer of LED signs and billboards out of Dallas, our diodes have a lifespan of 100,000 hours, which equates to roughly 11 years. That means that in 11 years, the diodes will be operating at 50% of their prime brightness. Of course, considering the amount of ROI that the sign owner has received by that time, it'll be a simple decision to replace the sign quickly.

Feel free to call me at 214-260-4500 x2207 if you have any questions.

Happy New Year!

Thanks for this. I have been trawling the web looking for the source of this stat without much success. I'd put it down to stupidity on my part. It's good to know that somebody else could not locate the source too.

Hi Tobe,

The original source of the stat was from a 1996 POPAI study of POP marketing in supermarkets, and what it essentially said was that about 70% of BRAND decisions are made in-store. That is, you might not make the decision to buy breakfast cereal when you're in the store (it was probably on your list before you arrived), but you're likely to decide between Cheerios and Special K.

If you're a POPAI member, I believe you can still download that data from them (and they've done a number of other wide-scale surveys to reconfirm the number since then).

Thanks for the info, Jon. As this is an area I'm pretty unfamiliar with, I'd also be interested to know if there are significant differences between different types of LEDs, or if there are ways to extend their lifetime (e.g. turning down the brightness at night).

Hi Adrian,

Perhaps it's simply my inability to write proper predictions that turns me off to the whole affair.

I'm certain that someone of your caliber of expertise could do a much better job, and sway me back to the other side :)

Factor of MACRS LIFE
mounted Chip,entironment,maintain...

If you are interested in details via let-net@hotmail.com

Best regards

Chris

As someone who works in both television and digital signage, I have a mixed reaction to this news.

I think it's a smart move on NBC's part to experiment and stray from traditional ad techniques. As a network, their shows appeal to a younger, hipper audience (they recently picked up a program called Quarterlife that first aired on MySpace) so I'm not surprised that they'd make this kind of decision. I think it's a big step towards better reaching their target audience.

I definitely think NBC's actions could cause ABC and CBS to react very quickly and move in the same direction, especially if NBC -- who consistently finishes behind them in ratings -- starts to gain some ground. What'll be more interesting to see, is whether cable networks such as HBO and Showtime -- whose programming is starting to really give the broadcast networks a run for their money -- will invest more money into this platform. If that happens, then we'll know that NBC made a bold move into the future.

From the digital signage perspective, I think the idea of having upfronts doesn't really make sense mainly because, as well all know, there is no concrete way of measuring this industry yet. I think NBC needs to make everyone involved aware that digital signage is not black and white and that uncertainty allows for more flexibility which in turn makes it an appealing ad medium.

So while I think the general idea is a very smart move on NBC's part, I'd give it a much weaker endorsement on the digital signage end just because I agree with a lot of the negative aspects that have been brought up.

Hey Phil,

Obviously you and NBC disagree as to whether it makes sense or not :)

On the other hand, while I have no idea what kind of investment it takes to set up an upfront, if it's cheap, I suppose there's no reason for them to NOT give it a shot (aside from looking ridiculous if they can't sell much of the inventory, of course).

one company doing some very cool things is FanDriveMedia. These are the guys behind most of the text messaging going on in sports stadiums across the US. I especially like their Tug o War challenge. We did it in DC and won a tee shirt toss. It had everyone in the stands going crazy.

I would love to be able to live blog this upfront as it's generated a ton of good attention.

My guess, however, is it's invite only.

Nice work. I will appreciate, however,if the units are clearly stated. For static content, you are saying it costs between $250-$1000. Would this be the monthly cost for eight hour screening each day?

Hi Kishore,

While costs are going to vary from country to country and even city to city (here in the US, at least), those estimates were on a per-spot basis. So I would suggest allocating between $250 and $1,000 for each still image if you're outsourcing the work without some kind of contract.

If you have graphic design specialists in house, that would equate to between two and eight hours per finished piece of static content.

Hi Alex,

While I'm not familiar with FanDriveMedia, I do really like text messaging-based approaches. They're entirely opt-in (a must for a privacy nut like me), and they have near universal reach since almost everyone carries a mobile phone capable of sending and receiving text messages (whether they know how to do it or not is another matter, of course).

Plus, there are so many companies that can provide this service nowadays that it has become a commodity, which means more price and feature competition that the rest of us can take advantage of.

To answer the "good or bad" question, I think we have to look a little deeper into how the space is being sold. Are they selling in terms of a TV-style playlist, where you are buying specific time at specific venues, or is this more like a pre-buy commitment with the details to be filled in later based on other factors?

Ideally, NBC would be using the second approach, perhaps even leaving some prime space available for later sale through a bidding process. Marketers who buy a lot of space in the upfront would then get the first opportunity to bid on other inventory when it's made available.

Granted, I'm not really familiar with the upfront process in general, so perhaps this whole idea of flexible rates and commitments is impossible. But something tells me NBC is planning to innovate at least a little bit with their digital signage upfront, capitalizing on some of the unique aspects that the medium has to offer.

There's much to digest regarding NBC's up front. I'm going to waffle, 100 %, by saying that on the one hand, NBC wouldn't waste their time staging an up front if they didn't think digital signage was a viable advertising/consumer communications alternative to conventional media. Which is a good thing. On the other hand, you and others make viable points regarding the big boys, rather than the current players in the industry, dictating the future of the business.
It's the golden rule, isn't it: them that's got the gold, makes the rules. Unfortunately, if we can't sort it out, others will sort it out for us. Econ. 101.
You know my opinion: shoppers will tune out/ignore a steady parade of broadcast spots. Eventually, nobody watches and nobody wins.

I'm not sure what per-spot basis means in this case. What if the ad was part of a 2 minute loop of 12 different ads, so it is displayed every couple of minutes throughout the day for weeks at a time?
Also, how does pricing work if the ads are generic in nature (customer sells different brands of same product) versus doing ads for actual brand owners. I have a number of similar questions about pricing. Where else can i dig up info?

Hi Stephen,

By per-spot I literally mean per piece of content. In your example with 12 different ads, a spot would be a single ad, so an estimate of $250-1,000/spot would mean budgeting between $3,000 and $12,000 to create that single, 2-minute loop.

Getting your content partners to sell you a "package" of hours or deliverables can cut this cost down, as can in-housing the creation.

I'm not sure where else you can find budgeting information. The lack of this kind of info is one of the reasons we keep writing blog articles. But if you're most concerned about content production costs, I suggest you get in touch with a local creative studio or two -- there are always a couple of them in every town or city.

I am not sure if we've ever met but I have been to Wirespring briefings in the past. We ae getting asked more and more about the DS business and are starting to consider following it along with kiosks. The K industry seems to be split - some going after DS and others absolutely not. I agree that the market potential is bigger than kiosks will likely ever be.

That report is now 2 years old - are they publishing a new one anytime soon? Not that we'll buy it - those InfoTrends guys are (and always have been) VERY EXPENSIVE. Any market insight/potential you can share would be great.
Thanks,
Francie

It is not surprising that Tesco TV is facing challenges. In economies such as China, where noise, bright colors are accepted better than in UK, the use of sound in shops and buses has raised protests.

The second aspect that I find surprising is depending only on Instore Products (my understanding could be wrong here) advertisements.

Companies such as Q-Vision in Sweden (q-vision.se) have generated revenues for shops through the Check out line advertising to support instore promotion.

An hybrid model (revenue generation through advertising for external offers and POS advertising) would probably work much better for Tesco without sound.

With its recent digital out-of-home upfront, NBC has planted its flag in the sand that is the digital signage industry. While I don't believe that NBC had its upfront to reap any large financial reward, nor do I really think that they expected it to, but what they have done is become the first major media company to have an advertising sales upfront for digital out-of-home networks. And, sometimes, being the first matters more than doing it exactly the right way.

In my opinion, this article typifies the primary reason why NBC had the upfront to begin with...to generate exposure for its digital out-of-home assets and to be looked at as a forward thinker in this space by the media community at large. The press exposure that the event has garnered, from the likes of Ad Age, Adweek, Reuters, and the New York Times makes it successful for NBC...regardless of the amount of advertising revenue the event generated.

Hi Francie,

I know that InfoTrends and Frost & Sullivan almost appeared to be trading off each year (since both were on a two year cycle), but I haven't seen another report from InfoTrends recently. Personally, having seen the 2007 Frost report, it's hardly worth reading (I found at least three significant errors). iSuppli, on the other hand, has published some excellent research on the industry recently.

With regard to whether it's an easy area to expand to from the kiosk space, that's a tough call: digital signs have so many different forms and functions, and their success rates are so closely tied to the industries that they serve, which is quite different (imo) from self-service kiosks. On the other hand, from a project planning, logistics, and budgeting perspective, digital signage does look similar to kiosks.

Hi Shyam,

This article was published all the way back in 2006. In 2007, Tesco dropped JC Decaux in favor of Dunnhumby, a retail marketing specialist.

The network has been re-branded Tesco Screens, utilizes a completely new format, and is apparently quite successful now. You can read more about that conversion here

Pat: way to take a stand :) In all seriousness, you're absolutely right: whether or not there is a group out there who's more "qualified" to set the rules, NBC had both the means and the motive to do it themselves, and now they have, so everyone else will have to play second fiddle. Capitalism is brutal that way. On the other hand, there's certainly still plenty of room for others to participate, and I think there's plenty of room for other formats for ad buys as well. Just because NBC has taken this particular stand doesn't mean that others will have to as well.

David: I think you're right, and in particular, if you read some of the commentary at Adweek and MediaPost about the actual contents of the "upfront," it was more of a glorified sales pitch to see if NBC could convince a bunch of advertisers and media planners that their conglomeration of nine different networks (using different screens, different media formats, different content formats and different venue types) could be packaged up and sold like TV. As I mentioned in the blog post, it may be a while (if ever) before we find out how successful they were, but to your point, they made plenty of headlines trying it out.

please get back to me if you guys have an electronic billboard that can display 20 diffrent shots

I was impressed with your article. Thanks for putting it together. I've been involved in the "Narrowcasting" side of Digital Signage and know that a lot of what you conclude.

Google gets away from ownership rights by feeding up "customer chosen" content. With an adSense - like system to allow people to bid on the ads that run, say at an airport gate, they will also get around the ownership, royalty and residual snares that await.

Thanks again. I enjoyed reading it.

Tom O'Rourke
206-612-6006

Can you elaborate on the player hardware expense? For 1200$ you can get a very capable computer which you might not need. (especially after observing the hardware requirements of the FireCast OS)

Hi Tom,

Thanks for the kind words. In the 14 months since I wrote this article Google hasn't done much to advance their place in our little sector of the industry, though they're certainly moving aggressively into radio, TV and print advertising.

Per your comment, they'll have to walk a fine line if they ever expect to use user-generated content in advertising. While they could do as you say and side-step a lot of the responsibilities using a customer-chosen system, that approach would also limit the revenue potential of UGC, and that doesn't seem very Googlish given their insane command of the online advertising marketplace.

Hi Yigal,

First, keep in mind that the above estimate is based on a survey of the industry, and not necessarily what you would pay for our solution.

That having been said, $1,200 seems pretty fair when you consider that a) very bad things happen when using regular old commodity computers in unattended public spaces, b) the industrial- or military-hardened components that go into many of today's rugged media players are quite expensive, and c) you'll likely want to include other components like a power filter and Ethernet line filter in your hardware costs.

So while you can go to Dell and buy quite a powerful computer for $1,200, there's a good chance that out in the real world with no one attending to it it would fail in 18-24 months. A ruggedized media player, while perhaps a bit less powerful than a similarly-priced Dell, pays for itself in reliability and the need for fewer service calls.

i have a customer looking for ibm part# 4838-132 anyplace kiosk and also 4836-135 1pc each someone contact me 949-837-9000 x104

Here is a sample scenario of what I'm looking at:
I will target small franchise automotive stores.
Goal to sell 2 displays per store, one mounted behind the counter (something you'll look at while waiting!)and another strategically elsewhere.
Content on the counter display is to flag customers re: things on sale, frequently purchased items they may need, newly stocked items....things the store owner would want displayed.
Content on other display is brand specific, so sold to specific companies.
So....based on industry survey, it will cost me about $6750 for one installation and for second display I'll quess $2500 = $9250. I have a handle on content creation and costs. In general, in a small venue like this, what can I
charge the brand companies who advertise on the one display. And, what do I charge the store owner for ads on the counter display (estimate 15 second ads in both cases)? If you have ideas, fire away!

Hi Stephen,

We've done a lot of research on the subject and there's no right answer. Before even considering pricing, though, do you sell advertising now? If not, I urge you to read:

5 tips that can make or break your digital signage project,
Digital signage networks: Advertising-supported networks, and
Can digital signage be profitable for an AV reseller or VAR?

The first and most important truth that we've learned from watching hundreds of companies in this business is: if you haven't sold advertising before, your ad-supported digital signage project will likely fail. First remedy that problem by partnering with an ad sales group or hiring on a professional with lots of past experience and local connections.

That having been said, I recommend you take your starting number of $9,250, add in some amount for 2 years of operating expenses, double the entire amount (to account for your profits and the inescapable other fees and charges you'll certainly encounter along the way), divide by the number of ad slots that you will be providing, and use that as your starting number.

Also, just because you have a "handle on content creation costs", don't discount that number, and in fact count on it increasing as time goes on.

Good luck!

-Bill

Bill, do you know what sort of response vJive has gotten from advertisers on this pricing model? On the one hand, it seems like experienced media buyers might ask for everything to be re-stated in terms of CPM. But on the other hand, I can see them appreciating the transparency in the pricing and using that as a way to better gauge performance, i.e. ad buys with a higher SCQ should deliver a measurably higher return than those with a lower SCQ.

Unfortunately the only information I have is anecdotal - I know they raised a lot of VC money, and I know they've had at least some success selling advertising (I saw some of their screens while in India late last year). I'll see if I can get some additional details, or perhaps even reply to this comment themselves.

Brilliant article. This and the hundreds of other stuff on this site become Great encouragement for the medium.

Please keep up the good work!!!
Regards
Padmanabhan

Bill,
With the recent announcement of CBS Outernet partnering with RippleTV and just last week the announcement of SeeSaw Networks partnering with RippleTV-Value Added Resellers seem to be on the rise…Obviously these guys are trying to make life easier for Ad Agencies with huge marketing budgets, but how much potential is there really for them as VAR’s?

How big is the Market for Digital Signage Resellers like SeeSaw Networks and RippleTV? $20M, $50M, $100M?

Thanks,
Matthew

Matthew,

I'm pretty sure that none of the companies you mentioned will ever think of themselves as "VARs." CBS Outernet and RippleTV are both network owners. They put networks in, pay for them, and are then responsible for monetizing them. SeeSaw is a step even further removed - they don't get their hands dirty with capitalization or installation at all, they just manage available inventory and help networks to book more ad sales.

If you're asking about how much money these firms might be willing to put into the creation and management of ad-supported networks, my guess would be in the hundreds of millions of dollars. CBS's purchase of SignStorey goes $70M towards the first $100M, and there's certainly a lot more where that came from.

If you're asking about the total aggregate value of the space on all of these networks, that's a much tougher question, and I wouldn't even know where to begin guessing. But say there were a total of 50,000 screens in the "big" networks, each sold 10 advertising slots per month, and each had a 40% subscription rate (so 50,000 screens x 4 ads/month x 12 months/year). That would mean that the total size of the inventory was 2.4 million slots. Sell each slot for $10 and you're at a measly $24M. Sell each for $100 and you're at a pretty significant $240M. The truth probably lies somewhere in between.

Bill,
Thanks for the interesting information.
I am assuming the $24-240M sum is just the reselling part?
Can you please share your view on what is the breakdown per slot split between the reselling, network operator and network owner?

Thanks
Gil

Bill,
Thanks for the great feedback, and you are absolutely right, my VAR reference is far outside the scope of what these companies do. My apologies for the mis-interpretation.

Nonetheless, I was trying to ballpark how much money could be up-for-grabs in SeeSaw's model specifically.

Anyone who helps other companies sell their ad space must take a little off the top for their efforts, so I am wondering how big SeeSaw sees this space to be and what potentially they forecast their revenues to be after kicking back most to the provider.

-Matthew

Gil: Yes, my totally fabricated, make-believe $24-$240M range was for the value of the ad inventory only (including the service of running the spots, of course). To your question, it would be very difficult to come up with accurate estimates for a split between advertisers, venues and others as I've seen them divided up every which way to Sunday. Sometimes the venues and network companies split 50-50, sometimes 60-40, sometimes they involve other third parties that each take their percentage... there's no widely-accepted model that I know of.

Matthew: if you're a network owner, you could probably just ask them what they charge :) I'm not sure if they use a retainer model or a pure cost-per-placement, but I agree, they obviously intend to make money on every connection between advertiser and network owner.

Why don't network providers (who ostensibly hold much of the power to measure) offer a "menu" of typical measurable items? In other words, have a customizable list(s) of what the agency/advertiser might like to measure and let digital media networks finally move towards the user-driven type of media they keep touting? Whatever the choice(s) of what measurements are to be made, reasonable costs can/should be associated with such choices.

If, as in the article, clients such as Unilever "know" that the most important metric on a given product rollout is "recall", they should be willing to pay well for that type of option associated with those network(s) on which they are rolling their product out. Of course, this "menu" of services must have sensible limits of what types of measurements are offered...

Why keep on searching for a holy grail (i.e., the "right" kind of digital signage metric) which will likely end up being (at least somewhat) different for each client?

Tim,

I think the fundamental concept of what you propose is valid, but in my experience (working with a number of networks), I don't think a standardized a'la carte menu will work on any reasonable scale for two reasons:

First, it's the advertiser, not the network provider, that indicates which metric is important. In other words, just because a network provider can measure the number of engaged views (or whatever), that doesn't mean the advertiser will find it valuable.

Second, companies like Unilever "know" simply because they've been working at it for a long time -- decades, in their case. But that doesn't mean that they necessarily have a complete understanding of every new product rollout, or that there isn't something new for even them to learn.

I agree that there is no holy grail, and we certainly shouldn't be searching for one. But the point of today's post is that all too often companies get stuck on the idea of measuring something -- anything -- without first figuring out what they want to measure, why they want to measure it, and most importantly, how much that measurement is worth to them.

I really appreciate your blogs and the valuable information they provide. Our company has approx. 275 locations that we maintain and sell advertising for. You are correct, and like you, we are trying to come up with the magic tool to measure effectiveness. We find if we try to translate the advertisements directly in to increased sales for the advertiser - it will be difficult. We focus instead on impressions per minute and "branding". Now if you could only provide me with good sales people!!!!
Thank you.

I agree with Jill. Bottom line, sometimes a sign is just a sign (albeit it is multimedia) and we are selling impressions. The multimedia dimension adds value, it is eye catching, superior to flat art and can be enriched with sound and updated remotely. All monitors should be equipped with a motion detector capable of recording a fairly good representation of traffic. We have just begun tapping on the media's potential. It is stronger when it is networked, it is stronger when it is tactile (customer surveys anyone?) it is even stronger when it is positioned in terms of demographics. I'm getting sidetracked sorry. My point is that yes we can use traditional metrics but we have to find a way of value adding specific media qualities to a given campaign. This media, as anyone in front of a demo will see, is superior to print in delivering eye catching, longer lasting and adaptable impressions.

Hi guys. We have a previous experience on classic media and POP. I mean that metrics of TV,radio etc for decades are not really counting effectiness but potential reaches and the target was awarness. Now how exactly that is mirrored in sales lift is a magic spell all advertisers keep as a secret ( since nobody ever gave a good explanation). Or outdoor...advertisers count the traffic data to help themselves decide where to put their money (this is really a joke if you ask me).
Therefor I want to say that our medium is really effective and we should give advertisers to understand that is an all new thing and should be measured like that. I believe personally that a new metric should be invented .

Jill: thanks for bringing some additional perspective from the field. However, "impressions per minute" seems a little confusing to me. I can understand selling "minutes of content" since there's a limited supply of screen time and I can understand selling "number of impressions" since that's the most basic (meaningful) number to measure, but what's the added benefit of doing both at once? More importantly, what does that metric actually indicate to the advertiser? (maybe I'm just being dense).

François: I agree that, "the multimedia dimension adds value, it is eye catching, superior to flat art and can be enriched with sound and updated remotely", and those are certainly the selling points that most network providers are pushing these days -- they're the most tangible, obvious, and available. Measurement, though, is becoming more important, and while it isn't going to make any of those other points less important, we need to have a good argument for what measurements to use, and how to value them. You seem to favor an impression-based metric as the most valuable -- and that may be correct -- but that's still a long way off from being able to say how much the ability to measure is actually worth, and (separately) what each impression is worth.

Akis: Any suggestion for what the new metric should be? :)

Bill:

You are, of course, correct that the advertiser holds its own "key" metric(s). More basically, what I tried to suggest above is that the whole process advertiser-agency-network move towards more conscious collaboration. This is where (as you put it) the "a la carte" menu may become useful - it would suggest at the outset of the advertiser-agency-network relationship that the advertiser should also be thinking about various ways it might ask questions as the "menu" evolves over time...

There are big differences between the academic reasons for using in-store media or digital signage and the practical reasons.

Twelve years ago, if your competitors were on the Internet, you had to be on the Internet. I'm sure that 100 years ago if your competitors were selling via telephone, you had to sell by telephone.

The same is true today. If your competitors are out there catching additional eyeballs, you'd better get in the game, or at least understand the game, so you can enter when the academic reasons become clear.

Tim: More collaboration between the parties would definitely help out a lot! And who knows, maybe NBC's recent digital signage upfront is a sign that that's finally coming about. But I think we're still far away from having an accepted menu of measurements and related services that all networks can agree to implement, and all advertisers will agree are useful/valuable :)

Tony: There's no question (in my mind, at least) that marketing at retail is valuable. But what do you think is the added value of measurement, and/or what are the relative values of each kind of measurement and each method of measurement? Those are the big questions now.

Bill,
I think this is growing, including my own at www.kiosk-blog.com and I think the guys at Networld Alliance have some blogs on kiosks. Mine is sometimes critiques of kiosks I see deployed and sometimes just on various related topics or marketing ideas.

I hope to see you at the upcoming digital signage expo in Feb. 2008, where we will be providing interactive signage content for DTResearch and part of their booth (shameless plug, really). Please look me up there or at KioskCom in April where we will have our own booth. I'd love to discuss industry topics with you.

Of course we are all assuming that "traditional" measurement is exact and that advertisers get their money's worth. This is inexact but agencies, clients and broadcasters all abide by the same white lie for lack of a better method of evaluation.

The Internet is much more precise and agencies and clients have heavily started to move money to these new metrics. Digital signage will explore various ways of measuring until it finds a consensus between the media, the clients and the networks. The industry has to find its white lie.

I don't have much experience with success criteria for advertising based networks. But I imagine the principal is the same as measuring efficacy for POP/Visual Merchandising projects.

1. Agree with the stakeholders on the success criteria. We have lots of retail clients that define it as lift in sales, but they have very different ideas about what methodology is most reliable. Let's say it's a matched panel test (test and control stores, normalized based on historical year over year and leading months sales data).

2. Run the test to determine a sales lift and correlate that sales lift to store traffic, or department traffic, or interactions, or whatever metric you have for your display impressions. Now you have a ratio of impressions to incremental sales dollars.

3. Test your average sales lift vs store traffic, for all the panels against the same ratio for each store (to determine the standard deviation).

4. If you have an acceptably low deviation, then you can now use the ratio to extrapolate the likely sales lift in any store where you deploy the experience. If the deviation is high, then you need to increase your sample size.

5. Retest periodically to keep your ratio's accurate.

I do a case study at some of the industry events where we walk through a very detailed matched panel evaluation for a branded interactive Levi's display inside of Sears and JC Penny stores. It used 5 panels of 6 store each, to predict sales lift in over 600 stores.

Hi Bill,

I would like to know more on how the performance matrix of a DS server and a DS player is been measure?
What is the industrial standard or practice to do this kind of performance benchmarking?

Thanks in advance for time in looking into this.

Regards,
HJ

can i get a brouchure for Electronic billboard(indoor/outdoors)and their price list.

Best regards
David

Hi HJ,

I'm not exactly sure what you mean here. In-store digital signage networks are usually talked about either in terms of "screens" or "channels." We like to explain that one channel of content is essentially one unique stream of content -- no matter how many screens it may be distributed to in each store. To that end, most commonly there is one player for each channel of content per store. These days, though, multi-channel players are becoming more common.

When you say "server" I immediately think of an intermediary server that must be placed at each site, to serve as a gateway between the actual players and some kind of centralized management system. While these devices were common a few years ago, technological and networking advances have all but made them obsolete these days.

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Hi François: The industry has to find its white lie. - I love that line. Cynical, maybe a bit sarcastic, but so true! I agree, there's some kind of implicit agreement that all parties have to enter into. The terms are still up in the air.

Jason: Thanks for that great break down. We've had customers take very similar approaches for digital media, so I'd say that the core methodology is interchangeable for static POP and digital out-of-home. When it comes down to it, it's hard to beat a well-controlled split test experiment, especially when you already have the means to translate results from a small sample into predictions for a larger group.

can u tell me anythin abt shopper marketing model in telecom industry...

I have an agreement to install 800 screens at out-of-home locations where young adults frequent. Now I am trying to find a vendor that will provide in-house financing for hardware, software and the cost of installation for a start-up. Any recommendations

We are launching a Denver based Digital Media Co.
We will be placing 1 screen, 22-25", in C-store, gas stations and we are looking for the best solution to begin this project and help implement. Video and static? We will quickly expand to several hundred locations within the first year. Any ideas on vendors that can help eliminate headaches, and/or probs.?

Luker 303-428-6300 office
cell 303-960-9060

We are launching a Denver based Digital Media Co.
We will be placing 1 screen, 22-25", in C-store, gas stations and we are looking for the best solution to begin this project and help implement. Video and static? We will quickly expand to several hundred locations within the first year. Any ideas on vendors that can help eliminate headaches, and/or probs.? Whats the avg. cost per location?

Luker 303-428-6300 office
cell 303-960-9060

I'm doing a report on the total integrated marketing industry.. Do you have an estimate $$
as to how much $ are spent a year on digital signage ? espond please to russbowman@byram.com Thanks very much RB

Hi Russ,

The most recent market statistics I've seen (YE 2007) have been these from eMarketer that were later rehashed by MediaPost to be a bit more readable. They put the total market size in 2007 at around $1.3B, and PQ Media estimates that about $300M of that was spent on advertising.

Good luck!

Maurice: I know there are a few firms out there that will do system leasing for startups in our space (CDW has done it before, I believe), but with no cash flows, etc. it sounds like you might need a small equity financing round to get started first.

Luker: I'd stand by the estimates above, though obviously a 22" screen is going to only cost a few hundred bucks, so there will be some savings there. Additionally, for a lightweight panel you'd only need a 1-man install crew, so there might be additional savings there as well. My advice would be to get 10-12 screens out as quickly as possible. Nobody can make a decision based on a single screen, whereas a small network will teach you a lot more about how you'll need to operate your business and give you a MUCH better idea of the infrastructure you'll need to have in place as you get ready to scale. Just be sure to keep at least 12 months worth of extra operating funds in the bank -- it'll take that long, trust me :)

Luker:

I stand by the estimates that we made in our budgeting article (where I just posted this same answer to your other comment), though obviously a 22" screen is going to only cost a few hundred bucks, so there will be some savings there. Additionally, for a lightweight panel you'd only need a 1-man install crew, so there might be additional savings there as well. My advice would be to get 10-12 screens out as quickly as possible. Nobody can make a decision based on a single screen, whereas a small network will teach you a lot more about how you'll need to operate your business and give you a MUCH better idea of the infrastructure you'll need to have in place as you get ready to scale. Just be sure to keep at least 12 months worth of extra operating funds in the bank -- it'll take that long, trust me :)

Hi Navjot,

What kind of telecom are you talking about? If you're thinking of retail wireless stores, the practices are similar to any other retail environment -- especially consumer electronics where other complex, big-ticket goods are sold. If you're talking about B2B or industrial telecom, I don't know the first thing about those markets :)

If you're new to shopper marketing, I definitely recommend you check out the HUB's section on the subject. Lots of experts chime in there all the time.

If you get good sales people that understand how the medium works, they can sell it without delivering tons of hard data to the advertiser and in most cases the advertiser will get their own ways to measure it without us having to give them that info (focus groups, shopping trips, sales behavior, etc) because better than anyone, the advertiser knows what and how they want to measure a medium and it varies from advertiser to advertiser. Like someone here said, not everyone measures the same thing.

I'm not saying that Hard Data is worthless, I'm just saying that this is a new medium still in diapers having a hard time to grow and that I don't think that the use of the most advanced hardware and software to measure it will make advertisers turn to Digital Signage as we all want.

Even if you get lots of numbers and hard data obtained from the most advanced gear on measuring audiences you will always need a good sales person that can use that information to sell a new medium like this.

I think it depends more on how well a sales person does its job rather than how many money you invest in technology to convince anyone that the medium works.

I also think that it's more important than anything to train the advertisers on how to use, buy and measure Digital Signage because the concept is so broad that sometimes they don't buy it because they don't understand it and they go for the safest way... they buy traditional media.

Clients will most likely pay for measurement information (their own). Of course you need some basis for your rates card and it is expressed in impressions, exposure and frequency. A third party offering an "objective" measure acceptable by all parties (a norm eventually?) could get away with reasonable rates split among clients and media owners. $10 per site a year sounds like an upper limit to me.

Your articles are very thoughtful Bill. Keep it up. Thanks for your insights.

Measure exposure on a digital sign? Is that important?

Bill Gerba has written in the past about differences on CPM cost of traditional vs. digital media. So it would seem that this is important if you are an agency buyer. But maybe not if you are hawking space sales on a narrowcast network in bars in doctors offices. For thoses, let's not make it too accountable.

But what about direct marketing feedback? I've noticed Wal-Mart doing this in the check out line as you swipe your credit card and sign the small touch screen LCD display. They can ask did you like questions or will you questions or how was your shopping experience questions.

What if we did this on a larger LCD display at POD(Point of Decision) on iDS (interactive Digital Signage). Would this have value to CPG marketers or media agencies? How would this relate to ROI? Would this change the media from a pay for exposure model to pay by response one?

I would also like to know if anyone else is exploring this or has it been deployed in a digital signage or kiosk platform?

Hi François,

Have you found that "clients will most likely pay for measurement information (their own)"? It goes back to a comment that Axel left on a past article about whether measurement even really matters. He suggests, like you, that "in most cases the advertiser will get their own ways to measure it without us having to give them that info (focus groups, shopping trips, sales behavior, etc)" He should know, I guess, since he runs Wal-Mart's digital signage operation in Mexico, and definitely has to deal with his fair share of advertisers.

I certainly won't dispute that they're having success down there, and that numerous new companies are successfully selling ad spots in the US. In fact, that's the whole point of the "does measurement matter" article. My question in this post, though, is that considering that this point won't die (look at every other medium - measurement is becoming increasingly more important, not less), so is it in our best interest to settle for one or a few known performance metrics. If so, what's it really "worth" to advertisers?

Hey Axel: Do you think that's likely to remain the case, or will advertisers become more demanding as other media continue to refine their own built-in measurement capabilities? Will P&G, for example, continue paying to advertise in-store once TV-on-demand can deliver their ads to a super-targeted audience and give them immediate and accurate feedback? What about mobile and Internet advertising, with their ability to establish one-on-one connections? (I don't have an answer, just playing devil's advocate :)

Neil: "it would seem that this is important if you are an agency buyer. But maybe not if you are hawking space sales on a narrowcast network in bars in doctors offices. For thoses, let's not make it too accountable." I definitely get the feeling that this has been the unofficial motto of the industry, and for purposes of growth and establishing the medium, I don't disagree with it (hell, I'm a free market capitalist -- I say if you can sell it, it must be worth something to the buyer, right?) As the small guys (a) try to grow, (b) get bought or merged, and/or (c) try to sign up new and bigger advertisers, I expect there to be more emphasis put on measurable results, though.

I think it will remain to be the case.

When you talk about measuring TV-on-demand, this concept uses more or less the same measuring way that broadcast TV does, so it's easy to measure... rating. (and rating is soooo subjective but nobody questions it)

When you talk about Out-of-Home you can go from a screen in a toilet to a Las Vegas strip digital billboard so I don't see how anyone will be able to develop a way to measure it in general when every product depending on where you are advertising it will end up needing it's own measuring system.

Trying to make myself clear here, let's take your example with P&G. If they happen to get in their marketing plan for 2009 "Digital Signage" as another row in their excel spreadsheet next to advertising on TV, Billboards, Magazine, etc. What would they want to measure to prove that their investment was worthwhile????

On TV they get ratings, on magazines they get circulation, on billboards they get traffic/impacts and in Digital Signage what do they get?? better yet... what do we offer when we sell the medium???

So first you need to establish Digital Signage's placement. Is it going to be on a Store??.. ok, then what does P&G wants to measure there??? Visitors, tickets issued, people passing by the screens, units sold... what??? And what do they want to obtain from advertising in the store... brand recall, sales lifts??? what???

And also what kind of advertisement spot will you create??? Is it for a promotion, for a traditional product with only brand presence, or is for the introduction of a new product... another big "what" in the equation.

There are simply so many variables that I don't think a single measuring system can deliver the Hard Data the advertiser will want to see or the Hard Data that will pour budgets on our networks.

That's why the SALES PERSON it's the most important link in the chain. He or she has to convince the advertiser that the network works for more reasons that only for it's Hard Data result

Great device ! Always found it hard to look at shelves myself.

Hi Sophie,

Yeah, the Shopping Buddy was definitely ahead of its time back in 2004... From what I understand, there were some technological and logistical issues that prevented these devices from getting picked up in any kind of quantity, but today there are a couple of companies trying to capitalize on the same idea. Perhaps the most well known is MediaCart, which kind of merges together many kiosk and digital signage ideas into a shopping cart computer format.

These findings are really interesting. Prior to this, I had never even thought of the concept of multi-modal learning.

Nice article.

Unotech media
Web design nigeria

Hi Dolapo,

Multi-modal learning is pretty well accepted, especially in early/primary education. Extending these known and well-understood concepts to out-of-home media and interactive tools makes sense, since they can aid in both comprehension and recall, two critical areas for marketers and consumers alike.

In the ad agency world, we use a great example of the need for simplicity. It goes like this:

Toss a person 5 ping pong balls, and it's likely they won't catch any. But toss them 1, and it's almost always caught.

Great advice for any communication...including blogs.

O so right !!! "clean and simple" or "KISS" !
But how often the customer (advertiser) pushes to get more (much more) into his ad ?

Mike: That's a great anecdote. I'll have to start using it :)

Hendrik: Well, if your customers are like mine, they'll push hard, and they'll push often. But results are what counts. Get them to give on one or two spots where you think simplicity will make the most difference, and then let the numbers speak for themselves.

Bill
Interesting Blog. The cost per screen seems prohibitive. Clearly, network owners must be worried about the cost per instance of LCD. Do people use video splitters. I have heard about products from Minicom etc which provide those solutions. Ofcourse by using video splitters, we loose the ability to schedule to individual screens but that seems like valid compromise if you dont want to pay for $1500 $500 for player and software. I would be interested to get your take on it.
Mike

Hi Mike:

First, this article is pretty old - we update it every year. Here's a link to 2007's version.

Second, capital costs are considerable, but coming down. Also, many companies have technological or financial ways of making multiple screens per venue more affordable, so that cuts down on the price a bit. But of course, if you're installing more screens you'll still need to pay for more hardware (screens, mounts, cables), and installations, which is something that can't really be avoided.

We personally recommend you only add additional channels in a venue when they're actually going to add value. While running lots of different content pieces at once can be impressive and give you additional ad inventory to sell (if that's your game), it can be overwhelming to the viewer and venue if not well done and well thought out.

Thank you for sharing this information freely. It has been a tremendous help in my decision to not move forward with an idea that I had. You made some very valid points that have confirmed some of my fears about starting up this kind of business.

scook: Far be it from me to discourage an entrepreneur, but it does seem that a lot of people are jumping on the digital signage bandwagon without really knowing what they're getting themselves into. I'd never, ever say "no, you can't do this" to anyone. But the trends above have been observed over the past several years, and hundreds of newly-minted networks, so I'm pretty confident they're accurate.

You might also want to check out our article on 5 crucial steps that can make or break your digital signage project

Bill, if I had a nickel for everytime I had to explain to a client about the simplicity rule, I wouldn't be working today, but rather surfing somewhere.

When producing Blockbuster TV, we would get some promotional spots from their in-house department and it was like reading a bill in Congress.

While advertising overall should be used to tweak the interest of viewers, when it is inside a retail environment, the idea that we always put forth was tweak their interest so they would engage a store associate to ask more.

We also tested this idea via control tests, with some stores getting the over-information spots while others more simple ones. I'll let you and your readers figure out which ones worked better.

Gary: great advice, and you're absolutely right: you can't use the same content everywhere and expect consistent results. That's one of the key challenges to effective content production in our industry.

it was like reading a bill in Congress I love that. So basically it's not only long-winded and unintuitive, but also over-engineered, under-tested and generally useless.

Couldn't agree with you more. Another aspect that has been overlooked is the tightening of financial criteria. It is going to be harder to finance new business ventures, given the consequences of the sub-prime write offs. Less availability of funds might impact the emerging digital signage industry negatively. It might hamper innovations and risky ventures. This is the most damaging side effect of a slowing economy, the thinning of creativity.

Yup, money is money, and lines of credit are definitely becoming both more difficult to get and more expensive. One wonders whether debt or equity capital is going to play a bigger role in digital signage projects that can't be funded out-of-pocket.

On the one hand, there are plenty of networks out there that have some success and could potentially sway VCs to give them (on the aggregate) hundreds of millions of dollars for expansion -- especially if they point at the big Chinese firms trading on the Nasdaq and say "see, that could be us too!"

On the other hand, though, projects coming down the pipeline of big companies (like major retail chains, banks, etc.) aren't a good fit for private equity, which basically leaves either paying cash or using some kind of debt financing.

Either way, with less money available, big projects will become harder to finance, more expensive, or, quite possibly, both.

Axel: I agree with you. At the end of the day it all boils down to the ability of the sales person. You can have all types of data, and if the decision maker for signing the placement budget isn't emotionally sold on the idea, you're going to have a hard time getting the money.

Because I've experienced talking to and completely convincing advertisers to place in our venues with NO data or measurments. I simply was able to paint a strong and clear enough picture in their heads that they understood the value of placing In-store.

What we offer is the future of advertising in many ways (at least i believe it is). But it is still new, and I find that most advertisers or agencies are still very clueless to how to effectively use In-store advertising. But of course, they would never want to admit that. So, instead of saying "Hey I have no idea how to effectively use this new media, can you help me?", they just place their money on what they know and feel like an expert on, ie. Trad media. And I don't blame them. So it goes back to the sales person to feed them with the ideas, the vision, and the knowledge needed for them to present In-store advertising to their bosses without looking like a fool, so the budgets get approved.

what are your thoughts on teh scope of shopper marketing in a cuttered telecom multi brand outlets in india?

The 'worst slump in a decade' hit the advertising industry back in 2001 and hit the outdoor folks particularly hard. Many people in this 'vertical' believe that it actually also slowed down the adoption of non-traditional posters etc. - scrollers as well as digital billboards. Strange thing at the moment is that it is these High Impact / Outdoor folks who are many ways start to lead the race in digital.

In terms of the retail vertical I think times have changed and the retailers challenge is all about online - retailers have been slow to wake up to the fact that they ALL need to transform the high street in order to attract custom. For far too long retailers have offered poor pricing alternatives in a shoddy high street package. I think we are starting to see high street retailers realise they need to invest - better looking, more accomodating, more 'theatre' like retail experiences - all of that is good for the signage and kiosk industries.

Bill,

In regards to your question about the LED lifetime, the 11 year statement were if they were running at full white capacity (full power) for those entire 11 years. However, yes, you would be able to dim the display whenever necessary, which would save more on electricity than it would on diode lifetime. Also, the colder the diodes run, whether it be by fan or by the outdoor weather, the longer the diodes will last. LEDs love the cold. They hate humidity and heat.

Best regards to all...
Jon Bryant

Hi! We currently installed an electronic billboard and on our part it is a risky venture since we are unfamiliar with its industry. We are engaged in property development and we barely know so much about electronic signages.

I will appreciate it if anybody can shed light and give me information that will help me market our screen.

Ours is 16 mm pitch, tri-color bulb LED.
Approximately 1.8x2.3 meters.

I would also like to know if there is a software within the LED's system that can show us advertising airtime. And if it's not built in, where can we find a software that could help us with the airtime tracking.

Thank you so much.

We had invested to an electronic billboard just recently and we are having a hard time marketing it since its not within our industry-property development.

Most of the prospective advertisers will only take advantage of the trial period and after that, they are good as gone.

Even the higher-ups are not that adept with this, that's why they cannot shed some light to me regarding this matter.

I'm trying to find answers and guides if any to help me with such constraints.

Thank you so much for hearing me out.

Testing out the comment system.

Testing again

It's all about targets isn't it? Demographics and reach. We also have to distinguish branding from promo. Once all this is clear, picking the right media is much easier. Not all products or companies lend themselves to a TV campaing. Not all alternative brands and products should remain in alternative media. Look at Red Bull go. Look at the innovation of Nike.
All the research seem to predict the fall of television as we know it. I feel it is just fragmenting itself and getting more accurate in its reach. I also feel it should put its best foot forward---"live programming". Since it is in direct competition with the Internet, we might as well call things the way they are. Imagine how much it would cost to broadcast the SuperBowl on the Internet? Now consider this on smaller scales and TV is still the best "live" media for years to come thanks to bandwidth limitations. 151 million Americans watched a billion videos in the month of December 2007 on the Internet. Are we close to saturation? Media compete and balancing the available moneys is what it's all about. Alternative media are definitely on the rise but the inherent qualities of traditional media will act as key differentiators in the long run.

so how much does one unit costs then?

Hi Toni,

When you start talking about only doing one, the costs tend to go up since there are no economies of scale. Figure the cost is about 25% higher for everything listed in our most recent pricing guide (here's the 2007 one), except for installation/project management component which would have to be handled by a local supplier (versus a nationwide company), who might charge a little, or a lot, depending on what other services he does for you.

Francois, I agree with your view that traditional continues to have benefits that new/alternative/different lack, and of course we all expect to have to share just a piece of the whole advertising pie. However, as long as these new media present challenges that make them less attractive to buyers/planners, we have to offer more than just an "alternative" to traditional buys.

That's why Lafley's suggestion that 1 1 can equal 3, and the new stuff can not only stand on its own but actually improve the traditional stuff, is so important.

This is a gross simplification of the main market challenges, but maybe they'll help point you in the right direction:

If you're trying to score national advertisers like Coca-Cola or P&G, you're going to need to have a significant presence in the top 10 DMAs, maybe 20. Less than that and I'd be surprised if they were even willing to do a free trial with you.

For local/regional advertisers, a CPM or OTS is a nice baseline, but most are actually looking for real results (think newspaper classifieds or Craigslist listings). Thus I don't recommend basing your whole argument/sales pitch around how great a CPM you're offering. Figure out a way to track the benefit of the sign, and use that as the main driver in your pitch.

Finally, never ever give ad slots away for free, except if you have to do make-goods, or are giving a gift to a very good customer. Trials should always be paid. I'd recommend first trying to stick with your baseline price but offer the ad for a longer term (e.g. if you normally charge $1000/spot/month, make the introductory offer $1000/spot for 2 months), and only with heavy pressure consider dropping your prices. You're screen real estate is valuable, make sure your potential customers appreciate that (and agree with it) before you let them sign up.

Bill,
I agree with you on several key points about the show, the schedule of seminars could be improved. And yes, after about 1.25 days of being in Las Vegas, I am over it! So plastic and everyone is looking to get your tourist dollar out of your pocket.

The show was huge this year and there were ten of each kind of vendor (at least), but a few stand out tools and items. I liked the remote book signing tool which combined video conferencing with a robotic hand to allow an author to do a book signing from his office! I also liked the facial recognition software to track who is looking at signage. I think they are not 100% accurate but do a decent job of getting numbers that are close.

And I liked the models and gimicks that vendors used to draw attention to themselves. Tradeshows are great for that.

We will be exhibiting at KioskCom Vegas in April at Mandalay Bay conference center. It should be a huge show, and this year they have a digital signage show too... imagine that. Everyone wants to include digital signage.

Bill. I totally agree with you on the part where you mention about the timing.

Last year in Chicago, I wasn't able to finish my presentation because I was the last one from three presenters and I only got around 10 minutes for me and they rushed every one out of the room because the next session was starting.

This year in LV again with one hour sessions and almost another hour until the next, it would've be great that they let us share our experiences with those interested what we can say if the room wasn't going to be used and people were interested, after all, they paid a great deal of money to hear us and help this industry grow.

Anyhow, if anyone here reading needs more info on the session we gave, and exactly on what I said, please contact me. averad@televisa.com.mx

Axel

Vegas is becoming a cliche as it could be if you had it in NY but wherever you have it there will be pros and cons. 10 years ago we could have had the show in a phonebox but as Digital Signage grows so to the size of these shows grows.

All: thanks for the input. Having every show in Vegas is definitely one of my pet peeves, though I of course do recognize that there are pros and cons for everywhere else (though the POPAI and Strategy Institute NYC conferences in mid-fall during Advertising Week are hard to beat, IMO).

Tim: I liked the book signing app too, though I wonder if it'll really be practical. After all, one of the reasons I go to booksignings is to actually meet the author. If I wanted to see his/her face on video, I could do that on the web, from home. There's certainly a gimmick to seeing the robotic hand sign your book, and of course there's the potential for great interaction, Q&A, etc., but that could be an example of an application that winds up taking away from the customer experience instead of building upon it.

Bill
Yes, Las Vegas is bizarre, surreal, pick your adjective. It's a dry cleaner's dream. Didn't all of us immediately dump our convention clothes at the neighborhood dry cleaner to get rid of the smell of smoke?
But there's something to be said for the show being held in a city that knows how to put on a show. In Vegas, the airport is close, there are cabs, buses, monorails, etc. for easy transportation, the convention center is user friendly (save for the overcrowded Starbucks and cafeteria), there are thousands of hotel rooms and judging by the number of cranes in the skyline, they are building thousands more.
Plus, there's digital signage everywhere. That huge sign outside of Wynn's with the animated/mechanical "wipe" was worth the trip alone.
I had no desire to stay another minute but 2-3 days in Las Vegas, once a year, is fine and I hope the show stays there.

Pat: Excellent points, well taken. I think I wouldn't mind it so much if I weren't:

(a) there too damned often, and
(b) less jaded :)

Like you said, though, it's clearly a well thought-out place to have such a show.

With all the attention being paid to national advertisers, media buyers, ad agencies, and the model for digital out of home, who is addressing the local sales model?

Hi Brian,

For the most part the local model is still primarily being addressed by in-house sales teams and other local ad sales teams (e.g. for the local newspaper, etc.). There are a couple of companies, notably Ripple TV, who are trying to scale the local model up through technology and partnerships, as well as a few startups on the horizon offering technological solutions to link local advertisers to local networks, kind of like how SeeSaw Networks aggregates digital signage installations to simplify national ad buys.

For the most part, though, this segment of the market remains under-served, in my opinion.

hello

The shopping buddy is a good initial idea but how long will it take before we are invaded by advertisements on these small screens. I think that this is one of the things we should fear about it.
Even if their first intention is good, competition between stores will lead to an escalation in possibilities of help offered, and such a good opportunity to touch people won't be spared by advertisers.
In the end, the main losers will be consumers because it is so easy to become dependent and so difficult to free himself from his dependence. It’s another step to mollycoddling.

Hello Bill Gerba

First, the shopping buddy is a good idea on several points because it is a real time-saving device and it is easy, speed and practical.
However, it represents important limits. Indeed, the automated checkout and the high-tech cart elimate each time, more jobs.
Besides, we wonder how far the technology will lead us? The society is automating and human contacts are decreasing.
To finish, we can be afraid of the advertising which will spread on screens of shopping carts.

Hello

On the one hand, the shopping buddy is a device very useful for many people as: it's convenient and easy. It helps you in your shopping by showing you what in the aisle is in your list, what you bought in the past and what's on sale so that you can save money.
What's more there is a map in the device which show you where to find the products you are looking for.
Then the shopping buddy told you how much you have spent so you can handle your spending.

But on the other hand, the shopping buddy can be an important issue of unemployement first of all. The shopping budy eliminates the need of check-out, cashiers, baggers...
Trade Unions are scared as it cuts thousands of jobs.
Then, with this device, you can be tracked over all the supermarket. It knows what you buy, what you bought, where you are and where you go. It is a kind of infringement on privacy.

Despite that the shopping buddy is a way for business who can't compete on price, to compete on way of shopping for consumers.

Hello,

Even if the shopping buddy is a device made to attract customers and to make them buy more, I still think it also could be useful for customers.

First it could simplify your shopping, when you don't know where to find the items.
Besides, it allows you to order what you want and go and pick it at the Deli counter, without having to queue.

Hello,

On the one hand, I think that the shopping buddy is a good thing because il allows people to save time in the aisles and at the checkout.

But on the second hand,I think that it's a bad thing because this high-technology cut jobs and it tries to substitute for human contact.

To finish, the shopping buddy is can invade people with the advertising.

I think that shopping buddy is a good idea because we can earn time and there is more chance that we don't forget anything when we do our shopping. The fact that it also give you new recipies when you don't have any ideas of what you can buy is also interesting.
However i think that it is not very easy to use for some people as old peolple.
If we start in this way, i think that everything is going to be automatic like automatic checkout and it will take out a lot of jobs.
It makes people dependant of the technologie as well and so, people feel like they can't do anything by themself. SO my mind about this idea of shopping buddy is mixed.

Hi,

first the shopping buddy is a useful innovation,in a sens where it expedites the consumer's life.
But one element who seems to me like perverse is the fact that stores wants the customer to buy more and more. Thus at first,he buys serenely, without thinking to the bad side of the device.It can become a trap. He only sees the practical side.
And it's an recent trend, when will complaints appear ??..

Hello,
Actually I think that a shopping buddy is very useful even if it implies some trouble.
We can take the example of poor familys or young people who need to plan their spendings.

Some people criticize the fact that a shopping buddy is like a Big Brother , but technology is not that bad. Big Brother have advantages in terms of security and a shopping buddy have advantages in terms of convenience . Nowadays winners are those who ease the citizens lives and who make people gain more time, everybody knows that in our society time is money or, better said, time is pleasure

The question is : Are those advantages pertinent in front of all the annoyances all of you have described.

I'll echo everyone's sentiments about not enjoying Las Vegas; but as an exhibitor I have to say I prefer it to other common trade show cities due to cost. The problem is that with all the expenses for exhibiting going up and up every year, Las Vegas is a comparative bargain. I had about 20 rooms at the show that I paid $60/night for, versus the $200/night I’ll pay for a similar amount of rooms in Chicago next week. Airfare to Vegas is cheaper, Union rules in Las Vegas allow me to use more of my own setup labor than I can do in Chicago, etc… All told a similar tradeshow presence in Chicago probably costs me $30K-$40K more than in Las Vegas.

I also agree with Bill that the conference scheduling and spacing was a bit odd. I spoke on a panel and it seemed we stayed in the room longer than 30 minutes after the scheduled conclusion and weren’t chased out, so hopefully Bill’s experience was an anomaly. As an exhibitor, I hate it when an event has a great conference schedule that overlaps the exhibit hours. I’d rather see a smaller amount of exhibit hours with no counter scheduling, maybe it’s a 3 day show with conferences from 9 to 11 and 4:30 to 6, and make attendees walk through the tradeshow floor to get to the on-site restaurant. What’s driving me crazy at the moment is all these trade shows popping up in the space. DSE announced a second show this year! So now just in the U.S. you have DSEx2, KioskComx2, Global Shop, At-Retail Media, Infocom, In-Store Marketing Expo, and more that I’m sure I’ve forgotten about (and as a retail only guy, I don’t even have to attend the advertising oriented ones). Oh and while your attending all those shows be sure to join the 6 different trade orgs! It’s just diluting the attendance. I’m frankly eager to see some of these shows fail, so that we can all make more serious efforts to support 1 or 2 events a year.

Hey folks with French-sounding names? Why the sudden burst of interest in a 3-year-old blog article about a product that never went anywhere?

It's not that I don't appreciate the attention, I just don't understand the reason for it :)

Sophie BONFILS
Lyon
France

Dear Bill Gerba,

I'm an English teacher from France, and I have requested my students to post comments on your blog as part of a final assignment on the topic of new technologies in the world of distribution.
You can see their assignment on my website, where I also took the liberty to copy part of your blog page:
http://sofilip.free.fr/video/distribution/shoppingtech.html

I want to apologize for not asking you permission to do so beforehand, and for any inconvenience to you .

(.../...)

I had found your page useful as it gave us a personal opinion and more insight into the qualities of that device.

If it's all right with you, may I ask something: the assignment is due for this friday, in two days' time: would it be ok to leave the comments till then so the group can have a look at them ?

Thank you very much in advance if you can support our little elearning experience.

By the way, I was sorry to read that the shopping buddy is totally outdated, since we spent a whole week on the subject !

Best regards,

As an end user of the technologies I'd say it was a great show. I do agree with Bill though about the timing of seminars. I really enjoyed hearing from the speakers, but the most insightful times were when the audience was allowed to interact with the panel; that was when we had opportunity to actually hear from peers about what they were doing, what real life business concerns they had, etc. There was no need to rush us out of the seminars like happened a couple of times.

Dear Mr.Gerba,
The article you have posted has thrown light into experiencial media vechile which is in developmental stages in India.It is in the intial stages of its life cycle and it will take some time to players to settle down with right programme mix and revenue module.
The vast knowledge and the dedication put across with defining the minutes of the details that has been highlighted in your article.I truly believe in sharing of knowledge brings in taking a step further.
Regards,

hello,
As for me the device is very useful when i think about time we will save by using it. Indeed, shopping will not be a chore anymore because customers will know exactly what there is in their shopping list, where items are in the outlet.It doesn't still exist in France and i think it's a pity.

But, there are several drawbacks which lead me to criticize it. For instance, it will cut jobs, the human contact with vendors will disappear and it confirms that today we are invaded by technological items.

Hello Bill,

I find your article very interesting because it deals with a new system that it can be change our practices in the supermarkets.

Unfortunately, I don’t think that all the people can be able to use it, that’s why I’m totally agree with you.

Second problem, it’s unimaginable to keep shopping carts outside, it an expensive product and it could be stolen.

In spite of those problems, I think that this shopping cart could run but not in shopping centre, just in small stores because in shopping centre, the products are constantly moved what can involve errors.

I regret to read that the project was cancelled, but I’m sure, with their imagination they will create an other products more revolutionist than the shopping buddy, you never know…

Hello Bill,

i think the shopping buddy is just one of the devices we're going to see appear these next years. It is a new generation of devices that are more close to the consumer, a supplementary assistance.

On the first hand, it's kind of a useful device ! It permits you to know where the items you're looking for are, it remembers what you bought, it helps you with the prices, and the total. It will help us doing what we are made to, consuming.

But, on the second hand, it encroaches a little more on the private life of people, keeping in the data base the personal information which will be re-used by some companies. Furthermore, the screen will certainly allow soon to broadcast advertisingpublicity, to encourage people to consume.

That's why my mind is shared, between curiosity and fear, as we are more and more watched out. I think we have to use this devices, but it should be there just to help us, and not being there in order to make us consume. But they couldn't have developped this device without the IBM's useful help.

So, i hope that it will not infringe on our private life, and that we shall manage to consider this object as a help, and not as an incitement to consume always more.

Love the flash and high energy of Las Vegas, but hate the smokey environment! How about more re the key exhibitors?

Hello,

The concept of shopping buddy is kind of interesting and quite a good idea. The problem of collecting personal data on customers is not new and this shopping cart cannot be hold responsible for this phenomenon.
According to me this device is less efficient than traditional advertising.

Anyway I'm staying skeptical: I really do not believe it is so time-saving. Some people are still in trouble with using any kind of computer...

Jason: Glad you found it worthwhile, both as an exhibitor and a speaker. Apparently Shane (above) found that, like me, the sessions were cut short at inopportune times. Such is the nature of trade shows, I suppose. You also make a good point about doing the show in Vegas - it will remain a personal gripe for me, but from a business perspective it makes a lot of sense.

I also agree with your opinion that these new shows, seminars and "organizations" that are seemingly coming out of the woodwork may do us all more harm than good. I'd love to have a single show, set of conferences, and governing body/industry association and be done with the rest!

Zensufi: There are lots of sites (including Digital Signage Today and the Minicom blog) that have show reviews that focused on the exhibitors. Since I only spent a total of about a half hour on the show floor, I don't really have much to comment on about it.

Thanks very much for the positive feedback! This article is nearly 3 years old now, but still one of the most popular in terms of new readers, so clearly there are a lot of people out there who are still trying to figure out how they can make their networks profitable.

Hello class!

Overall it seems that you like the concept of the Shopping Buddy, though there are still a few skeptics among you.

While there are some new enterprises (notably MediaCart) still trying to make this idea work, IBM found that the practical and logistical issues (like batteries, maintenance and reliability) were almost as hard to deal with as the fact that shoppers simply didn't use the devices.

Now you're a bunch of young folks, I'm sure, and perhaps the technology is more appealing to you, but I'll ask you -- if the Shopping Buddy (or something similar) was available in all of the Carrefour stores today, would you bother using it?

Hello,
Shopping buddy could be a great idea if we look far and away.
I believe consumers purchase often in the same supermarket so why do they need to know with shopping buddy where items are??
On my view, it's more time-consuming(to send the list by internet) than learn where are the items lay out and it doesn't build customer loyalty(we can shop everywhere and we'll never be lost).
So i don't arrived to imagine that this product could have a huge impact !!!

Can we use flash video in your content management software ?What other forms. ?

Hi Bill,
This is the first time we are corresonding after meeting you in Bombay.

Very interesting subject of your blog and very timely as we are in the process of setting up multi channel network for a client. The only criterion I belive in setting up a multi channel network is -

1. Clients' need - as derived by you, the expert
2. ROI - in terms of ad dollars.

Regards,
Abhijit

Hi Abhijit,

Of course you're right - the ROI of the thing is what really counts, and adding channels can definitely improve the potential for a bigger payout later on. Critically, though, it shouldn't be done at the expense of keeping sufficient working capital on hand to actually make the network run over the next 6, 9 or 12 months. Considering that so many networks run out of gas before ever getting anywhere near profitable, my advice is always going to err toward the conservative side unless a) there's plenty of money on hand to do the buildout AND run it, and b) the management team can make an effective case for why more is better.

Hi Ruben,

Sure, FireCast supports Flash, HTML, GIF, JPG, PNG, MPEG-1,2,4 (and MP3 audio, of course), as well as lots of AVI and MOV formats, WMV9, and probably a dozen other "minor" formats. I've passed your info along to our sales support guys should you need any additional help.

Hello, First of all, I think the shopping buddy makes an evolution in the traditional shopping. It's a good idea but we should mistrust in those technologies. It's useful because we can find our product very easily and it reduce our queuetime.The issue is that, in the big supermakets, items are moved every week, so it's going to be hard to follow for the device. To finish this device it's expensive and could be stolen when costumers go back to their car.

I'll certainly echo the sentiment that when in doubt... choose fewer messages. I'm willing to bet the serial position effect is greatest on lists of 1 item :) It's especially true when you consider the POPAI MARI data that found: "This translates into a shopper being exposed to 1.5 pieces of marketing at retail material every second, then looking at and engaging with an individual display every 4.3 seconds." In that kind of environment you just don't have time to spam the audience with a lot of secondary value propositions. I ask my designers to assume they are designing/writing for a billboard that will be viewed at highway speeds. Of course the real beauty of dynamic content is that we have the opportunity to tailor the message for different consumers and try to hit each one with the one "right" value proposition.

Hi, I want to purchase an Electronic Billboard, how much does it cost

I totally agree, less is more in the digital signage industry. I'm curious what experience that others have had with getting an advertiser to trim their messages and focus on just the most important ones? Trying to talk them into less wording, is usually the start of each new ad (or at least with new advertisers). Most seem to feel cheated if I don't dump all the crap from a print ad into their digital ad. I usually ask that they try to read all the information they want in the ad, in the time that it's set to run. If they can't read it all, then they need more time or less words. Even if they can read it, it does nothing for retention. Any advise on effective methods to counter this? Seems like the advertisers need to be educated before the designers, but of course that's not going to happen.

Effie, I find the easiest way to condition advertisers is during the initial sales pitch. Some clients are easier to convince and work with than others, but that's how it is with everything else. In trying to convince the client this is a better way to advertise, it's important to stress the fact that this is not TV, even though that's the delivery method. Once they give you their ad that they run on TV or print, they've already set their expectations about how much effort they need to put into honing their message (read: none). One of the most important things to impart to the client is the fact that the designer and the advertiser share the same goals; when they're successful, you are too, and it works both ways.

I think Jason's example of a roadside billboard is also a great way to hone both your pitch to potential advertisers and your request to designers. The notion of driving past a billboard at 55 MPH is such a good analogue -- everyone has done it, and when you explain it to someone, (s)he'll immediately understand that there are a hundred other things that must be paid attention to, the billboard being one of the least important. Bottom line: if the text/message reads well in a billboard-esque format, it will probably work well on a digital sign. Starting with that, you can then work on the content's visual design using all of the flexibility and functionality that a digital medium gives you.

I thought it wouldnt harm to mention that we at KT also have a blog site, it covers industry news which is maybe a little more off the beaten track then the normal high light stories other people carry. Link to Blog www.kioskterminals.blogspot.com

I'D LIKE AN INFORMATION REGARDING THE BILBORD SIZE AND PRICE OF EACH BILBORD. I'D LIKE ALL THE INFORMATION WEATHER THERE NEW OR USED ONE. GET BACK TO ME ON THE E-MAIL ABOVE.

Dear Mr Gerba, I am a marketer from South Africa and would like get in direct contact with you via e-mail would this be possible.

I work for a property management company for shopping centers in China. We are interested in putting up LED-screens at the exterior of our malls. Are there companies that arrange everything from installing the led-screen to selling to advertisement space? Can anybody recommend and companies?

Our company has a plan for in-store digital signage which we will be investing all costs. We offered 15% of all revenue generated by the ad sales to the retail chain whom we are negotiating with and they are asking for 20%. What do you think is a fair share? We also asked for 10 year term but they offered 5 year term. What is the reasonable term of agreement with venues?

Hi Folks, Just to clarify one thing - WireSpring doesn't make or sell LED billboards -- we're a software company To everyone asking for pricing information, you're welcome to contact our sales folks (sales@wirespring.com) who can point you in the right direction. Leaving RFQs in this thread probably won't get answered, though.

Evergreen Digital Media is a brand-new media corp based out of Evergreen, Colorado USA. This information will help us in our quest to move forward and deploy our flat panel media screens in and around the Denver market. If there is any more fun and helpful info out there, feel free to send it to luke@c-fund.com Thanks! Keep an eye out for us!

Hi all, I reside in Toronto, Canada and would like to convert the traditional billboard on my property to LED. anyone know where i can obtain info on canadian laws regulating this industry? I've only started thinking about digital billboards after having read an article in INC magazine (March 2008 issue). this is all new for me and any info would be appreciated. Thx!!

All--I have a comment regarding key exhibitors...We need to proceed with standards and some player consolidation. This "category" is getting SOOO hard for customers to shop. I feel like I know this industry and its specifics pretty well, and yet, I found it very difficult to understand the role each player had in the full solution. I think we have way too many vendors that are trying to be all things to all people. It seemed to me like there were way too many vendors with a single important client that were convinced they were the next big thing. Seems like some industry consolidation is in order. And what about content? I didn't see more than one content provider. Is this now assumed the "come-along" with other solutions...a commodity of sorts? Would love your thoughts?

pls i need info on electronic billboards pricing and installation cost.the installation will be done in nigeria

I am doing a project for school and I was wondering how much it would be to have the program translated into four different languages, thinking that the customers come from almost all over the world. Thank you

what is the most popular lcd monitor that is currently being used in digital signage applications, i am considering purchasing (50) NEC lcd monitors 46" $2400 each.

There seemed to be an incredibly large number of companies offering players(at least 20, possibly more). That's a lot, considering that a player is merely a mini-pc in a small box. The players range from $300 to $2000 and most come with some type of content management software. It would be very nice if someone were to write an article to sort out all the differences, like a Buyers Guide to players and content management solutions with reviews; inclusion of a shootout would also be nice.

We have been selling local advertising from the get go. Our digital sign network in Weis Markets is actually making money. We have recently been writing on how its done. http://www.digitalretailsigns.com/2008/04/04/digital-sign-network-selling-local-advertising/

Joyce and Rebecca,

Yours is definitely a common complaint of the show, and it's one of the reasons we didn't exhibit. DS software is still a pretty complex undertaking, and there's simply no way to adequately explain if your product is the right one without getting a good understanding of a new sales prospect's needs. Ditto for players, which can be optimized for low-cost, high-flexibility, or some combination of the two, again depending on the client's needs.

There will probably be some degree of software consolidation (see BroadSign purchasing Navori and NetKey buying Webpavement, for example), but more than likely a good number of the current companies vying for marketshare will either change strategies or go out of business altogether.

We're also embarking on a pretty major project to forge industry standards for software interoperability, which means that the companies that remain will be able to focus their attention on their core differentiators instead of re-inventing the wheel for problems like content transfer and screen zoning, which will be part of a standard specification.

HTH, Bill

Hi Adrian, According to Frost & Sullivan in late 2007, NEC supposedly has 23.1% of the market, Sony 16.5%, Samsung 11.3%, Panasonic 8.5% and the remainder (40.6%) is handled by everyone else.

Does anybody know if this research is accurate? Is Summit Partners the only company that publishes on the kiosk market?

Bill, A great website that underscores your point is called I Love Typography: http://ilovetypography.com/ Here are John Boardley's comments about choosing type in general: 1. Choosing a typeface that fits; by that I mean choosing fonts that reflect the context and that bring added value to the message one is attempting to convey; 2. White space: As soon as you type or print a letter on a page, you are redefining the white or negative space. The more you type, the more this white space changes shape. Always, always pay to attention to the effect that your type has on the space that surrounds it. Leave room for the type to breath; 3. Hierarchy: Employing different weights, styles and sizes to express the relative importance of elements on the page. 4. Grid: using a grid to control typographic elements; even a poor design can often be improved a great deal, by simply aligning elements to a grid. It brings order and control to the page. Number 4 -- hierarchy -- does not mean switching to multiple font faces. Annie

Loads, actually. Shopper marketing is about studying shoppers and creating marketing stimuli based on that. How we tradionally find displays in multi-brand telecom stores isn't necessarily how shoppers shop there. Or take for example the accessory displays. So, study the shoppers and then create the store design. Work can be done around training the sales executives, again basis shopper behaviour. I work for a company that's into this. Check out our website www.in-store.in

Wow, I'm certainly going to have to blog about this one. Google is now squeezing their fingers into yet another form of advertising.

Dear Mr. Gerba, Thank you very much for your time and effort in writing the blogs about DSN. Aloha, Brian

Does anyone know the cost of a billboard in Tokyo both regular and electronic?

I wish Bank of America had learned this lesson. Their blue on red signs give me a "vibrating" headache.

Bill I have been in the advertsing business for more than 15 years, and there is still a great deal I dont know. My business was established to specifically assist business in their digital signage creative. My designers have spent 3 to 4 years at film school to learn what they know. I therefore have great difficulty in grasping why when it comes to instore digital POS, businesses are encouraged down a DIY route to content creation? Why not leave this to the professionals, no different to press, tv, internet and radio? Surely, having spent significant $ getting a prospect across the threshold, the last thing to do is confront them with badly made and ill conceived screen content! What a wasted opportunity! Advertsising is more art than science. How will digital signage be treated seriously as a medium when the bulk of content is home spun? Sorry Bill, but as a leading educator in the industry let's start to raise the standard and leave business owners to what they know best i.e. running their business! Regards Craig Burnard

Well @Craig, Bill is making very good points about an unspoken truth. The traditional advertising agencies and talents were brought up and educated on "print". Most corporate artwork guidelines are still for stationary and logo placement. Reflected light on a surface and emitted light behave almost oppositely when it comes to eye colour appreciation. While I agree with you that some "home made" generated ads can be damaging to a brand, I also think that a lot of creatives haven't grasped digital media potential just yet. Animation, surface, video effects all affect colour perception and we have just skimmed the surface of possibilities. Add 3-d rendering to the mix and the learning curve shatters 2 dimensional print designing...

While I agree with the above 2 comments, small business advertisers don't always want to pay or can't afford expensive creative when they aren't sure the medium will work. There are still going to be the home office people that do the work. By educating our smaller networks in proper design and layout Bill is helping the whole industry by ensuring that the product is at least somewhat presentable and doesn't get a bad name.

Hi Craig:

I certainly don't mean to suggest that there's no place for professional content development in our industry. In fact, I feel it's quite the opposite. The problems we have right now are along the lines of what Francois and Kevin have noted. There are very few agencies and creative shops out there with actual digital signage experience, and as my content articles have pointed out, it's a very different medium than TV, print, or even posters. Thus, the exceptionally well-produced, aesthetically pleasing, high production value stuff that comes out of shops today often doesn't work on screen -- or at the very least doesn't work well enough to justify its high costs.

Consequently, we see a lot of the small guys hiring one or two designers in-house, and spending the time and their own internal resources to figure out what does actually "work." Once they've developed their own secret formula, they're very hesitant to share with the world, which is why it has taken me so long to get this series of articles out :)

I certainly agree, to your point, that crappy spots can be damaging to a brand. However, even the little guys typically need to get their spots approved by the brands they're serving, so there's a built-in feedback loop that prevents the real dregs from seeping out. It's not perfect of course (there's plenty of crappy content out there to prove *that* point), but my feeling is that it prevents enough potential brand damage for that to have become a significant problem at this point.

I think we'll see more agencies and bona fide content creation houses get involved in the space as more of them wander in, get experienced, and start making a name for themselves in digital out-of-home. Likewise, as smaller networks band together to form larger ones, and as brands try to participate on these larger ones, there will be the opportunity for the bigger spends that are often required to go with professionally produced, high-end content.

Thanks Bill for compiling this information. As digital signage evolves we will clearly learn more about viewer perception and best practices and you've given us a great start. I find that in designing content for our signage networks the biggest hurdle is often getting corporations to acknowledge that our industry is indeed different. After all it's just a LCD screen it should be just like TV... right? The moment you can set a new design in front of them and show clearly the impact of high contrast, organic motion and simple low clutter design the light bulb goes on and the conversation becomes about how to adapt their messages to digital signage as opposed to how we can shoehorn their current assets into the new medium. In creating content I try to remember what I learned in my first year color theory class; cool, low saturation and low value colors work best for backgrounds. While warm, high saturation, high value color really draws the design element forward into space. Combining this idea with the combinations you've listed in this article has been very successful for me in the past.

For the print designer trying their hand at signage, there are good tips here. Designing for remote screens is challenging, many of the same reasons as it is for the web, kiosk and ATMs. In many cases, you don't know what the monitor looks like and the environment it's in. At driveups, there can be strong glare certain times of the day, etc. Increasing contrast and keeping font sizes up for legibility is crucial. Careful with red or white backgrounds, etc. I think Craig is alarmed by the idea this might be more of a tutorial for non-designers, which of course wouldn't be advisable. That's understandable since some of the design principals mentioned here are basic graphic design and not specific to digital signage.

Bill, When we started Doubleclick we did significant testing of creative to determine which combinations of color and graphics elicited the highest levels of response. We learned that the following elements will drive 300 -400% variations in response rates to a given advertisement:color;animation; and message. Message was, in fact, the least important factor. Color was first and the level and types of animation were second. As an example, an advertisement with exactly the same message and creative would generate up to 400% more clicks when a lime green background was placed on it instead of a red background, etc. SeeSaw is exploring how Internet learning will also apply to digital signage, as we feel that it possesses many of the same characteristics of the net. DS operates in active, cluttered environments (cluttered with people) and is a screen in search of an audience. The Internet is active and cluttered with motion and content, driving advertisers to continue to develop new ways to message that break through and produce an action from the viewer. I look forward to more of your commentaries and input from your readers as more information becomes available.

David: You're definitely not alone - content creation for this medium seems to be a challenge for lots of folks right now. Fortunately, enough time has passed to where the really obvious mistakes (e.g. simply re-playing TV commercials) are usually avoided. Lots more work to go still, of course!

Don: Of course there's no substitute for solid graphic design experience, so I think you're right -- somebody would have to already know about the basics of designing for another medium -- whether it be print, tv, the web, whatever -- to get the most out of it. That having been said, though, I'm hoping that even novices and non-designers will find these articles helpful at least for avoiding the most common mistakes.

Jeff: I was also surprised to find that more best practices from the web didn't work in the real world, and I suspect that it comes down to viewer attention. Banner ads on websites work because your viewer is already looking at the screen -- they wouldn't be on your website otherwise. Thus, even ads on a very cluttered screen have relatively unfettered access to the viewer. Contrast that with a retail store, on the other hand, where there is a large volume of space to navigate, multiple formats of promotional materials and mixed media (audio, video, and event scent and taste in supermarkets, etc.), additional noise and traffic from other patrons, and so on. There's simply too much for the viewer to devote any large amount of attention to. Thus, the "look at me!" approach that gets by on the web is filtered out by the viewer in-store (to some extent, at least). Thus, I think, whether or not a piece of content has impact has more to do with whether it's memorable than whether it can attract your eye from 200 feet away.

Bill, No disagreement but when I look at the Apple Ipod ads, either with of without motion, their color combinations tend to mirror exactly what we found to be effective on the net - hot yellows, lime green, hot pink, etc. And, I believe that they are some of, if not the most noticed and memorable in the OOH environment. This probably goes to to point that "one thing ain't enough". Possibly the overarching theme here is, in general, why should I pay attention to DOOH at all. I believe that, as the "formula" for DOOH starts to get a lot more cohesive, we'll all be discovering just how complex all of this really is but a roadmap just may appear to our combined benefit.

Can someone send me a link or let me know which states are the most lienient in terms of allowing LED billboards to be installed? Also If you sell LED's I would like to speak with you about buying one.. and eventually multiple boards. Thanks in advance. my email should be linked to my name above.. I'm in Austin, TX right now.

Can someone send me a link or let me know which states are the most lienient in terms of allowing LED billboards to be installed? Also If you sell LED's I would like to speak with you about buying one.. and eventually multiple boards. Thanks in advance. my email should be linked to my name above.. I'm in Austin, TX right now.

Hello Bill, Digram given by u is very easy to understand. By this anyone can understand about how DS can support them in their business. And it will also give help to those person who in doing marketing for DS. Thanks Gautam

Finally, the tip of the iceberg is showing ;). Motion is key and should not be approached on its own but as whole, in a script. Moving pictures are...movies. Now if you can get creative to think in terms of colour, shapes and motion, you've got yourself a scriptwriter. Once again, thanks for this series of articles Bill, I just wish that in the next ones, you provide moving examples or a digital signage best of! Cheers.

Can anyone help me with this task????? I have been assigned the task of locating information on Electronic Billboards. They are relatively new in my part of the world [Harrison, Ohio] and I need to become knowledgable in this field ASAP or [sooner]. What sizes do the come in and what is the cost per square inch, foot or whatever unit of measurement is used? Who programes the unit to display the messages and how is it accomplished? What legal "hoops" must I negoitiate to place a sign on my property advertizing my business or other businesses? Who makes these signs? Who installs and maintains them mechanically? What is the estimated "revenue" that can be generated from one sign per Month or Year? Send me an email if you know any of these answers. Thanks to all in advance.

I really enjoyed this post. Since everything I've read says that "content is King," I really think posting articles like this one are VERY beneficial and informative. Thanks again.

I would be in support of any of the following:

1. Anonymous (unidentified) path tracking

2. Anonymous (unidentified) gaze tracking without demographic profiling

3. Opt-in id-based path/gaze tracking as long as there is an easily-accessible opt-out method and frequent renewal notification.

However, I personally would never select option #3 for myself or my family, because I wouldn't trust the retailer with that depth of information about my habits (even though I'm ok with most -- but not all -- loyalty programs that actually track purchases).

How do you sell ads in a completely dynamic environment like this? That's a problem. Isn't it hard enough to convince media buyers to buy into digital signage? This can not be an easier sell. :-) I really only see this technology used for pilots to study traffic patterns in store to gather a statistically relevant sample size, for the demographic makeup of the audience. No personal invasion here. The information is used to improve your message, but not to the point of invading personal privacy. One exception is of course a kiosk application, which by definition is "opt in". No problems there.

From the content development point of view, this type of data can be very valuable and could lead to improved engagement. I am skeptical, however; that this data will be used properly or at all. I think there are many companies out there struggling to segment the data they already have gathered. So, I agree in saying that shopper gaze tracking works best for pilot studies and research. Either way, most people will agree that individual identities should remain completely anonymous.

I think tracking will be endorsed by consumers if it becomes a value to them and makes them save time and get the information they need faster. From the consumer's perspective, what value would tracking bring me? Time is the new currency and anything that allows me to save time will be a huge benefit. I believe this is the case for most people out there. Here is what I would like as a consumer: 1. Have the option to opt in or not to the system. 2. By opting in, I accept to be "tracked" but I also want the store to recognize my profile and offer me specials about things of interest to me. All this information would be stored in the system. I can be therefore be informed about products that I need, where to find them, and if they are available now. 3. As a consumer, I will feel safe if I know that there is some strict regulations about the use of tracking systems. This would require some kind of tracking police to make sure that information is used properly. In order to be successful, I think this has to be a 2-way deal. If consumers gain a lot by using such system, they will adhere to it. If stores use it according to strict regulations and do not abuse privacy, it will be successful.

Hi Bill, I suspect the privacy issue is more of a generational issue. The YouTube generation seems to thrive on video and accepts that video is everywhere. In any event, security issues will most likely continue to trump privacy issues. Take a look at the city of London after years of IRA bombings. Today you are being viewed by a camera everwhere in London. In the US I suspect IP video cameras will initially be embedded in digital signage in airports. The cost of digital analytics can be shared between the marketers and the surveillance folks. Airport security will serve as the "cover" for marketers to gather much sought after data. Once started it will become a competitve advantage that will make it a ubiquitous feature of digital signage...I think? Steve

Hi there! I need info about LED signs. Purchase price, software and advertising pricing. I am located in Floriduh!!! Collier County and Lee County. Can someone help? Thanks.

Examples would be nice. * Is there anything you'd like to add? Yes. Could you share your views on Outdoor’s new measurement called Eyes-On Audience. It will be available in the TAB Outdoor audience database. Also could you cover Bluetooth, Motion detector and cell phone audio linked to digital signage in a new series of articles? It would be greatly appreciated.

First of all, thank you for sharing the results of all your testing. We've been using digital signage for a few years now, but we haven't really gotten started on measuring the effect. It would be great to hear a little about how you do you testing. What techniques do you use? What are your experiences with qualitative vs. quantitative measurements? What are the pitfalls and things to look out for when setting up a test? In short: where do I start on the intimidating task testing the effect of our digital signage?

Pls someone send information on where to purchase led billboards and associated costs.
I am in nebraska.
tnx for reply.

Dear Bill,

First of all, Your post and publications are really useful.

My name is Szabolcs Botond I'm the leader of the Hungarian Digital Signage Association. IT would nice if we can contract directly to speak about some possible cooperations.

Regards,
Szabolcs Botond
szabolcs.botond@lightvision.hu

Nice to see an open discussion about 'Open Source' after having read Scala's knowledge base article. Your point about it taking 6 years to fix a leak also points out a problem with another article I read that said something like, 'If you find something annoying with Windows you just have to wait for the patch." Biggest reason I see against using Windows is every time I see our local Scala system on the local access channel reboot all buy itself. Mind you I usually just channel surf through the local origination channel but I've seen that Windows based system do an unscheduled reboot close to three times over a single weekend.

My reasoning for using Linux is why pay for something you can get for free...that works better. If you want to modify how software works in Linux you can use the powerful built in BASH shell to write simple scripts of your own design. Try writing your own scripts on a propriety system. I also like the remote capabilities of using SSH to run command line prompts remotely. Doesn't take near as long as waiting on a GUI to make a simple change.

As always, another great post by Bill Gerba.

We want a digital display system that allows multiple screens to display individual or selective content without installing many local players at one location - meaning, we need a software that will give us the ability to beam different content to each individual screen. Is it possible, or what software do we need? Rgds, Mutahi

I think I'd be able to count with my elbows the number of people who'd bother to opt in. Why is a camera and PC that's counting but not caching images, doing some demographic parsing, more sinister than some poor slobs with clipboards standing around in a store doing pretty much the same thing, but far less efficiently? Would shoppers get freaked out and accost these people, saying, "Hey, you can't note that I looked at a screen and that I am male and, well, heading over the hill!!!"

If gaze capture can cost-justifiably help to increase ad rates (through better measurement), while even helping advertisers to present more relevant objectives-achieving ads/content, then "gas peddle to the metal" on eye gaze. My review of several products is that they can do just that. Now are network operators (ad-based or internal) prepared to live to the reality of their viewership as they transition to a different media model? I think the transition is do-able. Everybody wins.

Dear Sir,
I would like to know what it will take to use your platform for Digital Signage in Buses for Africa and i would like to know we can work togther or prefer to sell the platform and other equipments for my company.We are eager in starting as soon as possible.

I tried it, I like it.

François, Anders: great ideas, both. We are doing a lot more work with interactivity and mobile-signage links, so I expect we'll do some articles on that in the future as we learn more. While I'm not too well versed on measurement for outdoor advertising right now, I expect that TAB's recent activity in the area is going to make a lot more data available for analysis, so perhaps we can study it in the future.

As for research methodology, that sounds like a great article idea as well. I'm looking forward to working on that one.

Steve: interesting point. I agree that "kids today..." don't seem very concerned about privacy as well, though confusingly lots of boomers don't really seem that concerned about it either. This is surprising considering how much media hype there is around identity theft, etc. these days, and how frequently some major company or government entity somehow loses or leaks out millions of pieces of personal information like credit card numbers or SSNs.

I don't really like the idea of increased surveillance in the first place, and I like the idea of using the acquired data for secondary purposes even less so. Still, I suspect that you'll probably wind up being right, and we'll be monitored every minute of the day in some form or another just because the majority of people will be OK with the idea.

Still, I think the notion of privacy and monitoring is an important one, so I'm going to continue being the stick in the mud for our industry :)

Nate: thanks for the kind words. Always nice to hear that people find our stuff useful!

Francois: I love the idea of a "digital signage best of", though getting permission to use content can be very tough sometimes. Still, I think it would be extremely useful to others to show some examples of all these best practices in use, so I'm going to have to put that on my to-do list :)

Gautam: Thanks for the kind words. As the article says, just being able to identify the goal or purpose of your project will bring you a long ways toward actually achieving it.

Jeff: The Apple Ipod ads/commercials make great use of what we call silhouette, or contrast in motion, and I expect they'd be almost as eye-catching if they were simply in black and white. I agree, of course, that color certainly adds a little extra something though.

I also think you're gut feeling is right - this stuff is far too complex to ever be formulaic. However, there are definitely some "best practices" that most -- if not all -- will be able to follow in order to improve the overall effectiveness of their content, and that's what I've been focusing on in these articles.

Office Depot is a total failure instore. They also have the WORST call centers in the world. Everytime I have to talk to those Phillipine outsource call center staff I cringe. What a waste of time. My business is slowly transferring to Staples and I'll be done with Office Depot in a few weeks.

Funny...

We actually started doing this in field last Friday for a major brand.

It is anonymous. There is no profiling. We will build that for our clients...

Look for more news about this soon.

As previously stated by of the cometators, this type of system normally operate without storing any footage while in operation. In addition most of the known automated in-store audience measurement vendors automatically mask the shoppers faces (even the entire scene can be masked, but with colour shapes to denote the position of male/ female viewer faces). "Most" camera based traffic counters look straight down also providing reasonable anonymity (again no data stored. There is a move however for CCTV Security companies to move into this area by adding this type of feature to CCTV systems that do record and are full intended to track, identify and record for later retrieval. This is where the opt in will be impossible, therefore it may be better that these solutions are limited to the single task if legislation is called for? Notwithstanding security cameras are pervasive already and any footage required could already be retrieved from security camera footage for review. By the way the next level is recognising the same face in different locations in the store (face matching) to see if the person that saw the add visited and interacted with the brand.

cameras, prying, intelligence gathering, privacy, video surveillance, anonymous, mask the shoppers faces......some of the words used frequently in the previous responses. What makes us think that consumers want to be subject to secret measuring gadgets that tap into their personal habits when all they want to do is buy a roll of toilet paper and get out of the store. One would think that measuring and increasing the "shoppers experience" can we done minus the violation.

High, I'm trying to establish what kind of revenue I could generate from an LED Unit... Does anyone know the rates that advertisers pay. In addition, does anyone know where I can purchase a reconditioned unit (any size) I have just started a small company and I want to purchase a board for West Africa.. Any info would be helpfull

A couple of additional points:
(1) Companies paying for ads say that measuring eyes-on-screen is better than measuring feet-passing-by. Correlating with sales-uplift is even better (and some methods for uplift correlation don't require gaze-tracking).
(2) Demographic tracking can improve the viewer experience (if done well) and without compromising anyone's privacy. This goes beyond the oft-told example of playing 'Centrum Silver' ads only to audiences with grey hair. Average demographics shift by day-of-week and time-of-day. Eventually, in-store advertising content will track the shifting demographics (e.g. fewer young people buying groceries in the middle of the day - but many in the store during evenings). Additionally, keeping track of which people-attributes correlate with attention paid to particular ads can also provide valuable feedback for ad-content improvement, particularly within already-identified demographic shifts.

Cameras everywhere are now a fact of life, driven primarily by safety, security and lawbreaking. So, I don't believe that we will see rampant objections to the technology as long as those who do raise the red flag are given a rational logic supporting their use.

I do, however, have more than a few doubts as to the efficacy of this technology on a standalone basis. It can certainly become a useful data point among others in the quest to develop the "currency" that digital signage will eventually trade in, but a lot of supporting and correlational data will also have to be generated as well to complete the picture. And, as Harry Nielsen wrote, it may actually generate the greatest value by providing information supporting audience day parting, creative testing and content management.

There are 2 books that I would add to Bill's summer readings:

Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done by Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan

What Your Customers Want You to Know by Ram Charan

I'd like to add Jim Clemmer's Moose on the Table: A Novel Approach to Communications @ Work.

It's all about getting teams to work more effectively by addressing issues like email overload and bully bosses.

Ah, it looks like Himani is a Ram Charan fan, eh? ;) I have to admit that he's a very smart guy, but for some reason I've never been able to get into his books. Not to say they're not good or anything -- they're just not for me.

Aidan: I haven't come across Clemmer's book before. I'll have to check it out.

Thanks for the suggestions!

Any LED sales people who want to make a sale, give me a call and I'll buy a digital board from you. Anyone who wants to sell a site for a billboard either a lease/permitted site undeveloped or an existing site which already has a sign in place (we have private equity investors and can close things fast)... Interested in anything and everything to do with digital billboards/ LED boards all over the United States. Thanks very much i can be reached at blake@apexoutdoormedia.com

I really liked "The Advertised Mind" by Erik Du Plessis of Millward Brown. He shows pretty conclusively that response to advertising is directly tied to the likeability of the creative execution and that the medium itself is merely a vehicle for communication.

Interested in finding out what the cost would be for hardware with lets say 26 inch NEC monitor per application. Are the ads sent down by ftp. Monitor, mount bracket, medial player what else. Our application already has the network in place.

I think it is worth to try. it is coming soon.

Spot on, all comments very valid....I head up In Store media for South Africa's biggest retailer, Pick n Pay and am in the process of investing huge sums of money behind in store digital TV....My big 4 challenges:
1. Get the right scale, brand want numbers.
2. Measure the results effectively, only way to convince the brand guys.
3. Content, Content,Content....This is the holy grail, get it right and volumes swing...
4. Credibility - If we as big retailers want to take on the big media boys and run these channels internally....we need to seriously get all our ducks in a row....

interested to interact further.....

The NAB book is the hottest thing I have seen hit the digital sign business. Its what our company has been waiting for.

Like any other form of in-store marketing, this kind of approach gets its influence from the fact that the marketing event takes place so close to where the purchase decision is made, and typically even closer to where the physical product is located.

While useful, though, I'm definitely concerned about the visual clutter aspect. People are remarkably good at "tuning out" information they deem to be irrelevant, and I'd have to guess that lots of competing, annoying -- MOVING -- ads in a retail store would be prime targets to ignore. Making sure the information is actually useful and timely goes a long way towards preventing this from happening, but I still suspect that proxemic marketing proponents will continue to run into "clean store" enthusiasts for some time to come.

I'm looking for 4838-135 anyplace kiosk or its mainboard FRU:42J2725 or 57P4178

Like I said, it's hard to argue with results like Pat's, especially since he spent so long at the helm of one of the most progressive in-store marketers out there. However, I think Pat and his team may secretly have been doing more "science" than they thought (and a quick word about that: I'm definitely not a scientist. Heck, my bachelor's in Anthropology doesn't even qualify me as a social scientist). If you ever read Malcom Gladwell's book Blink: The power of thinking without thinking, he suggests that we have some special cognitive ability that lets us rapidly make insightful decisions within a few seconds of encountering a problem. He uses examples like art dealers who are immediately able to spot forgeries -- even really good ones -- and longtime tennis pros who can tell if a serve will go in our out before it has been hit. Gladwell speculates that our special cognition is based on some equally special power of observation. In reality, what's really happening is that these people have all built up expertise in their fields after years, and often many decades, of practice. That tennis coach probably knows a serve will be out because he has seen the motion a million times, and is subconsciously picking up on visual cues.

This is almost certainly what the designers at Nike experienced too. Years of design work and exposure to "good" creative subconsciously taught them the "right" way to do things. Did Nike's pieces always use sans-serif, or the optimal contrast palette? No, certainly not. But then, their mandate was always "make the store look cool," not necessarily "hock our latest shoe." And besides, the best practices we talked about will certainly be used in conjunction with good aesthetic design -- very few will be willing to settle for ugly creative, even if there's the possibility that it will perform slightly better.

Design is everything. Look at the targets first though. Then look at the design for them. Nike's ad campaigns were so well executed. Over and over again. I think Pat's phone should ring quickly and often.

I'd be curious to know how age is applied to font sizes and art design... Do ad agencies ever give consideration to that ever growing phenomena of aging population in the Western world? Look at the grey hair heads around you and their spending power...

hi all. i'd like to install an electronic/led billboard on our property, does anyone know of cost,installation,and maintenance on these thing's and are there any company's in northern california who carry these product's? thanks kon.

"In the formative days of Nike, research and metrics were never as important as instinct and passion."

Instinct and Passion - I think Pat hit the nail on the head. People by on emotion for the most part. Yes I agree there is a lot of research that goes into finding what trips that emotional trigger to get someone to part with their hard earned cash. Now with digital signage clients want metrics. Digital signage is new and as such there really isn't much in the way of measured response........... yet.

I think at this point we should take Nike's age old advice and "Just Do It!"

Imagine where our world would be if all our choices were made based on research and metrics. I dare say we would not be anywhere near where we are as a society without gut instinct and passion.

Dear Bill,

There's something I miss in the main part of such analisys which is the connection cost. According my own calculations, the cost of deploying and running an ADSL-based network is often the main cost chapter in this kind of projects, even higher than displays or PC's in a two-years-long scenario.

What's your feeling about that?

Thanks a mill,
EAF

Dear Bill, a very informative article. In todays digital signage system there are two type one is PC based and other is embed card system. The cost of the PC based system software and hardware maybe the same as your figure total of 25%, but with embed one the cost could be lower.
Cybersys is using the embed one, do you have some information in regarding embed VS PC based ?

thanks

Dear Bill,
What a terrific article. It is exactly in line with the education we have been doing for the past 4 or 5 years as well. I want to commend both you and iSupply for pointing out the infrastructure of a digital signage project in terms of both elements and people. As I mentioned - we present the chart slightly differently - but it contains all of the same elements and people. Its is amazing how similar our messages are.

We also took a look at cost of ownership over time as it relates to player placement and recently published a white paper on the subject- "Cost Ramifications of Player Placement in Digital Signage Networks". Folks considering deployment of digital signage networks should take a hard look at maintenance and service costs when players are placed 10 feet off the ground at the screen.

We obviously promote our CAT5 cable distribution and extension systems and find that they are significantly less expensive to install than other cabling or non-cabling solutions.

Keep up the good work. For information on our blog - please visit http://minicom.blogspot.com
Thanks.
Dave H. - Minicom

EAF: That's certainly a good point, though I've noticed over the last 2-3 years at least that there has been an increasing trend toward using existing lines whenever possible. Obviously this wouldn't work in an outdoor environment or probably even in shared spaces like mall concourses, but many of the retail, government, education and even health care projects that we've worked on recently have been driven internally (e.g. by the venues), who either have sufficient excess capacity to handle the bandwidth load, or else haven't bothered to tell us that they had to run new lines to support the signs.

Steven: I have noticed an increase in the number/types of appliances on the market, but have not heard of many notable projects that actually use them. Consequently, they didn't figure into my estimates, which are largely based on our competitive survey of the market and inputs from people actively working on and/or running existing networks. I'm sure that there would be a way to lower costs using an embedded platform, though it might come at the hidden cost of losing some flexibility or feature that might otherwise have improved the network.

Dave: Thanks for the positive feedback. I noted the whitepaper (which was admittedly pretty good) back in April over at Digital Signage News, and I agree that it often does make a lot of sense to use video over CAT5 to keep the players in a back room. I think our mutual customer, Wal-Mart Mexico, agrees as well :)

Hi RME: I'll have to pick that book up, since it seems to fly in the face of our own research which suggests that creative likeability doesn't count anywhere near as much as visibility when it comes to in-store digital signage.

Mary Anne: The NAB book is on my list as well. At this point, though, I'm starting to notice a lot of overlap between that one, the Jimmy Schaeffler one and the Laura Davis-Taylor one. I guess there's only so much that can be said, right?

François and Eric: Yeah, design, passion, excitement, etc., etc. It's absolutely critical, provided that your goal is experiential. After all, if your content looks terrible, it's not going to do anything to improve the in-store experience, is it?

However -- and I have a lot of data backing me up on this -- it comes in second place to visibility, readability and straightforwardness when your goal is to transmit a specific message, and have a viewer understand and (hopefully) remember that message.

I still maintain, as I noted in my comment above, that a lot of the "gut" and "instinct" that translates into well-designed content comes from people who already know what "works" in a particular environment and are just subconsciously making lots of decisions that impact the overall quality of the content during the design process.

Nice article but surely 'digital signage' is the technology not the media, so am hard pressed to see how it can be the 'third leg' of a media stool

Indeed there are already a number of industry standard classifications - the US centric 'Marketing at Retail' for one example

See also http://www.dailydooh.com/archives/356

Hi Adrian,

I know you're a stickler for this one, but I have to (continue to) disagree. We're using the POPAI standard definition for digital signage, which clearly indicates that it is a "network of digital displays that are centrally managed and addressable for targeted information, entertainment, merchandising and advertising." Clearly the network part of things qualifies digital signage as the medium itself, not just the tech behind it. Otherwise, what you're saying would be equivalent to saying that televisions are not the medium, just the technology. And by "medium" I'm thinking of something along the lines of dictionary.com's definition, which is, "one of the means or channels of general communication, information, or entertainment in society."

When I think "medium" I think the means, not the message.

Bill,

I agree with your assessments. Basically it comes down to common sense fundamentals. A movie can have great action, special effects, but if the story(writing) is poor, it will never meet expectations and leave the viewer wanting more. Digital Signage is not about the newest display or player platform, it has to be about accomplishing the required goal/objective and most of the time, which has to do with content. 2D digital signage has become irrelevant due to repurposing media assets rather than recreating target messaging to meet goals. Time is well spent defining the goals and objectives of the project and then spend the rest of the time developing the content. The technology piece is rather insignificant in the design of a successful signage project.

Very nice article! I am impressed to hear this tone of dialog from an advertising company like SeeSaw. As recent times indicate the proliferation of digital signage into the retail market is hampered by metrics and the lack of enthusiasm by the ad agencies that work for major retailers. I think when ad agencies realize the benefit of digital signage and incorporate it into the strategic mix of technology and message for their customers than and only then can the digital signage industry realize its potential with retail. Maybe the retail industry can learn from their counterparts in Europe where digital signage has been embraced as the media for the 21st century.

BTW, I am sorry to hear that our friends at the dailydooh have such a narrow view of the potential of digital signage. Digital signage is more than a technology, it is anew media.

Yes! The digital signage world gets us industry folks very excited, but I think that's just because we are so deeply committed to the industry. I’m just not convinced the consumers see it our way. Jeff describes DS as the third leg of the media stool, along with TV and the internet. However, the article later alludes to the fact that DS is competing with a fourth leg: mobile media. Since TV, the internet, and mobile media have already proliferated into daily life of the masses, it is hardly a competition at all. DS is way behind the other three types of media.

It is quite optimistic to say that DS is even on the verge of becoming a mass media. The general public has hardly accepted it as a media at all. Consumers are passionate about watching TV, surfing the internet, and making sure they have the latest mobile phone. I have yet to see any of my friends talk about a digital sign they way they blog on the internet, gossip about last night's reality TV show, or rave about the new ring tone they downloaded.

I take the dooh side on this one. Right now DS is merely a technology. DS can only be considered mass media once the general public embraces and uses it as a medium in their daily lives. DS is a ways off from influencing pop culture, consumer behavior, and social interaction the way other media types do. It just seems to be missing some things that the other media types possess. It doesn’t have the ability to stimulate the same kind of human interaction.

It always surprises, and even disappoints me to hear DS companies trying to divide themselves from the kiosk crowd. The www has set the new standard, and has successfully defined new emerging media as being interactive. Even television has made successful strides to become interactive and on-demand. DS needs to accept interactivity as a necessary component to engagement.

Advertising is an essential part of mass media. I respect SeeSaw as a network aggregator, and for the extensive work they have put into their studies of "life pattern marketing". I just think we need to be more sensitive of consumer engagement. It feels like a large portion of the industry is out there to please advertisers and media buyers through standards, metrics, and measurement. Take Google as an successful example of a company that uses and ad-based model. Google develops powerful tools for the end user, thereby gaining usage and loyalty, and as a result they make a boatload on advertising. I hope the big box DS companies begin to understand why this model is so darn effective.

The companies who can make the most impact are not preaching hardware and software (BTW...these guys aren’t media, they’re just technology). It is the companies like Nanonation, Loca Moda, Accuweather and Fourwinds Interactive, among others, who can take digital signage beyond loud advertising, and deliver value to both consumers and brands. We need to get away from the mentality that we must become leaders and separate our industry from these other media types. It is dangerous and arrogant to think that DS can jump in front, and lead a pack that includes MySpace, the iPhone, and Tivo (plus the newly released MS Surface). Personally, I’d rather follow sucessful examples.

Great points as always Bill. And I'd like to add my support against advertising-based networks being the chosen leaders in this industry. I almost wish we'd stop using the word advertising in relation to digital signage and start thinking about it as communications--it seems that anything advertising is beginning to carry a somewhat negative impression and I hate to pigeon hole us with it.

A point James Bickers made in the newest edition of Retail Customer Experience mag comes to mind. He was sharing that he took his 5 year old shopping at Wal-Mart and he said, "Daddy, how come there's TV but they only play commercials?" Touche.

You make a good point, Bil, that too many companies think "parts" rather than people. I'm still looking for examples of good digital signage systmes for my "usability hall of fame"...

Completely agree with Larry and Laura's comments. I've always talked about the two most important elements (IMHO) for a network. The content and the merchandising of the network. I think almost everyone (or almost everyone) these days understands that If the monitors are 20 feet above people's heads, or the network tries to encompass a huge footprint, then they're going to have a tough time.

But I'd like to comment on the content part a bit. Great content is a process, which starts with a creative strategy, then conceptualizing ideas on that strategy, which should involve a lot of brainstorming and vital feedback before moving to the execution phase of producing the end content. I've seen some of these vitals parts skipped, with a rush to go right to the execution, and again, IMHO, this spells trouble. Let me put it this way. Would a company spend $3-5M on an ad campaign by just cutting a :30 for air without completely understanding their target market, developing a specific strategy, hearing different concepts, or seeing scripts & storyboards?

It’s sometimes hard to separate passion from the truth, and that unfortunately leads to somewhat of a blurred reality. The digital signage industry I believe continues to make progress however I agree with Bryan that we are still behind where we should be. It is true that we are not quite television and not quite Internet, but that shouldn’t be our tag line. In order for this industry to progress forward and make significant contributions we need to embrace other technological advancements.

Consumers, brand managers etc… see this medium for it’s visual aspect (not impact) only. The industry has been running with blinders on for the past few years. More concerned over how to integrate RSS feeds and develop fluent GUI’s rather than gaining an understanding of the consumer and how to develop a technology that retailer’s want and consumers react to. I believe this is a great challenge for this industry and we have the knowledge and capability to transform this medium into a viable option, maybe not as the “third leg� but certainly as a niche medium. To get there we need to acknowledge that digital signage can be combined with other technologies as several companies have already done. We need to further those efforts and look at ways to incorporate RFID, Bluetooth, txt messaging, POS…in other words “human interaction.�
I share in Jeff’s excitement of the industry, though I believe we need to be more aggressive and continue to think outside of the box to make a name for ourselves.

The age of outdoor advertising is coming, and the LED will be the best solution for it with its advantages

Hi, Konman, we can have a talk about the cost of billboard etc.
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hi, i just want to know more on the effects of the in-store shopping experience based on ht performance of the retail industry.

For one thing, Nielsen is coming up with a system this summer that will measure OOH. This must include digital signage as a subset since it fits into Out of Home advertising. There are tons of other systems out there for customers willing to pay to get the efficiency of their ads tested. As I said before, I find it amazing that we have to justify this terrific media with metrics and science while television got away with ambiguous estimates for years. I guess ad agencies have to join the bandwagon. For now here is an extensive list of companies assessing this "new" media: Edison Research, Arbitron, Peoplecount, Quividi, MRI, TruMedia and Knowledge Networks. Nielsen

Hi François,

Sure, there are plenty of technological "solutions" out there, but my question is, what's the value of what they're measuring? Why might I want to know who glanced at my Tide commercial when I could just as easily find out what kind of sales lift there was (if any) when I played it?

Hi Bill,
Because as an advertiser, you're using a placement strategy with weighted media. Almost certainly, your sales will go up when you advertise, but you want to know how the media mix has influenced your sales. There is no way of knowing without having metrics reports. Also, you could be doing a brand awareness campaign. Then, you must have feedback as to how many people saw your ads. You did a focus group or a survey before the campaign and you hope to see results soon after the campaign. Again, you most likely used a mix of media and you need metrics to assess its effectiveness. OOH is a percentage of an overall media strategy. Within OOH digital signage is another percentage of your total budget. Without measurements you cannot check your agency's work--- you're simply wasting the company's money...

Hi Bill

I think that the key to this is not just sales lift. We need to know how effective the content is at engaging the consumer. If we run hard edits with bright colours do more people look? If we Run entertainment content that is "relevant" to the customer do they spend more time looking at the screen? If we mix entertainment and advertising in an environment that has many regular customers like a restaurant do they look for the content when they come in and create more opportunities to see the advertising? If we don't have entertainment do the regulars start ignoring the screen after a period of time? The advertising sales will come as we prove that people are engaging with the content but without metric’s how do we tune the content so that it is most effective.

François and John:

My argument is that all of those other techniques and metrics (e.g. OTS) exist *only* because it's hard to correlate exposure with sales lift for traditional ad media.

For example, your TV at home is quite far away from the cash register at your grocery store, and there's no way of telling what you did between viewing an ad on TV and ultimately making a purchase at the store. Thus, it has been necessary for the ad industry to create all of these intermediate steps to measure, because until now they simply had no way of measuring the exact cause-and-effect relationship.

However, with advertising at the point of purchase, you can make the argument that exposure (or whatever) has a direct impact, and thus measure it directly. In this case, I argue, those intermediate steps just get in the way of trying to measure the real thing.

Unless you're talking about branding, and that showing ads on retail signage might be better at building long-term brand awareness or something, rather than trying to drive incremental sales. That's certainly possible, but it still doesn't suggest that merely looking at a spot counts as being "engaged" with the brand.

Bill:

Great article! Quite enjoyable, even for someone such as myself who is not really into the retail side of things.

I have to admit that my overall bias is: So what?

Or put another way: No matter what the media or delivery mechanism, is there a way to tie it to any outcome for the company. If there isn't then it is simply a "faith based initiative". I put most of TV in that category (a sentiment that François mentions above).

For any advertising it is possible to measure outcome. Sometimes it means being willing to try new ways of measurement. So for "view throughs" (what you call digital sign) perhaps there is a Researcher outside the store asking people for unaided recall of anything they might have seen.

Measurement in the digital age is not a one tool does all strategy, rather it is a portfolio strategy. We will have a number of different strategies (as in this post for online to offline measurement: http://tinyurl.com/59hr53) to get as close to the holistic view as possible.

Oh and I can't stress enough your idea of controlled experiments (be they in stores or on your websites!).

-Avinash.

mutahi- you want what they call a video or audio and video matrix switcher. Kramer and Extron make some good ones. You can find them on Ebay as well far cheaper!

We are trying to figure how to move grahics, video, or text across multiple screens left to right. anyone have any ideas? Thanks!

Hi Avinash,

Thanks very much for your feedback. A lot of us who are immersed in the digital signage industry tend to lose sight of other markets that have already encountered -- and often, solved -- the problems we're just now starting to come up against. I like your metaphor of using a "portfolio" of techniques. I get the feeling that a lot of people in my industry are waiting for that magic bullet to come along and give them instant insight, and if past experience in other industries is any judge, that just isn't going to happen :)

Bill, isn't one answer to all of this that "it depends"? It depends on the category [e.g.,am I buying onions or electronics, a book or carpet], on what you're measuring and why you're measuring it; and then what you intend to do with all that data.

When I think about engagement, I can't help but think passive vs. active engagement. The engagement that really matters to me is the active one. It's physical and interactive. It often means that I'm 'trying the idea/product/service on for size.' I'm already imagining life with it. That then means action and purchase decisions.

Passive engagement may take place because I'm bored, or irritated [think a video loop in a doctor's office]. It's interrupting me; it's possibly irrelevant although it might entertain. It may be relevant, but because it's interruption-based, I'm not ready to receive the information, so I tune it out.

Fascinating discussion!

PS: I love the tethered display innovation. However, how does Raymundo take into account kids keeping themselves occupied playing with the phones while their parents purchase phones?

I totally disagree. If you think radio, tv and newspapers are going to give up on local advertising, think again. They will reclaim their footprint in their markets through digital sign networks. They already have sales staffs on the ground who know where the money is. Everyone wants the big cpg money. Local is so easy to get. Move over tech heads the media is coming.

Larry: Yup, totally agree. Even today there are networks out there running little more than reformatted TV clips and commercials. It doesn't work (in most situations), so why spend all that time and money building out the network if that's how you're going to use it? Doesn't make any sense to me. Fortunately, more people are avoiding this pitfall these days, and I continue to see a larger volume of high-quality digital signage content as I make my informal surveys around the country.

Laura: Awesome anecdote ;) I heard recently that Wal-Mart is heavily investing in version 2.0 of Wal-Mart TV, so I hope (and expect) they'll start to remedy that particular problem and a number of others!

Gary: I think you touch on an important point. Even today digital in-store media isn't considered along with all of the other media components of a major brand campaign, and that's a big problem. We seem to get stuck with the leftovers -- both in terms of creative and in terms of budget -- which makes it hard for lots of these networks to shine. Until digital in-store is put on a level playing field with TV, cable, internet, etc. (weighted by reach or whatever), that's not likely to change.

Mary Anne: TV and radio are fighting back, though the results so far have been pretty anemic. Maybe if Google makes good on its threat/promise to somehow deliver targeted TV ads via cable boxes we might get more relevance out of the medium. However, it hasn't happened yet, and that means there's more in play for alternative out-of-home like digital signage.

Hi C.B.

Thanks so much for your input. I think the distinction between passive and active engagement is a useful one - maybe I should revise my chart to take it into account. But I wonder... do any media planners today make use of such a concept? Or is engagement one and the same, and it just nets you a higher price for your ad placements?

As for your question about the tethered displays... I have no idea how they'd tell something like that, but now I want to find out :)

Hi Bill,

interesting discussion here, even if it is outside my field.

I approach customer experience from a theatrical point of view, and although we have a lot of tools available to us to measure customer engagement, most of them on my side of the business come down to simple human communication. And applause.

In the theater, we don't have technology to tell us how Act II went tonight, or whether we delivered the punchline better or worse than yesterday. We have only our eyes, ears and feelings.

If it rocks, it rocks. You won't need to measure it, because you will hear the applause: people will be talking about how it rocks; your frontline staff will be telling you that it rocks; bloggers will be blogging about how much it rocks; there may even be crowds.

If those things are not happening, you might have done better spending more money on the concept (or better - by giving your local "performers" more help and more freedom) and worrying less about measurement...

Yours provocatively, ;o)


Adam
Work•Play•Experience

I find it interesting that alot of people don't think DS is a great medium. Not to replace TV or Internet but to continue layering the message!

Use TV and Internet as the main game, but all that money spent can be pointless if the consumer gets to the Point of Purchase and they are influenced by another brand right? So using DS at Point of Sale is a powerful way of "finishing off" your marketing message when the consumer has their wallet in their hands.

Also DS is considered a niche medium but it does reach a mass audience. I think it's on it's way definitely!

I thought I would clarify a few things.

I believe that we are moving to a point where marketers have to consider the "utility" of the various media available to them. For the past four decades television has been sun that all other media revolve around. It was easy to buy, easy to justify and sexy to be creating content and advertising for. Regardless of the advertising strategy, television was the solution at most levels. But, with the advent of rapidly improving communications technology, messaging is now untethered from the home and from the television set. Marketers now have to take a new look at what each media is and isn't good at doing and, simultaneously, blend this view with what the particular goal is for their advertising.

Television is really good at reaching a lot of people quickly with a brand message but really lousy at defining, analyzing, socializing or exploring a product. That's what the Internet is great at doing. I believe digital signage, mobile media, radio and outdoor are "the last mile" of media and digital signage in particular is the "end aisle display" of media. This can change a bit by demographic profiles, but it is a good general view.

Marketers should seriously consider a new set of "buckets" for their media strategies based on what they are trying to accomplish and not creative attributes. The days of bucketing print assets, video assets, etc. are over with. The need to define their media strategies in terms of what medium has greatest level of utility against their goals is the new world.

As for mobile, I believe it works in tandem with digital signage and not in competition with it. I further believe that the look and feel of content and advertising creative will be similar if not the same across these two symbiotic platforms.

Jeff, thanks for expanding upon your point. I agree, media has undergone drastic change since the days when television dominated. Furthermore, when we are talking about PoP, digital signage gives marketers one more chance to influence buying behavior. I do think DS will continue to develop as an influential medium and information source for consumers.

At the time being, however; I still think that DS is lagging behind other types of new media. This is partially due to the lack of innovation. Many (not all) DS networks look too much like TV, but without the quality programming. This allows many small, medium, and even some large companies to think they can fake it by buying up a bunch of Vizios at Costco. I think there is a disconnect between business owners who see LCD's available as a consumer product, and have a hard time investing in commercial screens and equipment. DS can make strides when it stops looking like TV.

Does anyone have any good ideas or examples?

What suggestions can you give for finding affective/afforadable templates. I've done a few searches online and didn't come up with much. Also, are there templates available for all types of digital signage advertising? Any specific companies/websites I could check out?

I haven't been able to find much information on two questions that i have. The first is on content creation cost. Who ultimately pays for the creation? isn't this something that ought to be passed on to the company leasing the space. the generic cost of $150/spot/monthis for the company to be given space correct? Also, the second item i've been trying to research is the average or measruable cost for leasing space at a particular venue. Do we offer them a royalty based on sales or a fixed monthy rate? any ideas would be helpful.

thanks a ton!

Bill,

This is timely and well said. I think it's always in the industry's best interest to act responsibly -- and yes, they don't always do so, but a push in the right direction helps a lot.

Annie

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Dear Bill,
This time, and this time only, you've gone overboard. Cameras don't associate names with people just yet (except for known belligerent individuals scanned by airport equipment...). Think about years of VISA, MasterCard, Amex, CitiGroup, etc. electronic consumer transactions. Orwellian indeed, 1984 galore. Yet, I know that data sets are so huge that they cannot be associated to individuals, they are parsed for trends, patterns and large scale behavourial intelligence. The sheer amount of digital signage traffic would guarantee privacy. Analysis would take days if not weeks. What has a consumer to hide anyway? I want my purchasing patterns to be analyzed so I get relevant offers. Whether I consent or not, they are analyzed anyhow--- in a large sense. You want privacy, use cash. You want public privacy (contradiction) wear Groucho Marx glasses. 1984 was a grey vision of the world, 2008 is much shinier.

Hi Francois,

The problem with your argument is that it's based on today's practical limitations. While Visa currently might not have the ability to link together the myriad of personalized information available, tomorrow's certainly will. By 2020, computers will be nearly 100 times more powerful than they are today, and even more pervasive. Now, the credit card industry is regulated to some extent, so Visa isn't likely to be the catalyst for change here. But not so for retail marketers and online marketers, many of whom are already collecting billions of pieces of consumer data every day.

My argument isn't that this is a big problem now, it's that if we don't address it, it will be a big problem in the future.

Thomas Jefferson once said: "Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms (of government) those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny."

There's no reason to think that sentiment applies only to governments. It's perhaps even more true in the private sector.

explain in details

Hi Asuenimhen,

You're going to have to be a bit more specific. There are over 250 articles in this blog alone talking about logistics, content creation and team building, on top of ones about pricing and ROI. What details are you looking for?

Hi David,

The question of who pays is entirely based on your business model. If you're building a private-label network, obviously the brand is going to be responsible for pretty much all of the costs. For an advertising-based model, the approach I've most commonly seen is that the network owner will accept finished advertisements from an agency provided they meet certain criteria. If they don't, they charge to fix it. They'll also charge if the client wants to have new content created (PRN got into this model a while ago, and word on the street is that they're now making some decent money on it).

If there's a revenue split between the network company and the host venues, typically that comes with some screen time set aside for the venues. While most venues think they'll go out and get their own content produced, more often than not they turn to the network company for help there too. Depending on how the contract reads, this is either done for free (e.g. as part of the deal), or at some contracted rate.

Hi Dave,

It depends on what your digital signage software is capable of. If it can display HTML (web pages, either locally stored or over the Internet), your best and cheapest option might be to just do a simple search for "web templates" or "html templates". Same for Flash. As of right now, there are very few sources of digital signage-specific templates, so if "cheap" is the primary goal, you're best off looking for other, similar assets that you can re-purpose.

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This is all pretty obvious. Clearly there is a need to appeal to the one with the 'want' and the one with the 'money'.

It's nothing new either. Advertising has been doing this for years. Watch any childrens cartoon and in the ad-breaks you'll bombarded with commercials for sweets, toys and themeparks.

It's a true enough point you're making above, but isn't it a bit obvious?

You are right Robin. But the reality is, making it clear in a new world is not a crime. Is it? Digital Signage content must be made to clearly distinguish the one with the "want" and the one with the "money".

I sincerely know it's clear just like you know but it's something most time overlooked.

Thanks to you Bill for all the wonderful works done.

Your fan from Nigeria.

Hi Robin,

But that's my point exactly - it doesn't work that way. Going after the influencers at home -- particularly on a medium that's almost exclusively used for entertainment, like TV -- is a no-brainer because the purchase decision is still far away.

Out of home, and particularly at the point of purchase, is a completely different story. For some types of purchases, it might be more effective to target the ultimate decision maker. For others, you might have better luck merely targeting the influencer who can push that decision maker over the edge.

As far as I'm aware, there isn't any category- vertical- or price-adjusted research on this at all, so I don't know if there are any trends whatsoever. But my gut feeling, particularly after hand-optimizing a few spots for a few campaigns, is that there probably are, and knowing about them would save my clients (and plenty of others) a lot of time and money, and make their networks more successful at the same time.

And if you look at the statement, you could definitely see that it's could be a big issue: "But how do you figure out which role to target?"

Content Designers are not there to see the one with "want" and the one with "money", but with the question, you will realize the importance of making clarification between the two.

I'm a big fan of yours, Bill, but like Francois, I believe we all must reexamine our assumptions about privacy. Scary as it may seem, Google's argument is probably largely correct.

First, is privacy in public spaces a fundamental right? I'd argue no. Any activity that takes place in the context of cultural interaction (including on the World Wide Web) will be subject to observation and interpretation by others - individuals and institutions.

Second, this can't be stopped anyway. Regardless of which body is placed in charge of protecting privacy, the very act of concentrating information toward this end effectively defeats all hope of true and complete privacy. We've passed through a one-way door on this and we all had better learn to get used to it.

Third, we all willingly give up bits of privacy all the time when it provides us with value. Privacy and personalization are two sides of a coin. If you want personalized service or custom products, you must share something about your person with the provider.

Fourth, the younger generation, due to their innate Web literacy, has a very different attitude about expectation of privacy versus us baby boomers. Witness the social networking phenomenon. Us older folks tend to worry about privacy in the abstract, while younger folks don't fret about it.

Fifth, I don't necessarily want Google in charge of my personal information, any more than I want an Orwellian government agency to "protect" it.

Sixth, openly observing my public behavior in a retail store or transit hub is fair game - as long as there is full disclosure that it is happening. Surreptitiously observing my behavior in a hotel room is not fair game. Neither is mining my bank transactions for purchasing patterns without my knowledge.

Finally, we have an obligation to educate ourselves and the public about this. Just as we teach media literacy, we need to teach privacy literacy. What's needed here is not a spurious standard guarded by institutions that cannot be trusted. Instead we need realistic understanding that no consumer is an island; that what we do in public will have consequences, good and bad; and that old notions of privacy are no longer reliable.

Bill,
I think I come down more on the side of Francois and James. My question is how you feel about the issue of surveillance cameras in general. As you know there is a very large surveillance industry that continues to grow. You seem to be drawing a distinction between collecting data to observe criminal behavior and collecting data by marketers. Local, state and federal government agencies are already gathering this data and presumably not using it for nefarious purposes. Do you object to the existance of cameras in the public square period or do you object to the selected uses of the data being collected, i.e., ok if collected by security departments but not ok if collected by marketing departments? In any event I think it is great that you have addressed this issue and the potential for abuse.
Steve

Hi James,

Great comment, very well laid-out. I'd like to provide a point-by-point reply:

1. You're technically correct, the right to privacy is not guaranteed by the US Constitution. However, several Supreme Court rulings have deemed it a "fundamental human right" thus protected by the 9th Amendment. I might also make the case that privacy is fundamental to many of the other Amendments (in particular the 3rd, 4th and 5th), so there's definitely some legal precedent that needs to be considered here. So question #1 to you: would you prefer that all privacy-related concerns be dictated by the interpretations of judges, or would it maybe be better to have the private sector lay some ground rules first?

2. I also agree that using personal data to improve our lives can't -- and shouldn't -- be stopped. However, your argument is pretty fatalist and assumes that some big entity like Google will be doing all of the collecting, storage and analysis. This would be pretty terrible if true, since if there's one thing we've seen, companies with monopolies can't help but exploit them. We'd be much better off with a distributed system that moves the information -- and our trust -- between several unrelated parties.

3. Yup, also agree. Loyalty programs are a prime example of this. But what's the value of you merely walking past a store window? Is that brief look at the merchandise on display sufficient value for the store owner to pull the information on your RFID badge, or store your image? Is it valuable enough that they should then be able to sell this data upstream to some entity that's building a complete personal profile? It's a slippery slope, and that's what I'm trying to draw attention to here.

4. There is truth to this, but it doesn't mean that the trend is good. And if there is a legal right to privacy (see #1 above), I think it sets a very bad precedent to let that slip away due to ignorance, complacency, or both.

5. Yup, I agree with you there, but they're quickly becoming the de-facto collector and keeper of all sorts of personal info. Don't like it? That's all the more reason to figure out some guidelines and get some group to back them.

6. What about the case you missed - surreptitiously observing your data in a retail store (it's called surveillance, as Steve Russel points out below, and it's already very common). Or, taking that a step further, what about said store collecting that information and then selling it to a company that conglomerates it from all of the places that you visit and shop at?

7. Your best point by far, and I love the concept of "privacy literacy." I think I might have to start using that :) As you've probably guessed, I don't really like any of the answers above any more than you do, but it's important to get a discussion going. Every time I've tried in the past it hasn't gotten anywhere, but perhaps now that Google is getting into all sorts of privacy-related trouble the time is right.

Thanks for taking the time to comment!

-Bill

I'm with Bill 100% on this one guys. I'm also trying to help raise awareness on this because it is indeed a slippery slope and must be managed correctly.

We must all embrace that no one FORCES an individual to walk into a retail store--it's not a public space. And if most retailers engage in measurement practices that feel creepy and uncomfortable to a slice of the population, they do it at the detriment of the whole. Also, if the consumer voice rears up and cries foul, some retailers will NOT utilize these practices as a competitive edge! And then who wins? We all do...because these systems can truly help us better serve the customer if they are activated responsibly and sensibly. Which comes right back to Bill's key point--that we need to look at this issue hard and set some guiding principles that will help us ensure slow and steady consumer acceptance.

Do you know of any recent studies that discuss the hazards of electronic signs that are situated near streets or highways. The FHA dah a report several years ago, but I can't find much data that is more recent.

I recently competed for a project involving a RFP from a state government agency. In my enthusiastic zeal, I admitted that while I had 30 years' worth of experience in marketing, broadcast journalism, production and PR, I was relatively new to field of digital signage. However, I claimed that since this is fairly young technology, most of us are on the "ground floor". My proposal scored the highest, beating my nearest rival by about 30 points. So he filed a robust protest, saying that I was "naive". Since he'd been providing cutting edge technology in indoor digital signage for eight years (as opposed to my first year rollout), I would obviously fail, since 85% of all new businesses fail. I felt a little stung by the criticism. So I traveled to his home state to see this competitor's "dynamic digital signage". I discovered that his product is a consumer HD screen with a DVD player (wires hanging everywhere). The store manager grumped to me that no one ever watched his screen, because the content was so poorly designed & new DVDs were replaced only once a month. Dynamic digital sneaker-net, indeed! Seems to me that it's not only the clients who need to understand the definition dynamic, networked digital signage!

Great story, June! Even as a relative newcomer I'll bet you've figured out that there's a lot of fluff and hyperbole in this industry. (And for reference, you can probably count the number of real, bona fide "old timer" experts on two hands.).

Thanks for sharing.

-Bill

June-

Let's talk numbers here. Various sources quote small businesses failure rates at 25% - 1st year, 50-55% by year 5, and by year 10 at 70%-80%. Could be your Rival was warning the State of his own impending doom since he was at year 8 and out of fresh ideas and providing state-of-the-art technology to his customer. However, let's not argue this point of percentages because you need to consider the industry, the means to track a small business through the years (generally these percentages are based upon a compiled yellow page listing) and possible sale of the small business.

Finally let's talk FAILURE - Bear Stearns Securities, Countrywide, Enron... who would have known.

To your Rival - Start a new business
To the State - Don't over react & see a demo of the technology or pilot the Vendor's solution.

My percentage of time is done here.

- Paul

Paul: Love it! Your messages to both entities are priceless.

Meanwhile, I've heard of 3 digital sign companies in my area that have folded (and 2 of them were in the computer/IT consulting business!)...but they were missing two magic ingredients: good content for their target demographic and SALES (imagine that).

june

Well, I'm completing financing and about to start yet another digital signage network. I think the possibilities of cutomer interactions with the media are amazing compared to any other offering.

The networked aspect allows narrowcasting and remote updating (no gas required). The only part that is still unclear is how you remotely monitor all hardware characteristics (monitor on, off, sound level, cpu overheating, hard disk failure, etc.)

I'm sure my guys will find Linux solutions but I am wondering what the trend is for professional monitors as I have noticed that manufacturers are getting rid of the legacy RS-232 port gradually. Bluetooth? TCP-IP right to the monitor? Sorry if I'm a little off topics but where do DS geeks go to if not to this site?

i want to know where to get to purchase the digital billboards and how much it would cost.

June: Ah, sales. That does seem to hang up quite a few fledgling digital signage companies, doesn't it? After thinking about it, that was the most remarkable part of the whole story from above -- even with stupidly high cost projections, they were still somehow managing to turn a (small) profit.

François: Congratulations on managing even one, let alone multiple, signage networks. Per your question, I'm not aware of a particular tech-oriented forum. Every product on the market is different enough that we have trouble speaking the same language (though POPAI has a very active interoperability group trying to work on this right now). For example, my customers have online forums in our web management system that they can access. Scala has something similar, as, I'm sure, do many other software makers. Sorry I couldn't be more helpful here :)

Thanks for reminding about the basics of ROI for marketing to sales conversions. Do you do seminars by any chance? Could I convince you to do one for us?

Hi all,
I would like to purchase mobile digital screens to be used in Nairobi, Kenya. I would like an LED manufacturer to email me with costs and what I require to get the biz running. They should be cost effective to run. Also, option of mounting on Flat bed truck. This is a new concept in Kenya and would like to pick up asap.

Ken Ruhiu

Hi Susan,

I do a number of conferences and seminars each year, mostly focusing on retail marketing and media, and digital signage. If you have a specific request, feel free to email info at wirespring dot com and someone will get the message to me.

Cheers,

Bill

they should have a pantyhose vending machine, there are so many choices its always impossible to find what you want. just have it ask you a bunch of questions then it spits out the ones you picked.

Nicole,

That's a good idea: pantyhose come in pretty small packages, so you could fit a lot of them into a self-service kiosk. Maybe the manufacturer could make a special version of the machine for the Japanese market, which would sell used pantyhose at a premium price. Actually, they banned the sale of used undergarments there a while back, despite surprisingly high demand for such things :)

-Jeremy

Actually, the toilet paper thing makes more sense then at first glance. It's in Japan...a lot of toilets are equipped with bidets which get you clean without the need for paper...it's just us westerners that need to waste trees to feel comfortable after using the toilet...


That said...I would be shelling out my 100 yen, I'm sure of that.

Hi Nyte. Thanks for the info -- the bidet-vs-toilet-paper thing makes sense. While we're on the topic of bathroom commerce, I've heard some funny stories about pay-per-use toilets in Europe. Maybe those would be a good fit for a kiosk payment system as well.

Jeremy

#3, the flight insurance thing is completely fake thats pen station im there everyday.

Cattline,

We didn't want the pictures to give away which machines are real and which ones are made up, so we created all the images specifically for this article -- even for the ones that are based on real systems. You can read about the flight insurance kiosks on this page:

http://www.photomann.com/japan/machines/

As you said, that type of kiosk doesn't really exist in Penn Station. I've yet to hear of anyone selling train rider's insurance :)

Jeremy

The reading matter is most interesting.My company has several years of experience in promoting the real values and benefits of in-store digital with various retail and wholesale chains in the Sub Sahara( South Africa). The commanders of these organizations are comming around to the new prospects of digital and i understand the global stats. If i can add my penny's worth" Digital is the most flexible of all the traditional ad mediums. It is still early days and in time digital will have a significant slice of the ad spend cake.
Look forward to hearing from you.
Regards'

Geeze, thanks for posting this. Good read.


I found this article which is actually pretty relevant to the subject. You can check out the article on
ad networks here. Personally, I think it's worth the read.


Thanks again for posting this.

Hi François,very interesting issue you raise and hard to comment without being too specific about the montioring solution I actually sell to my customers.

My view is that there are a number of software tools avilable that come with a very good IT heritage, typically for remotely monitoring server environments. These can operate through a central server, so you can start to automate the monitoring and analysis of your network while still being able to direct connect to any specific player for individual diagnostics or remote working when needed.

The good news is that the wealth of tools and options are excellent, the solutions very robust and usually easy to use. However, the real benefit comes in thinking creatively how these network tools can be used to deliver useful information, alerts, triggers etc that is actually going to make for a more efficient and reliable network. TCPIP is the way to go for monitoring the players, screens etc (in my view)

To finish, my personal crusade at present is the use of such data to predict failures and to study patterns of problems to increase overall reliability and manual intervention.

Bit off topic, but couldnt resist.

Brad

Although I object the mix of financial terms such as "ROI" with "ROO" I agree that the market for signage offers vast opportunities.
We are already receieving more and more requests for these needs and are currently producing especially for this market.

I wish I could have expressed my views as eloquently as James Tenser did. I think this issue should be investigated further. Bill, once again, you have succeeded in raising some very thought provoking points. Perhaps you should have an "Ask Bill" input form on this site or allow users to open up threads of their own. Nice point too Laura about shops not being truly "public".

Jeremy, I am old enough to remember pay toilets. All or most gone in US now. May have been a law or something. Didn't cost much but if you didn't have a dime, well, cost wasn't the issue anymore was it? I stayed at a camp ground once that had a pay shower. 10 cents a minute. Lotta smelly folks that weekend.

Hi Merritt. Thanks for the info. I believe that truck stops and some other specific venues in the US still have pay-per-use toilets, showers, and other services. But as you said, they're pretty much gone from mainstream society.

Jeremy

I am looking for information on ROI for bank drive thru's. I don't mean the open/close LED's but the message displays that scroll full messages. I have not seen any data on the return. Would you know?

Hello,

We currently have an electric highway sign 10' high and 25' wide (double faced) mounted on a 30' pole. We wish to remove the cabinet and upgrade to 2 LED message boards of approx the same size We are located in Cleveland, Ohio and would be eager to get prices and discuss options. We are ready to move forward. Thank you and kindest regards.

Jim White
Fax (440) 234-9800
Email jwhite@ohionorthern.com

I am resident in Warri, Southern Nigeria, with limited but growing knowledge of kiosks and am extremely passionate about starting a kiosk deployment/roll out company that will place multi media/multi function kiosks in as many locations as possible. I am looking for the right people and companies to work with to cost effectively design, produce and place these kiosks. The kiosk themselves will take passport photos, print various sizes of photos, calendars, greeting cards, posters, documents and stickers. They will also disburse various tickets (airline,concert,lottery,etc), telephone airtime, loyalty cards, etc.
They will also be used for gaming, information, digital signage, creation of photo and music CDs and DVDs, downloading of ringtones and games, internet access and bill payment. They will work with most storage media and accept a wide range of payment options, cash inclusive. They may even include ATM functions. If you believe that this is achieveable and would like to work with me to make this happen, please contact me on 009-234-7055727203 or email bababarretto2000@yahoo.com with subject heading "we can make it happen".

This is an excellent article. One word I did not see however was "emotion". (I hope I didn't miss it). I started my advertising training and career in 1977 attending the Art Institute of Pittsburgh and I have seen a lot of changes in how advertising is produced from old camera ready illustrations to todays digital signage. One truth has always been there througout the years. People buy when an emotional trigger has been touched. Yes people weigh the cost and the need and try to justify their purchases, especially for big ticket items. But in the end when it comes down to it the thing that makes them buy is to satisfy a desire and desire is one of the most powerful emotions there is to tap into.

Just like the article says, find a trigger word then pull that trigger to shoot into that emotion. (that sounds kind of cheesy but you know what I meana)

Great article..........eric

Hi Roahre,

Thanks very much for the input. Given the two previous comments were both from sub-Saharan Africa, it seems like there's a healthy amount of activity going on over there!

I'm extremely interested in watching how the digital out-of-home market continues to evolve in places lacking the legacy infrastructure of the US, Europe and Japan. Likewise, it's fascinating to watch the traditional media's reaction as ad spending shifts to our new medium (as well as others, of course).

Hi Alexander,

I think Lauren's point when coining the term ROO was to suggest that "objectives" and "investment" are sometimes used interchangeably, and there are times where missing a short-term ROI goal to meet some broader objective goal can result in a much larger return on the initial investment in the long-run.

Hi Ornette,

One thing I noticed just in your comment is that your project scope doesn't seem to be as well-defined as it might be. For example, putting CD/DVD burning or rental in the same machine as an ATM doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Most people who want to burn a CD probably don't want to take out money, and vice-versa.

My advice would be to pick the one or two core applications that have the greatest chance of generating revenue, and focus on those!

-Bill

Hi Eric,

If you're talking about finding the word on Maslow's needs pyramid, I'd argue that "emotion" fits nicely in either the love/belonging or esteem needs categories.

If you're talking about using emotion effectively in digital sign content, that's a different, though very interesting discussion. For "glance media" like digital screens in shopping aisles, there's little time to tell a story, let alone make an emotional connection. Can it be done at all? Of course. I could throw a static image of the Twin Towers up on a screen for a second and make a powerful connection with virtually everyone (in the US at least). But as that example might suggest, doing so is not always a smart thing, and it's probably very difficult to control.

For digital signage content that has more of an opportunity to tell a story (screens placed in waiting areas, for example), emotion has a chance to play a greater role.

Hi,
does anyone know of software available to do pricing for digital billboard advertising clients...or where i can find the pricing structure or formula?

Thanks
Will

Fascinating reading! I've been developing a digital signage business model during the past few months and am currently at the point of analyzing costs, projecting revenues, raising money etc.

Anybody out there with advice?

Actually, the solution does not require using Microsoft's complete stack. The addition of MS AdManager does not affect the in-store software solution at all - it is our medisa delvery mechanism to an in-store infrastucture,some of which is Microsoft and some of which is not. We're happy to answer any questions about this to anyone interested. Modivmedia.com

Norway is the world’s third-biggest oil producer (also blessed with vast reserves of gas, fresh water and fish) but often gets ignored when we are talking about Digital Out of Home. Norway is a country so wealthy that despite having a population of just 4.5 million, it is a major player on the world stage BUT WE HAVE NEVER HEARD OF MYTV Media and we are regular visits to Scandinavia.

I think as you say just another over-blown press release.

well said. I think your modification takes it up a whole notch. thanks.

I have been reading your blogs and wanted to say keep up the great work. Your information is insightful and much needed.

Donnie

UcasTV

original founder HNN

So true!
And a great way to explain the problem in relatively simple terms.

Examples would be great, though.

Seth: Nothing beats a complement from the master himself. Thanks!

Anders: Great suggestion! I would love to put together a library of examples, not just for this topic, but for everything we've written about making digital signage content. The trick is getting the different iterations of a piece from the agencies that produce them. I'm still hopeful, though, and if and when we get a library together I'll be sure to post about it.

Hi Donnie,

Thanks very much for the kind words. When we got started, this blog was one of perhaps 5 or so places to get news and commentary on the digital signage industry. Today, there are well over 100 if you could all of the semi-professional blogs, but that just makes us work harder to ensure our content stays a cut above the rest!

That makes two of us, Adrian ;)

Good job sticking it to 'em, staff!

Hi Ray,

We've been doing a cost estimate article on this blog every year since 2004. The most recent is our 2007 article (we usually update them around November), which is called:

A new look at the costs of digital signage networks and content.

Hope that helps,

Bill

I forwarded this link to several friends with this quote:

"To explain the Dead Zone of Slick, Godin recalls a time when he encountered some musicians playing to pedestrians at his local farmer's market. Impressed by their music, he bought a CD. Unfortunately, as much as he loved the live band, he hated the album. His explanation?

"Faced with the excitement of making a CD and all the knobs and dials, they overproduced the record. They went from being two real guys playing authentic music, live and for free, and became a multi-tracked quartet in search of a professional sound. And they ended up in the dead zone. Not enough gloss to be slick, too much to be real."

I think that covers it clearly. Great post.

I think that Digital Signage is way too expansive for what you get. $7000 for a souped up PC is in today's "Free" Internet age is out of place IMHO.

I am happy to see that more and more companies are now offering Free Digital Signage solutions (SaS) Software as a service.

Just my 2 cents.

I have one question.. Digital signage companies are in for massive growth potentials, considering every billboard, indoor and outdoor are INEVITABLY going digital in the years to come. One QUESTION.. But first i must state a few points..
#1 DIGITAL SIGNAGE COMPANIES charge monthly fees for managing content.
#2 Software like the scala is what digital signage companies use to make the whole industry work.
Question 1: What if softwares like scala reduce prices to balance out the INEVITABLY growing demand for digital signs? Won't the digital signage companies run out of business if the Customers themselves purchase the software and get a personal IT person to manage content?

Hi Brendan,

To begin with, there are tens, if not hundreds of millions of posters, POP displays, billboards and other static signs out there. Of these, a very, very tiny percentage are digital today. Needless to say, there's a lot of growth potential left, so that isn't something that anybody today is seriously worried about.

Next, about software. Scala's primary business model is to sell you software on a per-license basis, with an optional annual plan for technical support. Others, including WireSpring, have what's called a software-as-a-service model, where there's an annual fee that bundles software and support together. Either way, you're still paying for software, and probably technical support. This will probably remain the case for the foreseeable future, since these packages do lots of things that are very specific to the digital signage industry.

Finally, your assertion that one might "get a personal IT person" to manage the network makes the assumption that DS is mostly an IT project. It isn't. It's a content project, a management project, a marketing project... and so on. An IT guy isn't going to be able to monetize your network or keep it looking good. Consequently, there will be the need for professional assistance as far into the future as I care to look :)

Hi Sean,

First, that $7000 includes hardware (screen, player, etc.), software, installation and three years of support. The software component is only a fraction of the total amount.

Second, you'll notice that those "free" systems are typically very limited, supported by ads (that you don't control), or, often both. For any network of reasonable size or complexity, you definitely get what you pay for.

Hi Richard,

Great (and useful) summary. Thanks.

I agree with Bill. I think this is one of many indicators that converging media poses an acute privacy problem in the future. Although the real effect won't be felt for some years to come, perhaps as much as a generation, it will constitute a profound societal change when the panopticon finally does arrive. It will be far easier and less expensive to install privacy protections early on rather than trying to retrofit those protections into an established system.

It also appears, Bill, that someone in the privacy advocacy community takes the future of digital signage as seriously as you do:

http://blog.cdt.org/2008/09/15/digital-wallpaper/#more-393

Does anyone know of any Digital Signage conferences/expos happening in Canada over the next months?

PS - Bill: I read the following from an article you wrote a while back about 'going local' ...
"By comparison, less ambitious sales to local firms are more straightforward and even somewhat formulaic to the point where once you hit upon the correct formula for success, it's reasonably easy for a larger sales force to get trained up with the appropriate technique and start making additional sales."
Can you direct me to info on such formulaic approaches to sales. At present i am only interested in selling DS to very small businesses (one store/office outfits) and i need input on selling advertising. I hope to start with a pilot project.
Thanks.

Thanks Bill. Digital advertising in store is where i am positioning my company.Our business is all about creating the most advanced, reliable digital network. Having software that gives the store owner(manager)the ability to interact with market related issues is the latest of the products that we have bagged in our arsenal.I think that companies like us who have devoted all to the digital wave that has triggered world wide better be in great shape when that wave starts to loom. Instore digital is growing in S.A. and i hope to announce some good news in due course.
Regards
Roahre Jansen

Hi,what are the various kinds of electronic billboard that we have.what are the merit/importance of it to those that intend using it as their major means of advertising their products and services.
Thanks and God bless.

One side or the other always seems to be claiming that getting more people out to vote will help them more than the other side. I think it is pretty break-even. Lower income folks lean democrat, but religious and rural/small town folks (where wal-mart is often the only choice they have) lean republican so it is a wash if more wal-mart customers vote.

Hi Stephen,

I'm not an ad sales expert by any stretch, and I don't think there's any kind of "add water and mix" formula that I could write out for you anyway.

However, from the customers I've spoken with, the general consensus is that the same kinds of approaches that work for other forms of local ad sales -- think local newspapers -- work well for digital networks focused on hyperlocal marketing.

You could well be right, and regardless it rarely pays to listen to conspiracy theorists :)

I would like to buy an electronic sign/digital sign. I am in San Antonio, Texas. Can someone send me a brochure on prices and type of signs.

It's generally bad for business to have any political, or religious signs or literature hanging around. I once walked into a local electronics shop, saw a bunch of N.R.A. posters hanging up, and then walked back out the door and took my business elsewhere. Likewise, I'm sure an A.C.L.U. or P.E.T.A. poster might offend those on the other political spectrum.

When I was living in Florida, there was a large protest against Macy's bought out the local department store - Burdine's and removed the annual nativity scene from the store. Given that South Florida has a large Jewish population among other religions - I personally thought that was a smart move on their part.

No matter what the party, candidate, issue, or religion is ... it's best kept out of the retail environment. When your goal is to make sales revenue, why risk driving away your customers?

Funny how digital signage installations and networks should be burdened with exact measurement while radio, television and OOH got away with inaccurate reporting for years. Clients and providers are not playing the same tango in DS just yet. It will come.

We have skimmed the subject before. Nielsen just released a very thorough measurement method aiming at establishing a concordance between CPM an in-store metrics (fuel pump transactions, cash register records, restaurant confirmed guests, traffic auditing, etc.)

For myself, I calculated an Excel matrix for 5 second exposures (multiple thereof, 5 sec being the minimum ad exposure required for acknowledgement) to work the problem backwards.

What kind of traffic do I need to reach acceptable CPM costs. You'd be surprised by the results. It turns out that in-store installations provide the worse results at $5 CPM. The best results are achieved for type A & B installations, obviously offering more eyeballs. Middle range results are attained for waiting room installations.

Eyeball traffic is your finite matrix driver assuming you have learned all of Bill's lessons on message effectiveness. Sorry for the long post. I'll gladly calculate CPM assessments for your projected installations. Write me an email.

CORRECTION: The best results are achieved for building classes A & B installations

Hi François,

You make a very important point: while retail advertising networks get the majority of the press and hype in our industry, they're not necessarily the best pick. As you noted, advertising in other venues can produce very good results (see Captivate Networks as an example of how to do it right in buildings), and non-advertising uses of the technology continue to outpace advertising uses in terms of both number of screens and dollars spent.

Great anecdote and observations, Nate.

Unless I missed something, Captivate Networks is selling impressions. I believe this is the wrong way to go as you can have a thousand impressions with no one in front of your screens!

I was referring to the cost of reaching 1,000 people. I think CPM should stand for the cost to reach people not showing an ad one thousand times. If their screens are third party audited I guess it amounts to some sort of equivalence.

Hi Bill,
I would like to know if you can direct me to information that can help me to create my own Price List for Digital Signage Content Management.
I am putting together my business plan to start my own Company but I have so much trouble trying to find the competitors pricing and or business model for Price structure for the Content Creation and Management.

I appreciate your help.

Best regards

Hello, I'm searching for company's who manufacture LED Billboard's.Please send information to attached e-mail, thank you.

(1) What's the most common goal for digital signage at-retail??
Kind of hard to answer b/c it depends on the intent of the installation. If ad sales is the driver, it's media revenues. If not, sales tends to be the most common goal (with all tactics ultimately supporting it) followed by the softer, more fuzzy goal of brand affinity.

(2) What kind of "interaction" is the best to measure?
Maybe a pipe dream, but I'd love to be able to one day measure glance, any kind of interactive touch, physical behavior (path or pulling a coupon, etc.) sales and "post impression" sales (they saw the ad one week and bought the next). You of all people know the barriers to making this happen but I can still dream! :)

(3) What would that measurement be worth to you?
As a very famous retailer said to be recently, "one qualified view is worth 10,000 unqualified views". Value should be reflective of this.

The hard part is that if the retailer is not creating the creative, they can't be responsible for a bad creative execution not pulling response. ..the brand had the chance and should still pay for exposure. But if they have no way of knowing what does and does not definitively pull response, how can they learn the most effective creative approach?

Thanks for taking this on Bill...it's incredibly gracious of you!

Laura Davis-Taylor says: "but I'd love to be able to one day measure glance"

Laura,

I think we are near a solution that would do just that. SONY has incorporated in their new video cameras a face recognition technology whereby faces are detected among objects and isolated as white squares (Bill is happy, anonymous) on the screen. The next step would be to combine that with a counting algorithm and voilà!

While the "shopping buddy" looks like a good idea on the surface, I believe that this "advanced" form of technology will be not only too expensive for most companies to afford, but also ineffective. The "shopping buddy" will only appeal to a small target market; we must remember that the majority of shoppers are of earlier generations. They will not be as computer savvy as the 20 - 30 year olds that are browsing the internet and commenting on blogs (like this one).

Roz get a life!

Laura: great insights, as always. I'll definitely be using that (unattributed) "one qualified view is worth 10,000 unqualified views" quote in the future :)

I do wonder about your last sentence, though. After all, retailers are often selling products that they're not directly responsible for, and they've been doing fine with that for centuries. Why would the management of the media designed to sell those products be any different? (not saying that it should or shouldn't be, but I could see the argument going either way).

François: So you get some hardware/software together that works well enough to give you say 99.9% accuracy (we've tested a half dozen packages, and so far they're all well below this mark). What then? Who decides how long a glance should be? There's still no benchmark for identifying an engaged viewer in my opinion.

Hi Bill. Hope that you fella's are all well in the States. I thank you for the opportunity to share my thoughts regarding one of the final frontiers that we (digital) face, with much awaited anticipation of the digital revolution wave consuming the modern retail world.

The issues that you raise are so very pertinent to the progress of digital in South Africa. As a matter of fact we are currently facing identical barriers of entry. In direct response to your mail here are my thoughts.

1. What's the most common goal for digital signage at - store??

Digital signage has to stand on the foundation of a win ,win, win formula. We have to ensure profitability to the client( Brand owner) through means of futuristic,reliable, interactive digital technology.Because they obtain the financial rewards they are no 1 on the winning podium.The retail store is next in line as far as the win win formula is concerned as they are ultimately responsible for permitting the (motor) to turn.
The retailer's rewards are also financial due to the rate of sale and the margins attached to product.We (Digital) are the last to take our place on the win win platform. This is my understanding that we need to ensure that through digital in store advertising the financials that are presented are based upon a proven track record.(For the majority of us involved in digital) This track record is currently still categorized as works in progress.Having said that Advertising works and we as pioneers need to re- MIND our target of that. That track record speaks for us and they are irrefutable.In closure, financial growth is ultimately the first prize that digital has to ensure.

2.What kind of interaction is the best to measure?

In my 24 years of experience i Know that money buys the whiskey !!! The best factor that we could incorporate into this cost calculation is to track the spend as advertised through the retailers cash register.That i believe is the conclusive measure to obtain a pulse on the heart of retail and what happens for the brand and it's owners.This as it happens i believe supports both my views and understanding that i have conveyed in your first question.

3.What would that measurement be worth to me?

At this current moment we are in pursuit of this answer, as this is one of the barriers that prohibit the market from engaging with all that they have and we all know that those cash bundles are literally endless.

This is for us at White light a serious factor that we are monitoring very closely because it will ultimately give us a financial factor that we can proceed with. Due to the fact that digital in store is still in its upstart
the answer to this is still out there and if i had that today i would know what a brand owner is prepared to direct financially at digital advertising.

The narrow casting world is getting exciting.
We are now offering an online content bank that you can go to an order content, then download and insert into your playlist instantly. We will be in Beta testing Novemebr 1st for a few select out of home networks. more to come...Words of Wisdom is our first series.

Donnie

I think you are being hard on yourselves with the notion of measuring digital signage's effectiveness with its impact on the cash register. A sale might not materialize right away. Long term exposure to your messages might prevent a buyer from going to the competition. etc.

There are other aspects that DS can deliver well and is not measurable with dollars and has meaning. Top of mind, customer awareness, brand exposure, customer relations (providing contents and entertainment at the point of sale is a nice customer gesture, a distinguishing factor over the competition).

I doubt POP displays (printed) were ever measured with so much strain on the cash register's behaviour. I can see your point in that it provides a final argument to help deploy networks but to reduce DS to only that aspect for measurement is limiting.

We're not in a retail setting, but rather, hospitality (hotels, welcome centers, restaurant waiting areas). Therefore, we can't use POP sales lift measurement tools. We're now experimenting with on-screen coupons and matching map/coupon print pieces that tie-in.

But I'm skeptical that either will deliver the hard data that a gazillion coupon print run will deliver. (And we shouldn't be held responsible for badly done creative that doesn't motivate them to buy.)

Billboards and general broadcast TV don't have their feet held to the fire as much, but then, they've been out there longer.

I hope that we'll be able to deliver better measure metrics down the road.

I just launched a print follow-thru piece to go with our digital screens in hospitality venue. I'll be happy to share my results...we should know more sometime in December.

Our "screen coupons" are being uploaded today. It will be interesting to see how they are perceived and hopefully, used!

Will try to give you feedback on that, too...

good point to debate on bill . .

given that this has been a vexed question that has been taking up so much mindspace . . also most new media seem to have the extra burden of having to prove themselves to get a significant level of spends while existing media options need metrics more to determine the level of spends.


Personally believe it boils to the level of metrics existent in the marketplace . . the probable answer is agree on the "relevance and role of digital networks" and to subsequently relate the spends to the same.

The grid you hv put up could be an interesting starting point . .

Maurice: I agree with Bill, you may need some initial capital, friends and family and a solid advertising sales force.

I would like to buy an electronic billboard.I run an engineering company in NIGERIA,and we have a project at hand.send me ur brochure,prices and billboard sizes of all type.it urgent.
call me with.. 2348066887455

Very informative article. How many screens would be required for a retail outlet like Walmart

What do u think about digital signage inside buses. I believe this is a captive audience and there can be accurate measurement by the number of commuters.
Why is there no digital signage network for the long distance buses like greyhound.

Hi Leonard,

I've seen a number of networks for short-haul commuter bus lines come and go. Like taxi networks, they offered a captive audience and the ability to provide useful information paid for by targeted ads. However, in every case that I'm aware of, the networks were eventually killed due to customer backlash -- those passengers disliked being unable to escape the screens. It probably had a fair bit to do with the implementation of these networks (e.g. always using sound, showing annoying content, etc.), but that's the history as far as I'm aware of it.

Hi Leonard,

It depends. Up until very recently, Wal-Mart ran two channels in their stores -- one on hanging screens in the "power aisle", and another on their TV/video wall. There were perhaps 20 screens showing the same content loop on the power aisle. With the advent of their new "smart network," they will dramatically increase the number of screens - to perhaps as many as 100 - with potentially as many unique channels, though I'd be surprised to see that many actually in play, as it would look very cluttered and confusing.

Hi June,

I'd definitely be interested in learning more about your project as it plays out. Be sure to keep in touch!

Well put, as usual ... I'm also getting a sense there is still money out there, but it will be hard-won

Thanks, Dave. And once again to demonstrate the difference between me and you, I see that you were able to take my 800 word tome and summarize it in 2 sentences on your own blog :)

Bill, you did an excellent job of defining the current economic climate and pointing out that VC and equipment leasing are two main options. For the past two years, we've focused on preaching equipment leasing as an alternative funding source for digital signage and self-service projects, but the results have been mixed. An equipment leasing relationship isn't only for a customer wanting a roll-out, it is also important that solution providers establish a relationship with a knowledgable leasing partner because those providers that can differentiate themselves from the competition by providing creative leasing financing will be able to take advantage of the opportunities the economy will present.

Dear Mr. Gerba,
greating from Jakarta, Indonesia.
thanks for sharing, very usefull to me and my partner. We rae interest in "Digital Sign" do you have e-book? thx.

verdy berry

speaking from a completely different level of digital signage (cpg's verses local advertising) the economy today has set our revenue back a bit. But it has really set back revenue for radio, tv and newspaper. For the first time in history radio revenue is going backward. Layoffs are huge and their big ego's are shrinking. We are doing a great job taking a share and as you pointed out even a 10% share can be big even with local advertising. Its a hard way to go the revenue generating digital signage, but testing the results is very exciting. The best thing going for us is 80% retention.

Hi Nate,

Thanks for the feedback. I was initially surprised to see that leasing companies were/are still open for business, so to speak. That said, I have heard of a couple networks that stalled because previously-negotiated leasing deals had to be re-written in light of the credit crunch.

Hi Verdy,

Thanks for the feedback. We don't currently have an e-book, but there are hundreds of pages of research and news on this site. Also, please make sure you read the most recent version of these pricing articles. 2007's version is here, and we'll probably be doing one for 2008 shortly.

Hi Mary Anne,

Thanks for the info. I'm not surprised to hear that your clients have been cutting their ad budgets, but rest assured it's across-the-board and not exclusive to digital signage, in-store media, or alternative media (not that that should make you feel any better :)

I agree, 80% retention is excellent, and surely that should help you to build strong, long-term relationships with your advertisers. I also do believe that more companies will experiment with digital media, which is relatively cheap compared to above-the-line media buys, and has consistently shown better returns in the past few years.

Good luck!

I'm not sure if I'm out of place or not. I have been in the outdoor advertising industry for only five years. I have thought of how to measure the metrics for our billboards and have so far come up empty. I believe that it is the adverisers that can answer the question for us.(testimonials, surveys etc) While some companies do surveys to find out, " how did you here about us", internet, billboard, yellow pages, TV, radio,etc. This may determine how they advertise in the future. Billboard companies, Lamar, Clear Channel etc although hard to measure are a good example that outdoor advertising works. They are currently going digital. Digital is greener than paper and you can change your ad instantly with scheduling. I'm sure you all know this.

1. branding and sales for the advertiser
2. surveys with rewards(testimonials from the surveys)
3. depends on the answers
Seems outdated but what else is there. Measuring someones glance doesn't do it

PS. advertised political party in Saskatchewan and they are going to write me a testimonial from what they have heard from the public.

Thanks Dwight Epp

I have 2 IBM anyplace Kiosks - 4836-135. I can be reached at a.leali@comcast.net

Great tips! Especially for motion graphic artists.

paul
-cebu, philippines

Hey, this theory is pretty good, I didn't even notice that by just seeing a movie like Ghost Busters, one could actually come up with a marketing proposal in the Board room...

Anyways excellent innovative job...

I'm interested in purchasing electronic outdoor billboard for Africa market. Can you send me brochure and pricing.
Charlotte.

#4: real, but not in that form.

tinyurl.com/6mpzsa

Thanks Colin. That article presents an interesting variation on the breathalyzer system, as you said. My favorite part: "So far, the machine has been extremely popular as patrons think it's fun to test themselves."

Bill,

Yes, I've heard of that as well. Also, yes there are companies like ours who are still very active in your industry. Last week at KioskCom, we found many vendors and customers interested in our services. I would guess that companies that haven't been involved in your industry aren't going to jump in now due to the banking crisis; however, companies like ours that have been involved in this industry for a few years see the vast potential presented by the current economic situation.

First, I'd like to thank Bill for providing a very thought provoking arena of debate that I discovered by chance one day. You always serve rich and engaging topics, food for thought.

Now to answer, I think that digital signage stands to build on new paradigms. I don't know about negating traditional demographics but I have to respect the power of large organizations and their ability to support acute research.

That being said, I believe that communities are the definite gold mine of DS. The more we think along those lines the more we will contribute to the establishing of the boundaries of our new media. I have a lot to say on the subject but this is not the place nor the tribune.

Thanks Bill for being so intellectually awake. I will purchase this book because I like the snippets you exposed.

Hi Francois,

Thanks, as always, for the feedback. And I'm sure Tim thanks you for the purchase as well ;)

I agree with you - we continue to think that community-based networks -- so-called hyperlocal networks -- are the true sweet spot for DS as well. The challenge is making them profitable on the small scale before putting out massive amounts of capital for a larger rollout.

Nate, thanks for the additional perspective. Glad to hear about your success at the trade show. I'll be very interested to speak with you in 6-12 months to see if your prediction came true or not!

Hi Prabhu,

Yup, inspiration and education are never more than a quick trip to the video store away :)

Thanks for the kind words, Paul.

I'll be doing an expanded version of these articles along with some new research findings at DSE 2008 in Las Vegas. See you there!

All,

Thanks for the continued thought and conversation on this topic. I'm very much looking forward to putting together the digital signage version of the Linking Elephants "Real Soon Now" :)

What about TransitTV in the US and VisionMedia in China?
From what u say, these networks failed because they showed bad content.
In the case of long distance journeys, I would imagine, interesting content on TV screens would be a welcome distraction and a way to pass the time thus making the journey more bearable.

what are the objectives of electronic billboard? And types,application. pls reply soon.

i'd like to install an electronic/led billboard on our property, does anyone know of cost,installation,and maintenance on these thing's and are there any company's in palestine who carry these product's? thanks kon.

Digital Signage is most definitely poised to revolutionize the way companies communicate their products and services. These projected numbers and industry predictions are, perhaps, the tip of the iceberg.

When you consider that businesses and organizations are scrambling and vying to capture customer acquisition and retention, loyalty, and increase the amount of consumer spending in an ever-changing and turbulent economic landscape, the messaging vehicles need to be commensurately on point.

Digital signage is a dynamic, visually-arresting means of communication that can command the attention and dollars to drive revenue and brand-building, and has the velocity to do it in real time.

Growth or no growth, digital signage has an image problem to overcome. While checking out a book at a local library, I pointed out a digital sign behind the checkout counter. Both librarians rolled their eyes, saying they thought the sign was tacky, wishing it wasn't there. I must admit, the message being broadcast--luxurious spa treatments--seemed to have little to do with the interests of the average library patron. And my own experience with so-called "clinic TV," including health-related programs displayed in doctors' waiting rooms, isn't much better. Most "shows" I've watched while waiting in a doctor's office have been blatantly self-serving and lacking in credibility.

please call Dennis in ref to brand ads 310 5506178

Hi Don,

I agree, we do still have an image problem, as many people are either ambivalent or even a little negative toward even the larger, better-run networks out there.

Health care is definitely an up-and-coming sector for digital signage, like it or hate it. I think one of the big problems that limits the appeal and effectiveness of these screens is simply the lack of information (we have a bit at our healthcare solutions page, but there's plenty more to work out - in particular, how to walk that fine line between offering genuinely useful information and monetizing the screen time that pays for it.

Hi Leonard,

TransitTV failed, I think, because nobody wanted to buy ad time. No revenue = no way to continue to work out the kinks in the network. I can't speak to the Vision situation as I don't follow the China market that closely, but I'd suspect it was something similar.

While everybody thinks "oh, if I show cool content people will watch," that doesn't seem to have worked out for transit networks so far.

Hi, I own a small media company in Liberia called Digital Media Liberia Enterprises. What will it cost me to setup 6 40" LCD monitors with all the software and hardwares included?

Please let me hear from your with thanks.

Thanks Bill - another excellent article from you, as always.

As you note, there are not 'typical' networks, but this is still useful and interesting, especially now that you can look back a few years and see how the numbers have moved.

Regards,

Jon

TransitTV’s content is placed on TV screens in public transportation systems in five major U.S. markets. In seven years of operation,the company has grown from having one market in Orlando, to numbering 8,000 screens on 4,000 vehicles in cities including Los Angeles, Atlanta,Chicago, Milwaukee and Norfolk. Transit TV is enjoying the success of attracting major advertisers such as McDonald’s, TNT and General Mills

i would like to install an electronic billboard
on my property inB.C.Canada
can anyone give me infor re
1.cost
2.bylaws
3.who manufactures it

I think everyone is following the mobile billboards way of advertising. People are selling space on their cars as advertising space.

need to under stand know how of digital signage, all compatitor in the world, content of this system & budget figure of the system.

I would like some information on this type of advertisment. I'm in Iowa and would like to know who to contact about putting them up, who makes them, how much are they, what is the upkeep, who to contact about the land they go on, and how much does the average sign make. Send me the info at the above name @yahoo.com

Great job.

But once again I miss the communications cost in the model. You have to cast your contents to each and every display and it's not for free. Both if you're connecting your displays to an existing network or to dedicated new ones, you've got a significant Operation Cost there which you have to consider if willing to acquire a fully realistic view of the money you're paying for your DS solution. And network cost is not peanuts: we can be talking about 30 - 40 US$ per month and display.

What do you think

Hi Emilio,

I feel like we had this conversation last year :) Connectivity costs can definitely be significant -- especially if you have to use something exotic, like satellite -- but here in the US practically everybody has broadband installed already. And whether we're talking doctors' offices or supermarkets, my clients have not told me that their venues are charging to use that existing connectivity. I agree with you that another $30/$40 per screen per month is considerable, but unless people are installing into brand-new venues, I just haven't heard of many cases lately where that was an expense component.

Bill,

I think the $1000 estimate for a display is low. It's true that you can buy a 40" TV from Costco...but they are not made to run 24-7 or handle various computer resolutions. Buyer beware inexpensive consumer models = short life cycle and inferior picture quality.

Hi Vince,

Yup, you're definitely right, a "pro" screen will tack a few hundred dollars onto that price tag. However, as we noted last year, a greater number of networks are now just using off-the-shelf hardware for their networks. Whether or not this is a good thing or not I'll leave up to them. But the net effect is that it has lowered the "average" price of the screen.

Pricing of digital signage software can vary according to its features.

Hi Bill,
Seems a little high to me considering the economic nightmare we're in. There is potential economy of scale for a quantity of 100. Has this been factored in for the screen? It would be nice to look at a rental model as well, although that might be hard to find these days.

If you have the capital for 100 stations than you can *deal* suppliers dying to meet their monthly quotas.

As a side note the model would have to account for the cost of capital somehow. Inflation, interest rates and price index (the price of a BigMac is often used as a comparative) would be nice side indicators. One would have to push the envelope and compare values in *absolute* dollars, dollars that factor in some economic factors ytd (year to date). If for example the same installation cost $8,500 in 2004 at 2.75% interest rate and now cost $5,650 at 4.75%, in absolute dollars, the spread is not as clear cut as it seems. The more factors you add (just as long as they are the same in comparison) the more valuable the comparative information is. I know this is not the place nor the time to be conducting complex financial modelling but I believe one should pick some financial guidelines to ground the pricing model even further in its business context.

We are looking a vendor for digital signage. Need to purchase.

Hi Bill,

As you mentioned, we all can see upswing in no. of businesses showing interested in deploying digital signage for advertising purposes. But do you feel that with decreasing hardware costs, digital signage industry is falling behind in offering cost-effective softwares and content solutions?

hello!!

anyone here that could tell me how to "make" a small digital signage.. i mean, i am a computer engineering student, and we are about to make a design project and i choose digital signage.. but i don't know where to start because i've been thinking how would we create 1 without costing us a very expensive project...

need a reply.. please please please... thanks a lot.;..

Hello Bill,

I am with an agency for media buying and planning in the POS advertising and in-store marketing section. I really loved reading your article and the ongoing discussion. This is a rare find.

When planning the POS part of an advertising campaign, we focus on media that hits the end-customer right in the moment of a possible purchase. The task is to close the sale by reminding, informing and surprising the customer all at the same time, depending if is already supposed to know e.g. the TV-ad or is confronted with a new brand or product for the very first time.

While it sounds easy to put up a banner or sign on top of that shelf inside the supermarket or shopping mall where your customers' product is located, getting your audiences' attention is in fact very hard.

The problems we face with different types of instore media :

Instore radio:
Form our experience, customers don't like to hear anything but music when shopping. They are aware that spoken information via the in-store radio is meant to persuade them to buy yet another product.

Banners and classic displays:
They work - but they often get overlooked. Using small ads on the inner side of the shopping cart only works for products that are located in the first sections of the supermarket. For products located at the end of the "shopping turn", it turns out to be pointless as the shopping cart gets filled, the ad gets blocked and people forget about it. Classic banners and displays sometimes get overlooked completely because the "clutter of brands" on the shelfs and the walls makes it hard to get an impression.

Tools that we use to escape these problems:
We are constantly on the lookout for any opportunity to increase our customers' sales. One method we have started to use a while ago is the placement of 3D Floorgraphics. These are specially designed floor advertising foils that give the customer the impression of a product or brand logo rising from the floor.

This solves several problems of brand presentation at once and works very well for products in the food & beverage section, as well as for magazines or products for personal hygiene.

When we first approached the german company who created these ads on a global basis, we did not know how to convert our campaign graphics for this purpose. Luckily - this is done automatically through their design process and you can focus on your business as a media buyer. This method of advertising was a big surprise and increased the sales for our clients dramatically.

How we measure our advertising efforts:
We have been working with different approaches for measuring the effectiveness of our campaigns. And to be honest with you ..... we spent way too much time on this. While it is certainly helpful to evaluate different sources of measurement, we have come to focus on the sales that are logged by the cash register. We do get the sales-data for our client´s products right from the supermarket on a regular basis and thus can easily make out how well a campaign, e.g. with 3D Floorgraphics went.

This method does not only block out all overhead with additional digital techniques but ..... and this was the most surprising fact for us ..... was far enough to satisfy our clients' need for information on the effectiveness of the campaign.

There are of course be more precise techniques to measure e.g. a customers' age, gender, hair-color and the length of his toe-nails - but thats not the information we need. We focus on sales and offer our clients the marketing tools to make that sale.

cheers,
Gabriella Dayton

Hi Francois,

The price factors in "typical" discounts for 100 units, which are pretty easy to estimate for the hardware but admittedly not so for the software.

As for your note about interest rates, I don't account any sort of financing since the terms can vary so much. You might put your whole company on your credit card, in which case you're paying 15% APR. You might get a good leasing deal for 7.5%, or a bad one for 12%. Those small percentage changes can make a huge difference to your total cost, as you well know.

The other thing is that the cost of capital isn't necessarily any higher during a recession, but it may be more difficult to get.

Hi Chris,

If you take a look at our most recent budgeting article, it seems that software costs are falling in line with hardware (except for LCD screens, which are leading thanks to robust consumer demand).

Content production costs will be what they be -- if you want custom-shot HD video it will cost a lot. If you can live with an animated slideshow of JPEG images, it will cost much less. If you need an A-name agency to do your work, it will be expensive. If you know a kid down the street looking to get into design, it will be much more affordable.

Very valuable information,thanks for this great input about ROI Metrics,looking forward for more of such!We'll also implement & give feedback from our respective markets !

Hi Bill,

We had the same conversation months ago indeed :-)

Our experience is that the main part of projects include an specific connectivity to make easier the infrastructure management. When we design a DS network for a client, we always include specific ADSL lines for each and every location.

Anyway, in my oppinion, regardless you're using an existing line or a new one, the fact is that the DS system is consuming broadband somehow, and the corresponding cost should be considered when calculating the real TCO per point. Yo may say that the same happens with the content creation or the operation personnel cost (which you accuratedly mention in your study), the power consumption (which is growing in importance when choosing the hardware) and so on. Well, maybe it's useful having a look on those issues too, what do you think?

Thanks a mill,
EAF

I believe hardware will come down dramatically in 2009 so that might trigger projects that were contemplated but not enacted.

I forecast a consolidation of sort of smaller players into larger networks.

Finally, I believe digital signage will see more money in a time of restraint because it is a niched media, highly targeted and is able to provide the single most benefit any advertizer is wishing for: a call to action, often close to a point of purchase.

Hey media buyers, cut TV, Radio and Print in favor of Internet and DS. Easier to track, cheaper CPM with a far better reach. Cross media campaigns have proven to be more effective.

According to a recent Veronis Suhler Stevenson Forecast, Internet advertising--- including pure-play websites and digital extensions of traditional media--- will replace newspapers as the largest ad medium in 2011.

Positive, as always.

FR

Nice article Bill (sorry I missed the conference but I'm scheduled to speak at the Vegas conference in February). One point that I see as very clear is the advertiser-supported networks could be in trouble in the near future.

I'm actually much more concerned about the overall economy than our Digital Signage Industry. I am a strong proponent of the Austrian School of Economic thought, where monetary inflation has been shown as a very destructive force. While the market tries to correct itself (thru deflationary pricing), the powers to be are pumping more and more money into the system with the goal of combating that. This can only lead to more misallocation of resources and a bigger bust later. One thing is certain, it will definitely lead to higher prices, a deteriorated dollar and a less wealthy economy as a whole.

It is extremely difficult to forecast the economic conditions in our market (or any market for that matter) because of the political decisions that are being arbitrarily made. With that disclaimer, I think deflationary pricing is actually a good thing for our industry for two primary reasons. First, it is the market (buyers and sellers) correctly valuing the services and products we all provide. And second, as prices drop, clients or potential clients recognize a buying opportunity. But I fear prices will stop falling sometime in 2009, which could impact our industry negatively.

However, there are some groups who could benefit. Who are the immediate beneficiaries of the priming-of-the-pump (i.e. monetary inflation)? Think of a counterfeiter, who benefits the most because prices haven’t adjusted yet to the new infusion of money. But the 5th or 10th person who sees that money won’t benefit because by that time, prices will have risen to combat (and many times overly compensate) their new ‘false’ wealth. The same holds for where the bailouts are directed today. Figure out which industries are getting that cash first and target them.

François: I also think we'll see some hardware price decreases this year, but I don't think that in itself will be sufficient to drive a lot of new deals (I mean, unless they dropped 80 or 90%, but I don't think that's terribly likely :) It'd be nice if media buyers suddenly realized the benefits of shifting money into digital out of home, but again I think we're looking at a much longer horizon than just 1 year.

Gary: Good to hear from you. I agree with what you're saying, and believe me, I could write tomes on why bailing out whole industries right and left is a terrible, terrible idea that we, our children and our grandchildren will pay dearly for. But it sounds like you'd put your hat into the "slow or no growth" category for the industry, right? :)

Hi Emilio: Yup, I remember that now, and I do understand that at the end of the day somebody is actually paying for the bandwidth that gets used. I think it deserves a mention (and I'll try to remember for next year), but since it's not something that I've really heard mentioned from the majority of networks that we surveyed, I don't think I'd want to include it in our "standard" budget comparison.

Bandwidth or connectivity should be factored in, unless it is already factored in Installation charges? In Europe, bandwidth is outrageously expensive. In other countries it could be quite a deterrent. In America, we can now rely on 3G for wireless access and in some area, WiMax. Not running wires to the DS station is quite a cost saver. How does that fit in this scenario? It reduces install charges for sure.

Hi,
I would lik to know how doest a digital billboard cost and all the bites and pieces some need to know in running has an advert company. Please email me back. Thankx

Hello Bill

Dear Bill,

What an impressive article. I like the way you demonstrate the digital signage eco-system.

Besides the content creation and the technical support costs, content management services plays an important role on ongoing costs. According to surveys it's stated that around 75% of retailers ask for one single channel operation in stores.

But what if you're managing several channels according to the store demographics, targets, stocks, waiting time...etc. We've experienced a dramatic additional work in order to be able to control and manage several channels of a single client. No doubt, this additional work will result an increse on monthly management fees. This may result a big change on your charts. Have you anticipated and calculated such additional mgmt. works on your charts.

Rgs.
Ediz Burla
VP Marketing, TVeez Turkey

Dear David,

I believe the best way to calculate the video costs is to set the business model a first, whether you're selling media or not. Most media sellers I know is creating an 8 sec. animation video for free of charge. There are some I know charging 250 usd for 8 sec. animation. As you see in this stage your expenses and your competitor's cost will form your pricing strategY.

There are some companies calculating the hourly employee wage while some calculating in addition 3 year hardware costs, software costs, partial rent...etc. Such companies set up the video costs according to primary expenses.

I hope that would be helpful.

Rgs.
Ediz Burla
TVeez Turkey, VP Marketing

Hi Ediz,

That's a very good point, further complicated by the fact that your competition might be global. Here in the US, an 8-sec animation might cost $5,000 (or much more or much less, depending on what you want). But going through an intermediary and having the work outsourced to a low-wage country like India could potentially reduce the cost quite a bit. My estimates above are generally based on what I've heard from content designers and the firms that have made content for my company's own customers. Obviously your mileage will vary :)

Hi Bill,

The pricing above should be 2500 usd not 250, my fault.

That's correct Bill, hourly employee salaries plays an important role on video projects. Pricing may vary from country to country.

David, if your model is selling the media that video costs would be very sensitive. There're some intelligent ways to reduce time and costs of the studio. I recommend you to animate the existing posters, brochures of the client instead of creating a new layout and a new graphic design. It will save you time and money. That would be a good hit for you.

If you're interested in I can find you people to give support. You can evaluate the costs of your country and Turkey. It may be a good solution for you in this case. I know lots of people doing it.

What do you think Bill?

Yeah Bill, I'm leaning heavily towards the slow or no growth category as I fear it could get much worse, despite most people not having a clue. However, with that said, when money is infused into certain sectors, those areas could (or should) experience some growth. I guess I'm more of a macro-guy when it comes to forecasting.

Hi François,

Perhaps I'll have to try and get some additional detail from our participants in next year's budget update, but like I said, bandwidth is not something that traditionally gets mentioned by my (admittedly very US-centric) sample group.

That will certainly change if more companies decide to use wireless service instead of piggybacking on existing wired LAN connections, since 3G and WiMax aren't cheap. For that matter, they aren't particularly reliable or available everywhere yet, so we haven't seen a huge number of deployments based on them just yet.

'Hi Ediz,

That's a very good point, further complicated by the fact that your competition might be global. Here in the US, an 8-sec animation might cost $5,000 (or much more or much less,
depending on what you want). But going through an intermediary and having the work outsourced to a low-wage country like India could potentially reduce the cost quite a bit.

My estimates above are generally based on what I've heard from content designers and the firms that have made content for my company's own customers. Obviously your mileage will vary :)

BIll,

I would love to hear what your thoughts are on using the fact that buissinesses can use co-op money to help pay for digital signage or even to generate revenue by paying for it completely and not spending any more money on in store static media.
Thanks

Of course the price really depends on what you want to do with it -- if you have only a few locations and want to show a simple slide show, you could get by with a $100 digital photo frame and manually changing out the memory cards periodically.

Our numbers are composite figures based on medium-large (100 player) networks, which typically have more similarities than differences with each other with regard to features, etc.

Great post - altogether I'm bullish for digital signage in 2009. The economic shock therapy might be just enough to prompt venues advertisers into a new line of thinking.

Thanks

Hi Aaron,

We talked a little about getting retail networks funded with co-op dollars in this article, though generally digital signs are used to merely supplement existing POP and merchandising programs.

While DS has a lot of potential to grow into, I think it's very premature to even think about getting rid of static POP and posters in favor of all digital signs. For one, digital signs are still somewhat complex to manage, not to mention expensive. For another, there are times when a poster or well-placed display is going to be faster and easier to put into production, and will generate the same (or even better) results than a screen would.

The real issue with using co-op money, though, is that it's already all allotted for other in-store programs. So to get your retailer to use some for digital signs, you first must convince them to either a) raise their co-op fees (which ALL of their vendors will complain about), or b) take some money they're already using for a program, and move it to the digital signage program. That's not exactly trivial either, but we have seen a number of retailers do it successfully.

i still hold the openinon that the success of a well design signage advert can be term so if the designer is convasant with the environ it social requirements, a combination of which will produce a pice that would be attractive to the onwatcher. other factors not over-rule, Good contents comes from those people who have broad knowledge of other competing products as regarding what products he intends to promote. thus Signage contents development should involve not just the grafics personal but a combination of knowledge in all the sectors of the company that requires direct or indirect infulence on the customer.

Nice story. The Canadian Out-of-Home Digital Association (CODA) output a nice document that describes the industry in terms of common factors (screen size, #screens, venue, etc.) that can be found here: http://www.oohdigital.ca/files/pdf/CODA_Standardization_Phase_1.pdf It would be nice to have this for every country.

Hi Bill I hope u speak spanish (it´s a joke), we are a small company dedicated to install lans & wans in mexico , a few months ago, our customers began to ask for DIGiTAL SIGNAGE, so we are looking for a dealer who can supply to us of all that info to mount digital signage networks. we are new in this market and we are ready for new technologies.....
and dealers.....I hope u can help to reach this info
regards from mexico

Hi Jacob,

I agree, there's no doubt that a good designer can overwhelmingly influence the quality of an ad. Likewise, a bad one is going to have an equal (but negative) effect.

My point of contention is simply that good designers inherently "know" a lot of the rules, so on the average they are able to produce spots that perform well, even when they're not consciously paying attention to the "science," as Pat might call it.

And I also agree (but didn't touch on) the impact of environmental integration. Having a sign that sticks out isn't always a good thing, even if it might mean getting more eyeballs from passers-by.

Hi François,

Thanks for the link - that is quite useful. I wouldn't be surprised if OVAB or POPAI or some similar body didn't come out with a similar list for the US, or possibly even globally, sometime in the near future.

Hi Chano, and welcome to the industry!

I definitely recommend you take a look at some of the articles that we've written about getting into the digital signage market when you're coming from an IT background:

Can digital signage be profitable for an AV reseller or VAR?
Can POS and AV integrators make the leap to digital merchandising?

As well as some of the general articles we recommend for people just getting started (in addition to the budgeting ones, which you've obviously found :) :

The whole series on team building, starting with Building a Successful Digital Signage Team - Introduction
Digital signage project management, installation and systems integration tips
and
5 crucial steps that can make or break your digital signage project

Good luck!

Great read Bill! I'm following some of those blog now too, thanks to you. What clipping service do you use? I'm finding myself so overwhelmed by the number of sites to read, that a consolidator would be great.

Not to be self-serving, but there is one site on the Web "specific to the digital signage world - DigitalSignageToday.com! The site is news-oriented, so all of the information is facutal and straight from the sources. Also, the site provides more than just news - features, commentaries, webinars, videos, photo galleries, and more.

Not to be to self-serving too... but... Digital Signage Universe covers news and information for the industry as well. We are the only site that offers extensive coverage on creative content development, and we have the largest and most complete Directory of the industry. Our Directory also includes many of the news sources that you mentioned and a lot more!

http://www.digitalsignageuniverse.com

Happy Holidays!

My turn :) For all french-reading people, i would recommand to have a look at : http://www.ooh-tv.fr/

Currently in beta, we are launching next february.

Thanks a lot Bill for your insights and happy Holidays to all of you !

Hi Bill,

Your article was a great read, I took it upon myself to go through all articles you had written on pricing in the previous years. I own and maintain a Digital Signage network in India and my cost of operation is almost as much as you had mentioned except for the prices you have mentioned for the "Player software" and "Hardware". Digital Signage specific hardware are now a lot more cheaper than what it was before, with most service providers allowing the customer to pick any hardware available of the shelf this price comes down even more, so what your assumption to pick $1100 as the price. And secondly there are plenty of software's available in the market today which enables monthly subscription and annual maintenance contracts along with out right software purchase, so is the basis of the price you have mentioned? Is this Wirespring software pricing or a general aggregated view of the current market. It will be great if you can throw some light on these issues.

Thanks,
Micheal

Hi Michael,

The $1100 I budget for player hardware is again an approximation based almost entirely on deals in the US, so I could see things being less expensive in India. Keep in mind that it includes player, shipping and warranty, of course, so it's probably more like $800-900 for the player itself, and the other $200 for the rest, again ON AVERAGE.

The player software is more difficult to model for the reason you mention: some vendors sell licenses outright, some have a software-as-a-service (SaaS) model, and some do a bit of both. WireSpring typically sells in the SaaS model, but the pricing above doesn't really reflect our pricing per se, it's supposed to be an average of several vendors that we compete against. As a matter of course we do try to make our FireCast pricing competitive with everyone else's, but that's not what's listed above :)

Great list Bill! - Looks like everyone is pretty much following the same sites. I would have to add aka.tv and screens.tv which I like to follow for more Global coverage.

I agree with you on Linkedin being something to spend more time on, if we had it. I have personally made some great industry connections there.

My advice for clippings is Google Reader - I love this tool!

Hi Sid,

You know, I do still read aka.tv, but my feeling is that the quality and quantity of commentary has dropped in the last year or so. I would definitely recommend screens.tv, though (which is where former aka editor Barnaby Page left for, so maybe that's the reason?)

With regard to feed readers, my current reader of choice is Bloglines, a web-based reader similar to Google Reader, but without Google looking over your shoulder at everything you read. On the desktop I've had good luck with FeedReader.

We also use a large number of in-house tools for gathering and parsing the news. James Van Etten used to run a pretty good, free digital signage clipping service feed, but it seems he hasn't updated it since October. We've also had some success using services like BurrellesLuce and CustomScoop.

Great read Bill;
as the community Coach of www.TheRetailTradeCenter.com, i would like to encourage the digital signage crowd to look a making that their main home. You can set up feeds from your favorite blogs directly into the center so all can read. you can set up multiple groups that are topic specific but all in the same place. You can even tag your favorite articles with a predetermined code then let everyone's favorite web pages be fed to the group. You can add wikis and google docs for collaboration. I know this is a shameless plug but you asked! :) we're new and we would love to work with you.

From the depths of the Spanish markets I emerge to point out the BDSE ("Blog de Digital Signage en Español").

http://marketingdinamico.wordpress.com

Just a newcomer, but the only independent DS web source in Spanish I think. I don't want to sound self serving either, but I didn't start the conversation... :-)

Thanks a lot for the list. I'll update the feed immediately.

AH HA! So THIS is what you have to do to get people to actually leave comments -- let them promote their own stuff!! For some reason that should have been more obvious to me :)

In all seriousness, thanks, particularly to the foreign-language bloggers, since there's no way I could possibly write a complete list.

Thanks for the reply Bill, so is it the same assumptions made for Management software and Tech support as well, an average pricing based on selected vendors?

Micheal: Sort of. One of the reasons that we say
"operate the network for 3 years" is because at about 36 months the cost of SaaS and shrink-wrapped server software is about the same (if you leave out tech support, which is often extra for the shrink-wrap stuff, but included with the SaaS).

The costs vary after 3 years, because shrink-wrap TCO should drop off dramatically, but there are additional fees for upgrades and ongoing support which some may choose to buy, but others may choose not to. Every time we do this analysis, we find that ultimately the cost, whether using SaaS or shrink-wrap, is about the same, which is where we get the average above from.

The reason i asked Bill - is because broadsign and people are known to be quoting as little as $25 per player (avg for 50 screen network) - administrator. Are there hidden costs involved?

Well, BS is known to be one of the lower-cost offerings out there. However, without totally bashing them, I'll offer these two thoughts and observations:

First, BS's business model is clearly predicated on having lots and lots of volume. They have a pretty big head count and spend lots of money on marketing, so they will need to sell A LOT of $25/month units to cover their costs (and I don't know whether they do or don't right now). You, the customer, have to ask yourself how much faith you have in their ability to deliver not just this month or this year, but even five or ten years from now based on that model.

Second, if they're the lowest-cost provider out there (they might be?), why aren't they winning all of the deals? Well, it's because there's more than one way to run a network, and if you don't like BS's particular tool set, you have lots of other options, priced accordingly.

BS's pricing is figured into our estimate, though. There are a lot of guys who price their software and SaaS MUCH higher than them, so the average still works out.

That makes sense.Last year at an expo they themselves mentioned that they have about 8-10,000 screens under operation. Have always wondered how you could run offices in 2-3 countries and yet make money at those volumes.

By the way bill, I have a specific query though, do you think it is necessary for the local guys where the screens are placed to participate to ensure better response. As I had mentioned earlier, I run a network here in India, and one of the problems I face is that the retailer where my screens are located wanting some amount of say on what is being played within. It takes a huge effort from my end to collate all these contents from them and then stitch it together to form a decent mix of local promos and my ad content. Is there any easier way of doing this? can you suggest any if possible.. and before that is this the way to go?

I also enjoy digitalsignageforum.com and signidustry.com.

Hi Micheal,

In general, the more invested in the system your venues are, the more invested they are in your success as well. However, I've only ever studied this from a financial perspective -- your question about whether having them use the system gets them more invested is interesting, but I don't know the answer to that.

Recently it does seem like more projects we've worked on have this requirement. I can't tell you how your software solution might work, but in FireCast we have something called SmartPages -- basically specialized templates -- that you can drop into your play lists. Then, you can create new logins for each store manager, and allow them only to modify their own SmartPage (for example, by changing a product image, a service announcement or a pricing text string). This leaves you in control of everything except the few specific areas where the manager is allowed to change (and you can even override those, if you have to).

Bill,
Thanks for the post, I read the same article about Jc Penney and thought it was fascinating. My company, www.crosspartner.com can be a resource for your readers. We match businesses together for cross promotion and if they don't have a match they can sell their opportunity to generate additional revenue.
-Michael
www.crosspartner.cm

Hi Bill,

I read the article and the comments. I'd like to point out the importance of new channels on existing properties (dual channel) in such an uncertain economic condition.

I believe companies/softwares that have dual channel technology, (1cpu-2 diff. channels) would have an opportunity to increase the existing channel no's/income without a need of additional hardware. Several Banks and Retailers may take advantage of other available/existing screens in branches and use new value adding applications at the POS that would result an increase on awareness of new campaigns and of course on sales.

I'd love to hear your point of views.

All the best,
Ediz Burla
TVeez Turkey

Mutahi - Not sure if I'm allowed to mention software solutions here, but talk to the guys at Nexus Digital Signs (www.nexusdigitalsigns.com) they have solved it. Ask for Brandon.

Mike - Again, not sure if I'm allowed to mention software, but you too should talk to the guys at Nexus. Ask for Darren ;)

Excellent article Bill…lots of feedback and some still coming in. At Strategy Institute given that we produce five annual digital signage summits (senior level ones) we often work with a number industry publications/ blogs & associations and below is a list the one we find work best with us (list alphabetically)...

AKA.TV
AudienceCount.com
Broadsign's Digital Signage Digest
Dailydooh
Digital Content Producer
Digital Signage Forum
Digital Signage Insights
Digital Signage Magazine
Digital Signage News
Digital Signage Universe
Digital Signage Update
Digital Signage Weekly
DigitalSignageToday.com
Ettens Daily CLIPPINGS
POPAI
ScreenMedia Magazine | SCREENS.tv
Sign Industry
Sign Media
Signs of the Times / Signweb
Traffic Audit Bureau for Media Measurement - TAB
WireSpring Technologies, Inc.

Sorry if I have missed someone…Happy Holidays!!!

Dear Bill,
I have read what you wrote, and it is very interesting. I need to evaluate ROI in a simple in-shop digital signage. there is references regarding % of growing for the single product advertised in the DS screen.

Best Regards
Euly

Hi Euly,

There are a number of articles and case studies out there that focus on individual product lift. There's no one right answer of course, but maybe some of these will help:

Adspace says advertisers see 38% sales lift

C-stores show 88% sales lift with digital signs versus static signs

The G2DMiR: bad acronym, good report

GameStop TV boosts sales 19-36%

Hi Yashod,

At one point in time or another I've followed almost all of these (hadn't thought do add the TAB site - good idea!), and to be frank I think there are quite a few that are good for little more than selling ad space or trying to grab some google AdWords. And then there are those -- like the Ettens blog -- that were good, but stopped updating so they're kind of dead now.

Great list, though. Thanks for sharing!

Hi Mutahi,

As Mr Murstad above noted, there are plenty of software options -- FireCast included, that will drive multiple monitors from a single player. A quick Google search for "digital signage software" will yield a pretty big list to choose from.

Hi Ediz,

That's certainly something worth noting. However, I think it's wrong to assume that every venue would benefit from additional channels, so site and network owners would certainly need to do their homework before deciding whether to go this route or not. And while up-front costs might be significantly reduced, that new channel will need new content - so keep those (ongoing!) costs in mind too :)

Hi Michael,

That's a pretty interesting business model! I admittedly don't have a lot of experience with cross-promotion campaigns, but it would seem to me like a potentially under-exploited tool. The challenge will be keeping offers relevant enough to consumers of either venue that they don't become annoying or confusing.

Thanks for sharing!

helo, i am a student from informatics, i have a thesis its all about electronic billboard, uhmm,can any one help me, honestly i dont know how to do it, i know something about flash, that's only what i know, is there need to create a program to control the hardware, ?

hello bill,
ur blog is a very rare community out here... nice u hv taken a intiative... i m an amature in this field... i building a kiosk system based on linux... im really confused on choosing the right application for this... ie kioware,open kiosk... which is better??? an what is the config required on the hardware... part plz enlighten me ...

Thanks Bill,we are working on it, we feel our platform can also be a place where altenative advertising can be bought or sold, so digital could be an interesting area. Any thoughts?
Michael

Really enjoyed your article about proxemics in marketing.

How does proxemics fit in with internet marketing? Do you think it's a concept that still applies? Thanks!

Looking for digital sign to put up and rent on major hiway near Houston Texas. Can you tell me how big and approximate costs. I am on a very limited budget.

Thanks Bill, especially for the reminder to use Bloglines. I need to unclutter my email inbox with many of the newsletter sources you mentioned above, and move to other newsfeed sources. Muchas gracias!

I do. - and I think your approach to getting feedback on how to make your blog better- is a good thing.

Hi Michael,

There are so many new and novel approaches to selling ad space on digital signage networks that I wouldn't even know where to begin :) However, I will say that none of them have really "cracked the code" yet, so to speak. While there are plenty of moderate successes and even a handful of homerun success stories out there, the process of selling the screen time -- in whatever form it might take -- continues to be troubling for many.

What kind of approach and capabilities do you think your firm will bring to the table for this medium, and what will your competitive advantage be?

Hi Ref,

When you say "proxemics," do you mean Edward Hall-style proxemics? If so, that's a great question but not something I've ever really thought about before.

We know that psychographic and demographic considerations can have a significant impact on the ability for DS content to communicate with a given audience, so I think the concept of cultural specificity carries over well. But I couldn't say whether that impacts or influences the way different shoppers would manage their own personal spaces.

Hi David,

Do you mean an outdoor electronic billboard? Those things are pretty expensive -- you can count on something big enough to be seen from a highway costing several hundred thousand dollars. The cost of ancillary equipment like media players won't even figure in compared to that big cost.

Hi Manolo,

Guess it's just you and me in here :)

Thanks for the feedback!

Frankly speaking, Shopper Marketing has been part of classic marketing strategy, now appearing more emphasized, though.

It concerns all the steps and phases affecting the shopping decisions. And now, in this period of recession, less budget has to be focused on spots closer to terminals.

My understanding is that present shopper marketing is the subject of final push for retails.

Dear Bill,

i am a pro for new media and new biz mode in China. Plsd to read your blog, so nice, which
I will be visiting often.

Hi Bill,
Thanks for responding, our marketplace www.crosspartner.com , allows searches to be done by customer demographics,so almost any business or company with a digital billboard and traffic of course, could get connected to buyers.

We anticipate adding the management tools for digital as well as other mediums in our next phase.

Michael
www.crosspartner.com

Hi Bill - I filled out the survey. :) Soliciting and obtaining feedback can definitely be a challenge...it's a required (and not easy) part of my job so I know where you are coming from! You have always been most kind and generous in sharing your thoughts, so I hope the survey is a success. Thanks.

You do a great job with this, Bill. (And you've said some kind things about my work, which I very much appreciate.) Don't be discouraged that you get few comments. I've been a business journalist for 30 years, and the feedback in that time wouldn't fill a shoebox. It's simply not in the nature of busy business people to comment very much.

Just received you email for this week must have missed the one last week. Filled out the survey but polldaddy said that it was closed "survey not found". I think you do a great service for this industry keep up the good work.

Keep up the good work, Bill.
Your blog has been a very valuable source of insights as we try to develop and grow the Digital Signage business here in the Far East.
Thank you for your efforts.

During the years we have worked closely with you Bill I have allways been a amazed by the time and effort that you put down in writeing in the blog. We have also over the years got positive feedback from potential customers that say they read articals, however they seldom been aware of the connection between the blog and Firecast. Keep up the fantastic work ..and to try to point out the USP for Firecast as ofen as possible..

Thanks Bo

Dear Bill i am personally greatfull that this industry has an excellent captain such as yourself.In the last year i have researched from various resources worlwide and i assure you that as far as my company in South Africa is concerned you are our inspiration and motivation. Keep on rocking dude. My best as always Roahre.

Sorry did mean worldwide.

All,

Thanks very much for taking the time to comment. It's great to get some feedback, and I'm very much looking forward to sharing the results of this poll with everyone, and making the changes needed to make this blog even more useful to the industry.

Interesting.

When, if ever, do you expect the supermarkets and other stores fight back with better advice, better selections of goods, better value etc?

Or am I being unrealistic. Are there types of stores that are incapable of providing a service worth their mark-up on the goods they sell?

Bill,

I just found you guys not to long ago and everything that I have came across in your blogs have been tremendously helpful. With that being said please keep up the good work and prompt responses!

Bill, I find your insights (even this dated one) to always be insightful. It seems to us at Miller Zell that perhaps the PRISM initiative suffered from too many appendages. Perhaps the better way to go is to build out a smaller more economical data model that all agree to as part of their shopper (or customer) data warehouse models. We can then as an industry begin to capture consistent data and have a consistent view of the whole shopper insight medium. Let's define this thing from a pure shopper insight perspective as opposed to muddling the water with all other media elements...start small and then build it.

Thanks for the mention, Bill. I'll see you at DSE in Vegas!

It was easy to buy, easy to justify and sexy to be creating content and advertising for. Regardless of the advertising strategy, television was the solution at most levels. But, with the advent of rapidly improving communications technology, messaging is now untethered from the home and from the television set. Marketers now have to take a new look at what each media is and isn't good at doing and, simultaneously, blend this view with what the particular goal is for their advertising.

I own a out of home digital media business. Thank you for the information.

An option are Business Cash Advances. A leading company in Cash Advances is World Bankcard Solutions Inc. who provides business cash against future credit card reciepts. They can be contated at www.worldbankcardsolutions.com

I was just speaking with a shopper marketing veteran very recently. This particular contact's passing comment was that PRISM was a "soft" measurement and thus less favorable (and now defunct) given the ability of other approaches to directly correlate messaging efforts and results...

Hi Christie,

I'm a little surprised to hear that, since one of the objectives of PRISM was to relate OOH media in the same way as TV, print, etc. In other words, while gaze tracking, etc. might generate "hard" numbers, they aren't necessarily what today's advertising firms are looking for when making their plans.

Hi Steven,

Thanks very much for the kind words. I think there are two competing forces here that partly explain the failure of PRISM:

On one side are old-school agencies and planners that MUST have an apples-to-apples comparison to TV, print, etc. in order to get their jobs done. They were interested in PRISM, but perhaps not enough to foot the whole R&D bill.

On the other side are shopper marketing experts (like Miller Zell), as well as the retailers and brands themselves, who would much prefer the type of data you're talking about, because it will enable them to do more business (as opposed to CPM-style ads, which just enable them to maybe sell some ads).

What we're seeing from the measurement newcomers is exactly the kind of approach that you're talking about, and in the end, it may well prove to be the right one.

Hi Jake,

Welcome to the industry, and thanks for the kind words. Let us know if we can help.

- Bill

Hi Peter,

The typical markup on a name-brand item in your local supermarket is tiny, probably in the neighborhood of 2-3%. Where you see innovation -- and added value -- is in the additional services they provide (e.g. full-service deli, on-premise sushi chef, etc.) and, increasingly, in the private-label goods they put on the market. While private-label once meant low-cost, white box products of questionable quality, today's PL stuff is as good as name-brand, and typically offers better value for the customer and higher margins for the grocer.

Great article, Pat! I'm glad somebody (not me!) took the time to speak with some of these folks and get a truer understanding. There's plenty of gossip and hearsay out there, but very little factual information to back it up.

Thankfully (from the sound of it), there are plenty of non-advertising digital signage networks that can hold down the fort whilst the ad guys figure out what's what ;)

-Bill

Great... I´m agree with you, it´s necessary more agency planners implication, and we have to work in audience measurement in all the DS projects.
Thanks,

Roi Iglesias

We are doing more and more work with agencies; but I find that actual agency experience is extremely helpful. If you don't have an understanding of that it's hard to get in front of the right people...

A big issue for agencies and brands is how to measure the effectiveness of digital out-of-home. There needs to be a clear way for agencies to gauge the effectiveness and compare the metrics with traditional media. Thankfully this is happening through the efforts of OVAB and Nielsen. OVAB in particular has been doing a great job of getting in front of media planners at agencies.

I was just at Strategy Institute's Digital Media Measurement and Pricing Summit where OVAB's President, Suzanne Alecia spoke on a panel. She said that they (OVAB) are seeing a big increase in the number of ad agencies that are coming to them for information on digital out-of-home (significantly higher than 2008) and there "is an increased urgency" to learn more about this space.

The Strategy Institute meeting had about 50% agency-based media planners in attendance. The Brand Activation Summit held last September also had a significant representation of media planners from the agency side as well.

There's an education curve that the agency business needs to go through— and this process will take a time. That's bad news for networks that are ad supported, unforfunately there's no short cut around this process.

The good news is that the agencies do "get it" — Just look at the recent announcement by Schering-Plough Pharmaceuticals to spend almost $10 million dollars for a 12 week ad buy across 17 networks. OVAB had a lot to do with putting this deal together, and I think it's a milestone for the industry. Hopefully we will see more of this going forward.

PS: We'll have an article out next week on Digital Signage Universe covering Strategy Institute's Digital Media Measurement and Pricing Summit for those that are interested.

Lionel Tepper
Digital Signage Universe

Hello Paul! Bill might have told you, but I was, and still am So impressed with this article, as it was very relevant in my line of work. Such realistic perspectives and quotes are rare! This goes down as one of the best articles I have read hands down. Thank you so much for this and I'll be sharing my view on this particular article and comments in my next post.

P.S. Sup LT! You are all over the place!

I've seen, for the last 10 to 15 years, entrepreneurs in the digital OOH industry become road kill because they did not understand what this article and the intelligent and knowledgeable comments I have just read above are saying: No matter how much we,the "industry", may wish it, the "space" is not there yet within the paradigm that currently exists. Until a large enough network covering the ACV hurdle rate acceptable to pkg cos is in place no agency or the pkg cos themselves will spend in the "space" and the capx necessary to construct this "space" will not become available. As someone who looks at this from an investment as well as management perspective, I see the way to start directed at vertical venues. For instance, a system in a
particular category of retail that has a specific demographic that advertisers want. Of course, all the critical components like content and measurement must be there. I am open to comments and thanks for the discussion.

Appreciate all of the comments. Funny thing. I have received feedback from my ad agency friends that the article is "anti-agency" while my DS/DOOH brethren say they think the article makes our industry sound "whiny". Was not my intent to slant it either way. I tried to approach the topic as a reporter. And any reporter can see that while the industry is gaining momentum, the agencies aren't currently motivated to participate. As Howard said above, "the 'space' is not there yet".
What will get the space where it needs to be?
Here's where I'll inject my opinion. DS/DOOH needs improved measurement and absolutely needs improved content. We have to give customers a reason to watch, absorb and interact with what plays on the screens. Without compelling content, the audience won't pay attention. And that will lead to the worst measurement of all.

Dear Goliath,

You are a dead man.

Love,
David

I'll try it out on training corporate clients

Interesting and relevant article. We have a retail media planning site (planmymedia.com) designed to engage agencies. Its multi-channel (inc digital),multi-retailer and demographic based. Media agencies are still quite fragmented by specialism and media channel but are adapting. With a changing media landscape they (and all of us) have to become more flexible. We certainly have lots of interest but obstacles remain. Regarding the comment above, most of our (retail)media, inclusing digital is measurable (sales EPOS v control stores) and there is no question that creativity is improving. There is some great stuff around at the moment.

When children play it is a moment of joy when they move away from "me" and "you" to "we" - joy not just for them but for any observer. DOOH, agencies, brands and retailers are all in the same economic sandbox.. the "we" of it is our (collective and individual) next level. DOOH and agencies form a key relationship - so hats off to anyone who helps agency success. When they win, DOOH wins

We have been promoting Digital signage since the beginning of 2002 in Turkey and we currently have our networks at the major airports, business lounges, shopping malls, hospitals and universities.

I have completed my yearly visit to the large media buying agencies and we were very pleased to see their increased interest in digital signage.

The main reason is that their customer's expection due to the global crise is more work and also reducing their fees, the same problem with the mass media commissions, they want to reduce the commissions to the media agencies. Their suvival will be in alternative media such as digital signage if they will be able to create succesfull projects and will be helpfull to them and will be able to also pay them higher commissions.

I am optimistic for this year and also for the future but we should be in a position to bring end to end succesfull solutions through media agencies to their customers.

GREAT POST! You nailed the chart. It really puts both sides of the argument into perspective.

As devices and applications like those pioneered by Trumedia and Quividi continue to proliferate, the argument about consumer privacy will only expand further. Your view toward the importance of maintaining an open dialogue with consumers is right on. It's the only way that marketers can ensure they are providing consumer value without infringing upon personal boundaries.

Hi Bill, i´m a Wirespring Blog reader since 2003 or 2004 (i can´t remember exactly...).
Here you have the digital signage blog in spanish weekly.
http://digitalsignagecreativo.blogspot.com

And if anyone need press release or want to know more about digital signage projects in Spain...

Thanks for your posts, have inspired a lot of new ideas.

Bill
How time flys. A year ago I recall one of your blogs observing the first signs of encroachment by video surveillance vendors into the digital signage space. As I recall the convergence of surveillance and signage was viewed as being in the distant future. Nevertheless readers debated the merits of measurement versus privacy. It appears the future has arrived.
Steve

Thanks, David. And extra thanks for taking the time to articulate your opinion with your own blog article. I wish more people would continue the conversation that way!

(It's at http://dsinsights.blogspot.com/2009/02/digital-signage-and-consumer-privacy.html for anybody who reads these comments).

Steve: yes, I feel the need to keep this topic fresh and top-of-mind, so that means one fearmongering post every few months or so. However, as the NYT, WSJ and other big mainstream media outlets have been carrying more articles on the subject lately, I could see the entire debate coming to a head REAL SOON NOW.

All,

Thanks for the feedback and suggestions. Are there other foreign-language sites that should be listed (whether I'd be able to follow them or not is another matter entirely:)

1.) 2009: The Year of Interactive TV
The control of the $87 billion spent every year in the TV markets no longer exclusively belongs to the licensed fascists and their oligopoly of over-the-air broadcast networks. Every TV manufacturer is beating the drum to manufacture TV sets that function interactively in support of the open and agnostic Internet Protocols.

2.) 2009: the "big names" of digital signage will be seen and recognized as phoney and no longer relevant as business owners and operators become increasingly educated about RSS and AtomPub coming to learn that the current providers that relegate the use of RSS and AtomPub to "news and weather feeds" have been selling crippleware.

3.) 2009: will begin "our time in the sun" as my partner and I deploy our RSS and AtomPub software services via METROmilwaukee.com proving our assertions regarding Items 1 and 2 above.

Thank you for the informative article on digital signage. I have only recently installed a low end system into one of our corporate stores and found very little strategy to guide my creative.

A Sport Clips environment is unique because of the captive audience we hold while a client gets a haircut. Eventually, I combined several sources into a simple strategy mixing sales, entertainment and education as simple sides pass across the screen.

So far this is working great but I am always seeking new information to get the most from the technology.

Neal Geiger
Creative Director
Sport Clips Marketing

Pat, great article, this lines up with what we see with our DOOH networks and relations with the agencies, in the 8 years I've been involved with the business I've been saying "this is the year" and learning each year what the new roadblocks are. Now we see the slow maturity of the space and with long term relationships with our retail partners we slowly grow each network organically through relationships with the agencies and brands directly.

I invite you and everyone that reads this article to join the conversation at the "In-Store TV Professionals" group on Linked In.

Lionel, you are 100% right, there needs to be a way to measure it and it starts with the 10 million dollar buy by Schering. That is the only thing the digital companies get, data. The 10mm is value only, the digital networks have offered their networks for free. If this test goes wrong this you can say good bye to some of the smaller DOOH's.

I'm interested in developing a digital sign network but don't have enough info on rates advertisers are willing to pay. If anyone has info on medical waiting room ad rates, please pass along.

Indeed a good idea, a strong message strategy addressing to refined target audience that to in captive environment can work wonders.

Tom,
wwwdotindovancedotcom

Where can I obtain a copy of the source for firecast linux?

Does this include those TVs above shoppers heads that people only glance at for a couple of seconds, if so, this is just alot of wasted £.

Bill,
I read all your blogs and find you are the most informed and knowledgable on the subject of Digital Signage that I have come across and I might ad, the best of the best. What I would like to know is way has this industry not considered the logic of interfacing OOH signage with mobile user's? By this I mean giving the mobile user the option of dialing a number related to the ariticle displayed to get details available from it's related web site content. These are metrics that can be recorded and reports compiled for the benefit of the advertiser. I would write the software to do it, but only if I had the financial backing to do it. I don't see it as being that complicated. I'm also sure that deployers would love to make it an option to their clients. I would apprciate some feed back on this.
Regards
Wayne Moore

This is an interesting subject, that has ramifications far beyond what I beleive is taking place in our present time. Consider, that all forms of digital technoloy, obviously, are effecting all of society simultaneously, at least to some degree. What those effects ultimately end up being is anyone's guess. I have to acknowledge that the content in all of these applications... mobile, t.v., radio, internet, DOOH, word of mouth, must by defintion, communicate! What is being communicated and how it is being communicated, video, audio, graphicaly, contectually and all of the "art" involved in this process gets "recognized" in different ways by various segments of socities at various times, mostly dependent on your age, economic station, social status, philosophy, political outlook, etc. at the time, you are being "communicated to". What are you interested in at any given moment is more the question? Digital signage, along with mobile communication, along with all forms of communication will always matter, one way or another. How to create... (here we go), more defining, engaging, interesting, captivating, sensational important and relevant content is what really counts.

I agree, Bill, that one doesn't kill the other. In fact, we're about to use mobile to enhance our digital signs. Our hotel signage will give the guest a number to text for a special offer, directions, enter sweepstakes, etc.

We'll even have a video commercial on how to use text messaging - something that print can't do very well. We'll demo how to use texting, because there are a lot of folks who don't text yet.

Mobile isn't going to kill our network, it's going to serve it!

I do think that digital signage operators recognize the value of using a mobile call to action (e.g. text "value" to #55555 for a coupon!") both as a way to increase engagement and measure audience participation.

As Ray notes above, it's becoming impossible to merely interact with one medium without being affected by another. Right now that plays against us when we can't coordinate everyone's efforts. In the future, though, it should improve things for both the marketer and the consumer since there will be less message competition and more cooperation (hopefully).

Hi Wayne,

In fact there are plenty of platforms out there that will do just what you want - embed a shortcode or QR code into a piece of content that will let a mobile user opt-in to get more information.

I just posted an article somewhat related to that topic yesterday, too.

The older generation of Walmart TV did use those ceiling-mounted displays pretty much exclusively, though the new "Smart Network" they began introducing in 2008 uses many more endcap and shelf-level displays.

Interestingly, while you might think that the ceiling mounted displays were wasted money, Walmart apparently found enough value in them to fund the massive internal expansion of the channel themselves. So I guess it's doing something for them :)

Bill,
Being in mobile trenches I DO AGREE that mobile is not going to kill (so violent) DS, TV, print or radio. In fact, mobile is pull media and need all of these channels in order to 'thrive'. Mobile needs these vehicles for exposure and will have a symbiotic relationship with other media for foreseeable future.
See http://www.mobilemarketer.com/cms/opinion/columns/2656.html

FYI, usage on iPhone http://maverix.typepad.com/brandingunbound/2008/10/comscore-releases-first-study-on-iphones-not-so-wealthy-demographics.html

I'm a human!

I struggle to accept how someone could even write..."mobile marketing will kill digital signage." It's not even a vaild argument. Given that each format offers a different communication and user engagement model, it's illogical to say that one's growth would lead to the other's downfall. Did the emergence of television destroy radio? No, because they are alternate content/advertising platforms which can be used apart, or in tandem, to shape a range of marketing messages.

Mobile marketing companies such as Locamoda, Bluefire Digital, MegaPhone, and Snaptell, utilize the mobile channel in tandem with
other media platforms to achieve the greatest level of user engagement and spread targeted advertising messages. In leveraging the new media triad of the Web, mobile, and digital out-of-home, marketers increase the effectiveness and measurability of their campaigns.

Hi Jay,

I had seen that Comscore report. Two things: first, while the lower-income segment is growing fastest, the higher-income segment is still the largest by a good margin. Second, my guess at why the lower-income area is seeing the most growth: younger people are buying them. Had they asked for household income I'd bet they would have skewed back up to the top. But for the Millenial just graduating from college and getting their first job (and probably still living at home), an iPhone isn't an affordable luxury, it's a necessity.

The trend towards small layouts and reconnecting with core shoppers was already showing strength even before the recession hit. Starbucks was testing out 160 sq. ft. microstores in areas with high concentrations of core customers (who probably weren't uttering 16-word incantations to order their cup o' joe either), and Best Buy was trying out a few stores about 1/3 the size of their typical layout.

Fantastic information; interaction with the environment and the audience while creating clear objectives for the network are pillars in any network strategy. These fundamentals are the foundation for content, creative, installation, deployment, hardware/software, connectivity, audio/visual (I could go on and on).

you've touched some critical points here with relevant history and enviable experience. Many networks (particularly ad-driven networks) struggling to stay alive have yet to answer the simple question of "why am I here?", much less "what should I look like?"

Michael Torano
http://www.linkedin.com/in/michaeltorano

The boom on micro-supermarkets and online grocery delivery in the UK seems to support your identification of 'food deserts' (easily mis-spelt as the 'food desserts'). Tesco Metro has exploded in sub urban areas and have been so effective that house prices in the immediate surrounding have increased. An additional source of fresh produce is the petrol forecourt. Placed in accessible locations but often far from a supermarket, some of the major food retailers have exploited the locations to attract significant - and sustainable - business.

hi bill

tks for your post. while we all talk of declining ad revenues across the board, and propose moving budgets from traditional to newer media for better efficiencies, i have yet to find few really good case studies that we can show our advertisers the merits of our medium/industry. You mentioned that from your own experience you think the return is 7-8% with sometimes even 300-400% - could you provide some details on these cases? for e.g. we've done work in India where we worked with advertisers to double the traffic to their website in 2 weeks what they could not achieve in 2 months.

Would be great to get your thoughts!

best,

Gaurang

helo,pls i would like to know the price of 12ft by 24ft or any bigger sieze of electronic digital billboard and the installation,and also link me to ur presentative in nigeria.pls this is very urgent08063793288

Do you have any suggestions on where to place 2 RSS tickers on signs? Should they be on top of each other or in separate areas of the sign?

Bill,

I was wondering if the same exercise is/has been done across Europe as well. Since I can imagine, as you stated with the comparison between USA and India, that there are significant differences between several continents (or even countries) I would like to get an overall benchmarking view on the digital signage costs.

Remarks from other respondents are more than welcome as well off course.

Thanks in advance for your feedback!

Jens

Hi Jens,

Unfortunately, I don't know of a similar type of study anywhere else. While we've included international data points in the above analysis, it's definitely heavily weighted towards the US market where we have the most experience and greatest range of contacts.

iSuppli had a similar study out last year (which I've compared here), but again my guess is that it's weighted toward the US market.

One of my favorite was part of the Magnetic 3D booth. A small company that was operating there screan in 2D and 3D with there cell phone alone. It was instant. They also showcased thier interactivity, text to screan and live sports games and music. I believe the name was Fithwindow. Very cool

Hi Jessica,

2 tickers on a sign is almost certainly a bad idea. One ticker alone can dramatically reduce comprehension rates for the rest of your content. I'd guess that two tickers will simply be ignored. If you must have two, for some reason, put them as far apart from each other as possible, so that people can focus on one of them (since there's no way they'll be able to read both at once anyway).

But seriously, it's probably the wrong way to solve whatever problem you're having.

Hi Gaurang,

Part of our problem is that ad performance is very inconsistent, partly because the networks themselves are inconsistent, and partly because much of the content being produced today is still pretty bad (TV advertisers have had 50 years to perfect their skills. We haven't ... yet.)

The 400% example I cited was from a client of ours - Bass Pro Shops, which are a chain of sporting goods stores that are about 200,000 sq.ft. (VERY big), and have very loyal shoppers. This particular case was for a type of fishing line, which was on the shelf with approximately 30 other similarly-packaged types of fishing line. When advertised on the in-store network, sales of the product jumped 400% versus other brands of fishing line, none of which were advertised. The ad ran in 22 stores, and was not featured in another 25, yielding a statistically significant result.

Was it typical? No, of course not. Most ads in that chain had nowhere near that kind of impact. But it does show what's possible.

I can swim like a fish but not eat the little beggars (nor the big beggars either to be fair).

Great summary of the event - we most liked the Touch TV Networks stuff seen sharing a stand with CHILIN

One has to wonder whether the rise of small stores will bring with it a rise in prices. After all, cost per square foot is typically higher in smaller stores, and that seems like it would have to translate to higher costs for shoppers.

Of course, one might also price in convenience, but the lower-income shoppers who often populate the food deserts might not be too thrilled (or too able) to pay more simply because a store is closer to home.

I won't/can't comment on the quality of the panel that I moderated, "What's next at retail?" . Rather, I can cite the size of the audience. Our panel had the dreaded time slot: 3PM, day two. I anticipated we would be talking to ourselves. But no. We had over 50 people in the audience. Shocking. (Bill, maybe you remember that dreadful conference in Ft. Lauderdale when there weren't 50 people in the room on day one, session one. And that's counting the bus boys.)
Our panel's big draw was Mike Hiatt, formerly of Walmart. Mike addressed, as he put it, "the elephant in the room", his recent departure, with wit and a sense of humor. Thanks also to fellow panelists Gale, Brandon and Vincent.
All things considered, 50 die hards hanging in/staying awake/asking questions during the late session on day two is encouraging to say the least.

Neil, Tom, and Michael:

Thanks for the feedback. Neal, per your comment, while the context of the venue is important, the number of installations really isn't. Except, of course, that you might be able to spend more money on a clip that's going to run across 100 screens than you could for 1. But even the amount of money spent on your clip is no guarantee that it's going to perform well. That's why an overall content strategy is SO important.

I could't agree more with your comments here. While the methods and speed with which we transmit visual messages has increased exponentially over our history, our ability to process visual communications has not increased. In my 10 years in digital signage I have come to learn that less is more in conveying your message. Sidebar - there are certain applications when more is actually more - think digital signage dashbaords reporting production data in a manufacturing plant.

It was my first DS show. I enjoyed it alot, but I could only handle one day and a few hours on the show floor because every vendor "was the best you could buy on the market"! Although, I did determine which vendors to choose after coming home! Bill, I heard your presentation on content was spot on and fantastic. I was wondering if you were going to post any of it on your blog?

Thanks, keep up the great work and take care!

Jake

Good to finally meet you at DSE. You did a great job moderating the Mobile Interactivity Panel.

Chris: I also saw a couple of demos with "instant" mobile response via alphanumeric. Last year it was all about MegaPhone. This year it seems like they have some competition.

Adrian: Congrats. You, my friend, have just given yourself a new nickname.

Pat: Yeah, I remember that conference. I'm just glad it was local :) I got some feedback on your session, and as you noted it was mostly about Mike Hiatt's departure. While I know you can fill a room, I think a lot of people simply couldn't believe that after how much Walmart has hyped their Smart Network he was getting laid off.

Jake: Well, we are the best you can buy on the market, so you obviously got duped.

Stephen: Good meeting you face-to-face too, and thanks for the compliment.

When you say "In all, I was actually kind of satisfied to find myself bored after just a few minutes of perusing booths at the DSE. We're a maturing industry now, and while there are still hundreds of vendors out there essentially trying to solve the same problem over and over, at least now the solutions are starting to look more like one another." I tend to agree with you.

New digital signage software entrants are better served by bringing to market value added components to enhance industry leading platforms, like FireCast, that have at least 10 years head start. Time to market will be dramatically quicker and they would have a shot at making an impact.

Hi Bill,
Congrats, the panel was great.
It's my first time in DSE at Vegas, I did enjoy the expo. I found the seminars good enough to draw attention to the opportunities industry is providing. There were lots of spots emphasizing the importance of the content and suggesting several content resources. I've not heard of some before such as Sony Pictures rich content archive, no doubt Sony provides good stuff for the industry. Of course pricing matters...
In short, I found the DSE and most seminars informative and educative.

Ediz Burla
TVeez Turkey, VP Marketing

Bill,

It was nice to meet you at DSE! I'd like to view your presentation for the content seminar.

"The folks at BroadSign had the good sense to keep Dave Haynes locked up in a small plexiglass box a'la David Blaine for most of the show. Surely they were worried that his célébrité was such that out in the open, he would be overwhelmed by hordes of die-hard fans pleading for his autograph."

Love it...

John: couldn't agree with you more! (obviously) But I do think we're starting to move in that direction -- see LocaModa and other "application" providers for evidence. I think it will be even faster and better once we announce some interoperability standards.

Ediz: yeah, content really should have been front-and-center instead of in a little section in the back. Perhaps they'll revamp next year's floorplan to make a big content area right in the middle of everything (you listening, Chris Gibbs? ;)

Jay: Likewise, nice meeting you. I'm in the process of turning the content day presentation into some blog articles, so they should be going up pretty soon.

Teri: Thank you, thank you. I'll be here all week. Try the veal.

I have a lady who has a problem with EMF signals in her flat, Which she thinks are being produced by the person in the flat above.
Do you know anyone who would have the equipment to measure and record what she is experiencing. She is willing to pay for this service, but requires recorded data.? Thank you. She lives in Bexhill on Sea East Sussex.

At the CES 2009 in Vegas, I discovered this new type of kiosk called the Smart-Leaf. I guess what is unique about it is that it is wall mountable and comes with touch screen and fold-out keyboard. (www.smart-leaf.com) I am interested in purchasing one for my business, but do not know a lot about it. Has any one heard of this brand new technology? If so, what are your thoughts? It is VERY intriging.

Bill, I disagree with your chart and your theory behind consumer squeamishness.

First, your chart only places face/iris identification below the X axis, without explaining why the other applications you list don't belong there as well.

In fact, the application in which the kiosk is activated by RFID in a consumer's loyalty card is actually a much greater invasion of privacy than iris/facial recognition.

The loyalty card not only identifies individual consumers, but links this identification with their shopping histories.

This application belongs below the X axis of your chart even if it has yet to gain as much media attention as facial recognition.

The other loyalty card application is less privacy invasive because it suggests tea and crumpet information is analyzed in aggregate, not at the individual level; so this may not belong in the valley.

Second, I think consumers' distaste for facial recognition in digital signage has very little to do with the existential paradox of human-like robots; that theory trivializes some very concrete privacy issues.

On one level, it's more simple than that: people instinctively don't like being watched or scrutinized without their consent and especially without their notice.

Digital signage with identification technologies represent a new front in mass surveillance; in this case the surveillance is used for marketing and not security, which makes the privacy encroachment more offensive because it is surveillance for profit and not for safety (and consumers are already bombarded with ads to begin with).

It's naive to think that digital signage will not evolve to routinely identify individuals, because it will be profitable to do so once the technology is less costly.

Similarly, it's against the trend of history to believe that the data digital signage firms collect on individual consumers will never be shared with other parties or used for purposes other than marketing; law enforcement is one good example: remember that any records kept by a digital signage firm are available via subpoena or court order.

Digital signage companies, trade associations, their partners and their affiliates must commit to consumer anonymity when using facial recognition cameras, and notify consumers of when such cameras are in use; RFID and mobile applications should operate strictly on an opt-in basis.

It is past time for the industry to establish concrete consumer privacy standards, both technical and policy-based.

Hi
I would like to start business in a major city in India Bill board signage infrastructure provider. I would like to collaborate with a company who has trach record in seeting up and supplying the hardware, related softwares.
Please snd me the details to vlshetty@hotmail.com

Can the market for digital out-of-home media grow without taking revenue away from more traditional advertising options?

Not really. However, there's plenty of budget out there and the 'shift' is definitely happening as advertisers are being forced to look for new ways to connect with their target audience, which is increasingly mobile and time constrained.

Hii !,..

Thanks Bill, especially for the reminder to use Bloglines. I need to unclutter my email inbox with many of the newsletter sources you mentioned above, and move to other newsfeed sources. Muchas gracias!
Great Job!,..
Blogging News - Blogging News Information You Can Use
Thanks

Hii Frenz!,..
You can even tag your favorite articles with a predetermined code then let everyone's favorite web pages be fed to the group. You can add wikis and google docs for collaboration.I agree with you on Linkedin being something to spend more time on, if we had it. I have personally made some great industry connections there.

Blogging News - Blogging News Information You Can Use

Please i need more info about e-billboards. The pros and cons, cost of design and erection and materials needed for the design

i am a graphics student please i am about to finish my course and there is a need for me to write project.Please i really need information on electronic billboard.specially on history and how it came to existence.

Enclosures / skins can be interesting...and sometimes necessary depending on where its being installed (e.g. protection). That said, 99% of our installed screens don't use any type of enclosure or skin. The reason for this has mostly been cost, less complications/planning, and ease of installation. Although they're not always cheap, we push the use of thin-bezel commercial monitors--no need to skin and the emphasis is all on the message/content.

I'd like it if businesses had the money/time to integrate screens into the architecture--make screens not look like TV's--but they are few and far between in this, still somewhat early, stage of the industry/medium.

Marketers shouldn't be afraid to cut-off/round-off corners, make their signage look different...why must the signage always be so square/rectangular? Be creative, because the your audience is going to start getting tired of the same old TV's hanging in stores.

Can anyone name some vendors providing off-the-shelf enclosures like the multi-colored ones above? Thanks.

I agree with Bill's comment: interestingly, some of Giant's Get-Go locales are simply amped-up convenience stores while others (Giant Eagle Express) are really mini-supermarkets. In fact, they're often placed within a few miles of each other. The testing ground will be in perishables: fresh items are what people in the "food deserts" need and want most, but they are also notoriously hard to find (from the customer's point of view) and hard to manage (from the store's perspective).

On a crash-course to produce ads for newspaper advertising website... your advice ROCKS! Thank you, even if my job is toast, I'll have gone out with style!

Well put. I'm certain our industry embraced tickers, not because it will cause users to glance at the screen but because it was extremely simple to add to software and very easy for users to implement.

Moving breaking news via RSS is easy and should be done - but I'd much rather see a large headline and a paragraph of the story or a headline and a large photo when viewing a screen.

Its a helpful topic. u may find some more over
Advertising and Marketing Suppliers

Regards
Nikita

I like what CNN did, they evolved. The all news network and many others gave rise to the scrolling ticker in the days following 9/11 and it was good, at the time. Now CNN has introdued the "flipper" which is viewed as simpler and easier to read since it presents static text one item at a time rather than a continuous crawl. Digital signage should evlolve as well.

I can relate to Rule #3. I recently put several kiosks in county jails and it's like we just couldn't make them intuitive enough. The key turned out to be using a lot of big pictures because no one was reading the text instructions.

-Andrew
Self Service Kiosk Design by RedSwimmer.com

I definitely agree - a scrolling ticker gives the impression of lots of information coming across. I've never done a formal study, but I'd bet that people would say they "felt" more informed when watching a screen with video ticker rather than video alone, even if they didn't absorb any more info from the ticker (and potentially even less since their attention would be divided).

But with data firmly in hand, and tech at the ready to deliver smooth, customizable fades, blasts and other means of moving text on and off the screen, it's time to move on to formats that are proven to work better (and look nicer, in my opinion).

Hi Andrew,

Thanks very much for the feedback. I agree, using strong, distinctive and illustrative visual elements is one of the most effective ways of improving usability, particularly for audiences that might not have the benefit of good educations.

Keep up the good work, and always feel free to share any best practices you might come across.

Hi Jeff,
Here you have one:
DS Digital Screens
www.dsdigitalsignage.com

I´m working some projects with them.

It is true that the varying mediums that carry digital signage messages are wide and varied and what must also continue is that the software is as adaptable as this.

What about the elevator pitch that gets the investor to underwrite the digital signage network.

Bill,

This makes total sense, and is completely aligned with the fields studies that were conducted by my former company. We didn't deal with Kiosks, but absolutely dealt with Digital Signage, and POP medias, where ad retention/recall rates Spiked with the media(s)placed in the "duration of the retail experience," compared to those that were placed at the entrances.

This was the consistent case for numerous venues that all had different characteristics in business-types and unique property factors.

Yet another great post as they usually are. Looking forward to the viewing angles post, as that is another critical factor that will compliment this post well.

Do you think he'd tell you if he actually figured it out? ;)

Yeah, my first read after writing the draft of this article was "your whole conclusion was put the screens where all traffic is? Well, DUH!"

Upon a second read, though, I decided it made sense to write about it anyway, since a) that's definitely NOT always the case (dwell-zone vs. power-aisle vs. in-aisle vs. shelf vs. endcap, for example), and b) it's good to see logic and expectation line up every now and then :)

Thanks for the feedback!

It's a work in progress, but I do have a digital signage pitch for the elevator industry.

Bill - this is my local IGA store in Toronto.

What do you reckon? They seem to meet your criteria but I have to say I have never seen anyone take one look at that screen.

http://picasaweb.google.com/shopperwatch/DropBox?authkey=Gv1sRgCJ_zkYu-19i-kgE&pli=1&gsessionid=cT-orMcTOnMhto1YR5tWmw#5320142134875690034

Would love to hear what you think.

Hmm, let's have a look...

Well, traffic certainly doesn't appear to be the problem :) And given how tight that space looks, I don't think it could be placed lower or off to the side.

Of course, just because you can put a screen there doesn't mean that you should. And just because somebody has followed (roughly) the guidelines above certainly doesn't mean that their screens will be looked at -- consider them more of a set of "minimum requirements" than anything else. In your example the screen:

1. blends into the fluorescent fixtures
2. is facing (at best) only 50% of the potential aisle traffic
3. isn't at all integrated into the store's layout

Further, power/outer aisle screens are notoriously difficult to make content for. These are glance media at their utmost - I'd guess you have no more than a split second to attract the eye. The screen's going to be tough to move, but I bet you could get better results with some optimized content of some sort (sounds easy to say, can be fiendishly hard to make, test, remake, retest, etc.).

Just had the fortune to run into your article, Bill. And I do appreciate Tom's input.

With Google just now moving off the proverbial dime in DS, my client just told me with only half a tongue in cheek, "Pack your bags, Google is now officially in the digital signage business!"

It seems the the "No Wal-Mart here--it'll cost too many businesses" mindset is now sweeping some of the middle and lower market DS industry. Because of the niche-narrowing Wal-Mart caused, my clients were more successful and even learned (most of the time) to embrace the idea of multiple Wal-Marts for each metro area as to not affecting their own (now smartened niche) market share.

I see the same thing happening here with Google. I feel Google has just launched an eventual army of DS entrepreneurs across the globe with their recent moves--and all of us should embrace their move. Am I missing something with this assessment? Google just raised the tide--and all the rest of us 'boats' are going to (for the mostpart) enjoy the ride.
Your thoughts?

Steve Lanning
301-790-0103

pls am in nigeria and would really love to know the cost of getting 4[nos] 10feet by 20feet led billboards,plz this cost should include cost of shipping. thanks Myk egbe

It did not read like an ad, in fact it was very interesting read. This was a tough call and I applaud and respect you for taking this calculated risk. I hope allocating large amount of money for development of this solution will pay off.

I’m sure you guys will sell thousands of these players , my only concern is about support. Is your support team ready to answer 100s of callers who might not still understand how this works and need their help? This could get very costly in the long run, how do you plan to overcome that?

Hi Lucky,

Thanks for the feedback. To your question of whether we're prepared to support EasyStart - that was certainly the #1 question on our minds while building it out. We still don't know the answer (though of course we'll do whatever it takes), but we think we've done the best we can to virtually eliminate the major points of support that have come up during 7 or 8 years of deploying enterprise digital signage.

Along with the networking, multi-zone layouts and interactivity issues that I mentioned above, things like configuring screens (picking a resolution, etc.), understanding the benefits of various media formats and remote troubleshooting round out our list of top support issues, so you can believe that where we've spent the majority of our time in EasyStart development.

well done wirespring! There truly is an underserved niche that you'll most likely dominate considering what I've seen of the product. Listening to the market wants is always a good strategy. But beware - not far behind are your competitor's who will quickly follow your lead with their own versions. - double kudos to you that you follow 37signals blog.

Sure maybe the price could be lower. But I think the agencies are just holding out because they've got the upper hand.....for now.

Agencies have traditionally made up their own measurement tools or have established an "objective" body capable of producing such data for their client. So in a way I agree with Bill, this association is a definitive indication that they are moving in the DOOH space.

What's in it for them? Agencies make a percentage on ad placed. The bigger the amount, the bigger the income. If they have to work a lot for little money, they will stay away from the media. If they have to search a lot or use different measuring tools and companies (i.e. more work) they will stay away.

The constant here is consolidation at all levels, Consolidation of media, consolidation of measurement. This is surely pointing to the next level of progress.

Let's be real. It simply comes down to efficiency. Agencies and innovative media buyers want it, but can't get it when they plan for a digital out-of-home buy because this inherent fragmentation of networks. Not to mention the problem of having to transform creative content across multiple platforms. This is not only a fundamental audience targeting issue, but also a technological limitation in current offerings. This is where we can begin the discussion and explore a solution.

The entire digital out-of-home industry is broken, especially the way advertising is being bought. There is an immediate need to invigorate the digital signage and digital out-of-home industries—so much so that we should even change the name of the industry itself. The term “DOOH� should only remain to be a remark coined by Homer Simpson and not an acronym that identifies the sophisticated animal that it is: fast-growing, rapidly-evolving, cutting-edge, and technologically advanced—these elements are its core strengths, but there remains to be a need to utilize the full-scope of these vast media platforms, as they grow and evolve with astonishing velocity.

I agree with some of the comments above. It's more about finding what advertisers want, speaking their language, and being able to measure ROI better. The terms “digital out-of-home� or “DOOH� are somewhat stale and uninteresting, undermining the dynamic nature of the platform and “newness� of the industry itself. These terms take with it some mediocre connotations about the platform’s performance and the terms don’t quite resonate as dynamically as Web 2.0, Interactive Media, or Integrated Advertising.

Manolo, sage amongst sages, thank you for gracing my blog with your presence :)

It always feels like the competition is breathing down our necks -- there are 300 of them, after all -- so rest assured that we're not resting on our laurels just because version 1.0 made it out the door!

All,

Very much appreciate the feedback. I think Francois touches on an important point -- OOH placements have never yielded the same commissions as TV or print placements, so old-guard agencies were reluctant to put a lot of emphasis on them for revenue reasons.

However, when clients start asking for these types of campaigns -- and particularly when they straddle the line between old-school advertising and experiential trade promotion -- their agencies simply can't ignore them.

Hi, I am an engineer doing LED display. Please send your questions about LED display to my email:rickyliu001@gmail.com

Agencies can't ignore them, but can't allocate major media buys to this industry either. Why? Because they can't rationalize a spend that is wasteful. I know that there are companies right now that are trying to aggregate all these networks, but even if they do, how media plans are still tough to execute because of the fragmentation. And even if the process of buying media itself was smooth, another challenge arises--transmitting content over multiple platforms. shouldn't there be a way to streamline this process as well?

I guess you've never been to the MSP airport there were flight insurance machines there for years. ALSO there were little rooms that you could rent for "quiet time" that had a single bed, wash basin, little office space, even dial up internet (hey it was a few years ago) I used them one time when I was dog tired and had a flight delay. It was 99% soundproof.

This goes back to the notion of efficiency. Content is getting thrown all over the place inefficiently because networks are so fragmented. The right message at the right time in front of the right person means having a solution that targets audiences more efficiently across mutiple platforms. What the industry needs is a network unifier, an advanced technology aggregator, a company that ca take mutiple digital networks with unique distribution capabilities, and harmonize them like a symphony. This way, advertisers can distribute their content across multiple platforms without having to worry about changing their ads over a hundred times to fit network specifications. As soon as this problem is solved, advertisers will start pounding down the door because they will be able to plan and buy media more efficiently.

Hi Bill,

Great article - you are speaking our language! I would like to touch base with you and further discuss the opportunities tied to mobile and digital signage...taking an otherwise ambient form of media and making it truly interactive..

Amielle

A majority of the hundreds of installations that we perform daily throughout North America do not have sound. However, we are seeing growth in focused sound applications in retail as well as more installations in professional lobbies - vet, dental, health offices which require sound.

Sound? No way. We made the experience that the sales staff gets crazy. We do not see any advantage by the usage of sound. Our hardware is also not ready to play sound :-).
But this was wanted when we developed our hardware.

Jeff: Interesting, and I'd have to agree that smaller locations with less transient populations tend to be more likely to at least try sound. But the annoying loop at the dr's office is just as likely to put me (or an employee) in a bad mood as it is in a grocery store, don't you think?

Christian: Yeah, as a number of people have told me, employee fatigue should have been the #1 reason against sound on my list :)

Hi Emerald,

I don't buy that argument 100%. A lot of networks, particularly smaller ones in the 10-99 range, are run by small companies that for better or worse aren't doing anything else -- they're focusing all of their efforts on that network. So they have nothing to be "fragmented" by, and what's more, they often do the content creation to actually build the spots that are going to play on their screens.

So while ad aggregation and combined distribution is certainly a useful goal, I don't think it's the reason behind so much of the mediocrity out there with regard to screen placement and content set up.

Couldn't agree more. It's an unfortunate reality that we still have to worry about the worst case scenario. But we do. If your content includes audio that is driving the on-site employees insane, the worst case scenario is they will find a way to sabotage the audio system. I've seen it happen also. Another good argument, as if we needed another one, against playing broadcast spots in store. Without music and/or narration, most broadcast spots make no sense. A TV spot, played without sound in-store, does more harm than good.

I programmed and managed a 600 location network across Canada and the States a few years ago where every location was indeed audio enabled. Our sales folks were of the mind that the louder we ran the more likely we would sell ads.

What was the result? Sales folks working in proximity to the screens in full uproar; complaining to management and even starting blogs about the situation.

Bill's advice to move cautiously and thoughtfully with audio is sound. Read and learn...

Frankly due to the lower hardware costs and content development costs of audio, there are many retail merchandising challenges that can be solved quite effectively by a Sound Only solution where a video based solution wouldn't have a favorable ROI. As someone who has deployed over half a million listening stations to music retailers (back in the old days when there were physical music retailers), it's quite possible to do.

People like Martin Lindstom in "BrandSense" have done a pretty thorough job of documenting that fact that multi-sensory branding can be exponentially more effective than focusing on any one sense.

So if you're going to do audio (in retail), you do need to consider some factors:

Employee Fatige - Employees exposed to repetitive and irritating audio are going to find a way to disable your display. (we use motion sensors and timers to limit audio when a customer isn't actively engaged with a display).

Volume Levels - Ambient volume in the environment will change throughout the day and certainly from store to store, so you can't set a default volume at the factory, or even in the store during set-up. You need to use dynamic volumes that adjust to current ambient levels.

Volume Control - If the audio has important information delivery (vs. being a UI element or attraction device) then you need some use volume control, but it needs to be non-persistent (so the volume resets for the next user/shopper).

Think about sales assisted experiences. We always design our experiences to be multi-modal (self service customer, sales assisted customer, sales associate education). When a sales associate is helping a customer at the display, we give them the ability to easily "snooze" the audio for a specific period of time, so they don't have to talk over it.

Directional Audio - There are a variety of technologies out there, that can work in the right environments, but they have trade offs. Parabolics can be expensive and aesthetically challenging to install. HSS panels can have audio bounce/leakage problems. None of the directional solutions support much dynamic range.

Hi Bill, I hope life is treating you well. No doubt screen placement plays an important rolel to enhance effectiveness. I agree that shoppers tend to move slower even to stand and consider at some points. Figuring out such areas is the key point of a successfull implementation. Most retailers expect the screens equally distributed, in most cases I found it unreasonable. I've experiences mainly in Electronic retailer shops such as Teknosa (largest retailer in Turkey-over 200 shops,) Mediamarkt...etc. The entrance level of the store may not be a good hit. Depending on the shape of the store, screens which are placed in the middle of the store at the right angle seems more viewable. Shoppers tend to be aware of such screens frequently compare to to the side installations. In addition, depending on the size/shape of the store such placements give shoopers extra time to consider and to follow up the informative contents. Rgs. Ediz Burla

I MUST SAY WALMART NEEDS AND I MEAN NEEDS TO CHANGE THAT GOD AWFUL WHISTLING COMMERICAL FROM TRAC PHONE ITS VERY IRRITATING TO HAVE TO LISTEN TO THAT FOR WHAT NOW 2 YEARS ITS TIME TO CHANGE I HATE TO EVEN SHOP THERE ANYMORE BECAUSE I CANT STAND TO HEAR THAT ANYMORE TALK ABOUT BORING IRRITATING NERVE RACKING ITS GOTTA GO AND I MEAN NOW IF THIS ISNT THE PLACE TO SEND THIS THEN COULD YOU PASS IT ON TO WALMART I HAVE HEARD OTHERS IN THE STORE SAY THE SAME THING I HAVE ITS TIME TO STOP THE WHISLETING WONT SHOP THERE TILL ITS DONE TO ME ITS VERY BAD BUSINESS CUSTOMERS ARE NOT HAPPY TO HEAR THIS EVERY DAY AND EVERY DAY ETC.

Thanks for the namecheck Bill - I have tweeted your excellent and thoughtful blog in return.

Good to see such well-considered comments also. It's reassuring that everyone sees the perils of uncontrolled intrusive AV in public spaces. I blogged a while ago about the screens in the Milan underground, which batter the poor travelers waiting for trains with sound offering nowhere to run, nowhere to hide.

We will surely have to endure some unpleasant testing like this of the boundaries between adding value to retail experiences and irritating the heck out of people... but I believe the future will see a holistic approach to space design that takes into account all five senses from the start, designing to take advantage of what Prof Charles Spence calls 'super-additivity', where 1 1 1 1 1=20 or more.

Hi,
Sound and music are a great team at POS. If you work sound and music thinking in consumers you have their atention.
Music, sound and content, produced specifically for digital signage, get the channel to work, that the public is better informed, and that employees do not perceive noise.
We are working some channels with music, sound and video, with Kentia Software. The video content is only sound when they are relevant, if not noise pollution.
Music and sound affects the way shoppers (retail week)

Why leave sound/audio in the communicators toolchest as digital sigange is pulled out ! Suitable apply, as with touch, and even smell audio can augment the messaging, its influence and call to action, adding to brand recognition. Suitable and appropraite to the environment are the words I most read into your comments Bill (and other commentators). Interesting to note that "best of the best" content award winners almost always have audio. (Smirnoff, Gilette, etc.)

Talking head - bad, Raw noise - bad, Long form spot spot (i.e. Movie Trailer - bad. Familiar tones and tunes in context - Audio good.!

Bill,

Glad you touch on this subject as well. "Don't rely on sound alone to make your message." and "Your visual messages should be comprehensible without sound..." very much hits home; especially from the network operator and agency perspectives. Currently, I know for fact that the lack of audio alone could be a "deal killer," and it is good to see the work is getting out that networks and content can work effectively without it, or with other solutions as well.

Check out http://tinyurl.com/co36rn and http://tinyurl.com/c8498o if you have the time. I would love your thoughts and I'm sure Paul would love it as well.

Great post! Gerba hits again. :)

Hi Bill.
Quick question- If $1.3B represents total market of US DOOH and only $330M of that represents advertising revenue- and I assume (based on industry news) as of 2008, there were approximately 837K total screens in the US- approximately 43% (or 359,910) of them ad supported, that means each of these ad supported screens only accounts for $917.00 per screen? Am I missing something? I would think DS ad revenue would be much higher.

Any insight? Thanks for the blog- best spot for DS education by far!

Hi Mel,

I certainly can't vouch for everyone's network, but my feeling -- based on anecdotal evidence as well as a spot-check of some networks I'm close to -- is that this isn't too far off the mark. We've done a number of models based on impressions, CPM and the like, and found that the average screen on a "good" network can draw in somewhere between $110 and $150/month, which puts it above your $917, but not by a huge amount. Especially when you consider that there are still a lot more "bad" networks with poor sales characteristics that make up for the "good" ones.

Prices will start trending up soon, though. There's an over-supply of inventory, and under-demand (fueled by difficulty buying, lack of agency awareness, etc.). That's already starting to change, so I'd expect that $917 to double to an industry average closer to the $1800 that a "good" network can achieve today in the next 3-5 years.

It seems to me that agencies could contribute to the awareness of the DOOH industry and together solve the lack of communications issues. It would be productive to have a forum where agencies and DOOH industry professionals discussed the issues and helped solve the discrepancies. Maybe the venue should be through one of our associations, DSA or POPAI. If the agencies are really interested I think this could help progress the industry. However, if the agencies are not interested then we have a bigger problem.

Kudos for another good post. It underscores a wide, and seemingly growing, gulf. On one end of the spectrum, there's the forward thinking of folks like Razorfish who are trying to create a multiple-touchpoint digital customer experience. On the other end are signage networks who have their hands full just keeping the "MS error" message off their displays. (Saw the "blue screen of death" just last night at a Fred Meyer grocery, a holographic 3D projection of the blue screen of death, no less.)
DS/DOOH networks are like snowflakes. No two are the same. Creating standards that apply to these disparate networks might make them more attractive to the brands/agencies. But it could also water down any intrinsic, unique characteristics.
Perhaps operators should focus on what makes their own network special...what makes it stand out. Then let the aggregators such as SeeSaw and Adcentricity sort out how Network A differs from Network B and Network C, etc. so it makes sense for agency planners & buyers.

Richard: I have to wonder... even if you got them all in the room do you think a single term would stick? While there are definitely some commonalities in jargon from agency to agency, and from big to small, even in traditional media people use all sorts of words interchangeably. However, if the vendors of these services (us) started calling them only one thing, when the time came to actually go looking for a solution the agencies might actually figure out what they're actually looking for.

Pat: Appreciate it. I've often felt the same - people should be hyping what makes their solutions new, unique and innovative. However, many network owners have trouble articulating this even before the notion of unified ad sales enters the picture. Not sure why that is, but these days one of my very first questions to a new client or prospective client is, "what's different?"

Here's my version of building elecronic billboards. I can write a script and using any internet browser to display any information using flash technology. This means you can use a big LCD screen as a remote monitor employing wireless or wired monitor connection.
see my example below. This flash application is a blank template where the labels and data being displayed are queried from a database that stores the information. So changing information by the users is as easy as editing a form in no time.

http://www.businesscore.com/dashboard/pmstatusreport.html

I'm looking for a company that manufacture outdoor LED sign that can receive data wirelessly to apply my application and write various blank templates to market.

The basic issue is does it work to move product followed by my favorite word. Value. Effectiveness, efficiency and low cost equals value. If it works for one store. Location. It will work for lots of locations and by and large advertisors have patient if they see expansion and roll out. Throw in an understanding of the dynamics of the particular venue, good salesmanship and well thought through location configuration and you have a business. As a pioneer in the in store pop business I set up the largest individually adressable from a central location network with 24,000 two sided led,s in over 5,400 of our finest supermarkets. with just about every major consumer product company did 20 million in my third year. No one has set up 24,000 screens led or otherwise yet.

Now I am moving to do another set of networks except instead of LED's, I am using LCD's. I have always been successful selling space/signs as promotional shelf talkers to communicate prices and specials which in addition can communicate a brand sell and that is what they are and that represents, in the opinion of Robert Polansky the most effective and only way to source the in between "marketing" budgets of the CPC's. One day the people selling the category will wake up and find that the positioning statement which positions it as both a promotional shelf talker and a brand sell vehicle ( a hybrid that does both) is what we have here but a hybrid that works to move product.

One day, and I plan to devote a whole lot of effort to it....we will have our own line o