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A Guide from Digital Signage Today

INSIDE: If you want to get the most for your buck, you can’t simply throw together a generic digital signage solution. This guide shows you how to stay focused on your goal and choose hardware, software and network systems that are customized to meet your needs — and to bring you the most returns.

Digital Signage and ROIHow to Maximize ROI on Your Digital Signage Deployments

ContentsPage 3 About the sponsor

Page 4 Introduction |

Page 6 Chapter 1 | Defining return on investment (ROI) Tangible vs. intangible Quantifythequantifiable The Dr. Bill analogy Cost vs. revenue

Page 11 Chapter 2 | Hammering out hardware Commercially viable? Plasma screens Liquid crystal displays (LCDs) A tough decision Messagefirst

Page 17 Chapter 3 | Software, anyone? ‘Bundled solutions?’ Content matters

0 Chapter 4 | A network that works for you Crisis management Connection type The key to ROI

Page 24 Chapter 5 | POW! Made you look. Attracting attention Keep it short … if necessary A place with a view … of your sign Avoiding overkill

Page 30 Chapter 6 | Warranties and maintenance agreements Hardware concerns Protecting your software

Page 33 Conclusion | Power at your fingertips

Page 35 Appendix | Selected articles from Digital Signage Today

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About the sponsor

Published by NetWorld Alliance.© 2007 www.networldalliance.comWritten and edited by Travis Kircher, contributing writerDick Good, CEOTom Harper, president and publisherBob Fincher, executive vice president and general manager, Technology DivisionJoseph Grove, vice president and associate publisher

Digital Signage Today, operated by Louisville, Ky.-based NetWorld Alliance, is the leading online publisher of news and information on the emerging world of digital signage, dynamic messaging and cutting-edge business communication technologies. The content, which is updated every business day and read by professionals around the world, is provided free of charge to readers.

eturn on investment. It can be the make-or-break factor that deter- mines whether or not a project moves forward. It explains why a new ad campaign is lauded as an unexpected success or laughed at as the failure of the month. Return on investment can be used to predict the longevity of a new product line, a company’s willingness to purchase new equipment or — perhaps mostimportantly—theprofitabilityofacorporation’s latest venture.

Return on investment can even play a role in the corporate CEO’s mood. A stellar rate of return may produce bonuses for everyone, while negative numbers can result in some icy glares.

We talk about return on investment all the time without actually using those words. “Are we getting the most for our buck?” “Is this worth it?” “Are we spend-ing too much money?” “What’s the best way to get the results we need without getting charged an arm and a leg?” In essence, these queries can be boiled down into one simple question: Are we maximizing our return on investment?

Every new project should be viewed through the prism that separates cost

© 2007 NetWorld Alliance Media 4

Introductionandbenefit.Digitalsignagedeployments are no exception. The world of capitalism follows onecreed:survivalofthefittest.Lucrative projects will sprout andthrivewhilelessprofitableventures whither and die with Darwinianefficiency.Asanastute businessperson, how can you make sure your project claws its way to the top of the food chain?

Put simply, the highest return on invest-ment is achieved when costs are mini-mized and revenues maximized. When it comes to digital signage, you can’t do that by purchasing a generic “one size fitsall”deployment.Youmustfirstiden- tify and state the goal of your deployment, then purchase only the hardware, soft-ware and content that forwards theat goal.

This guide shows you how to do that. Its creation would not have been possible without the generous sponsorship of Pallyn International, Inc.

Pallyn International is an engineering firmthatprovidescustomizeddigital signage solutions for companies who

Put simply, the highest return on investment is achieved when costs are minimized and revenues maximized. When it comes to digital signage, you can’t do that by purchasing a generic “one size fits all” deployment.

ROI serves as measuring stick of success

R

Travis Kircher, contributing writerKioskMarketplace.com


are eager to get their messages out in this dynamic and exciting medium.

“We’re seeing exciting things in digital signage,” said Philip Luzbetak, president of Pallyn International. “It’s a relatively new and rapidly changing industry. There is so much opportunity for compa-nies to reach the consumer, and we at Pallyn are proud to be a leader in that.”

It is our hope that this guide will not only show the reader the basics of how the medium operates, but also how it can be used to generate increased sales for your business.

See you at the top of the food chain.

INTRODUCTION ROI serves as measuring stick of success


So what is return on investment? It’s a phrase bandied about by

accountants, marketing consultants and CEOs. We hear it spoken across confer-ence tables, and it’s often seen splat-tered atop the shiny covers of corporate bestsellers. If Dr. Phil were a business-man instead of a relationships counsel-or, his show would focus entirely on this one subject.

So what is it?

Accountantsdefinereturnoninvestment(ROI) through a simple formula:

ROI = (Gain from investment — Cost of investment)

Cost of investment

The equation may look confusing, but the bottom line is that ROI is a performance measure, usually expressed as a percent-age,thataccuratelyreflectstheamountof money earned on investment capital. That capital may be invested in stock, an expansion program or — for the pur-poses of this guide — the deployment of digital signage.

Philip Luzbetak is president of Pallyn International Inc., an Illinois-based engi-neering company that helps clients cus-tomize their digital signage deployments by matching them with the right hard-ware, software and network systems to suit their needs. He understands the importance of being able to recognize

Chapter 1 Defining return on investment (ROI)

when investments are bearing good fruit.

“Youwanttogetthemostbangforyourbuck,” he said.

Tangible vs. intangible

Measuring ROI can be a simple matter when the investment itself is a point-of-sale — a kiosk for example. As a point-of-sale, a kiosk can collect cash and/or creditpayments:aquantifiableamountthat can be used to tabulate ROI.

But, Luzbetak said, digital signage is different. There is no cash acceptor. In most cases, consumers don’t walk up to a digital sign and swipe their debit card. It’s not a point-of-sale — no product is dispensed.

While customer satisfaction is intangible, it can be measured through phone calls, questionnaires, surveys and focus groups.


CHAPTER 1 Defining return on investment (ROI)

Inessence,thebenefitsofadigitalsign are generally intangible: you’re not selling the sign itself. Instead, the sign is com-municating valuable information that, if displayed correctly, can persuade con-sumers to purchase your products or services.

Sounds great, but there’s a problem. How can you measure ROI on intangible benefits?

It’snotasdifficultasitsounds,Luzbetak said. The answer to that question depends entirely on the purpose of the signage. Digital signage is typically deployed with one of these three goals in mind: 1) to advertise a product or service; 2) to communicate (either to your clients, employ-ees or both) an upcoming event, program or campaign; or 3) to entertain your cus-tomers during a long waiting period and thus improve customer satisfaction.

Quantify the quantifiable

The key to measuring ROI in each of these three situations, according to Luzbetak, is identifying and homing in onsomequantifiableamountorcharac-teristic. What that key characteristic is will vary with the situation. For example, if your signage is deployed in a grocery store for the purpose of advertising a specificbrandoficecream,youshouldfocus on the check-out lanes. Has the signage increased ice cream sales? If so, by how much? That increase can be used to calculate ROI.

“Youreallymeasureitbysaleswidth,”Luzbetaksaid.“Youcomparestoresthatdon’t have signage with like stores in the samemarketsthatdo.Youlookattheeffect of sales with no signage vs. with signage and that’s a precise measure-ment.”

Brad Gleeson, vice president of business development at Planar Systems Inc., agreed.

“The ability to track the purchasing habits of the customer back to the use of those digital signs is a science, and it’s one that prospective digital signage users should spend time understanding,” Gleeson said, adding that marketing consultants sometimes can help in this area.

The situation is similar in instances when the signage is used to communicate a call to action, such as when employees are invited to donate to a charity cam-paign or customers are asked to dial a phone number and complete an auto-matedsurvey.Inthiscase,thequantifi-able amount would be the number of viewers who follow through with the given instructions (i.e., the number of employees who donate or viewers who take the survey).

The third use of digital signage — as entertainment to improve customer satisfaction — is a bit tricky. A bank

THREE USES OF DIGITAL SIGNAGE

1. To advertise

2. To communicate

3. To entertain



may install digital signage in its lobby to display news, sports and weather infor-mation to clients standing in line. This facilitates a more pleasant customer experience. Their memories of the bank will be brighter. Instead of sulking about the long wait and the person who cut in line, they’ll be smiling about a recent Red Sox victory or laughing about the latestParisHiltonfiasco.

It may sound trivial, but memories can sway a client to or away from a repeat visit. Fair enough. So how can you mea-sure ROI in this situation?

“Customer experience is intangible,” Luzbetak said. “But you can still mea-sure customer experience. For example, if you’re looking at the banking industry orthepostoffice,they’veprovedthatby using digital signage as information and also a distraction, the perceived wait time is reduced, which then leads to higher customer satisfaction.”

Thekey,hesaid,isfindingawaytoquantify customer satisfaction. This can be done through a variety of methods including phone calls, questionnaires, surveys and focus groups. How many clientsgavetheirexperienceafive-starrating? How many check marks were found next to the “very positive” boxes? Suddenly, the intangible becomes quan-tifiable.

Perhapsthebestquantifiablemeasureofcustomer satisfaction is repeat business.

“It’smeasurableandit’squantifiable,”Luzbetak said. “Even though you’re not lookingataspecificdollaramount.”

The Dr. Bill analogy

The studio cheers as the nationally acclaimed relationship therapist — Dr. Bill — walks onto the stage. In homes across America, millions of viewers are tuning in to watch the bald and bois-terous television host as he helps two more disenfranchised sweethearts work through their latest disagreement.

Dr. Bill — and the rest of America — smiles at the two youths sitting on the couch. He turns to the female guest.

“Ms. Revenue, what seems to be the trouble?”

She turns sour.

“Oh, Dr. Bill,” she cries, nodding at the man sitting next to her. “I’ve been in a relationship with this jerk for as long as I can remember, but it’s not working out. I make a lot of money! I work hard for it, and all he wants to do is take it away! He won’t leave me alone!”

The man sitting next to her, Mr. Cost, is ruffled.

“Hey,baby,”hesays.“Youjustdon’tunderstand what it means to be in a real relationship.Yougottapayforit.Youdon’t get something for nothing.”


“Yes,butdoyouhavetotakeeverything?” she shouts back.

Dr. Bill straightens, runs a hand over his shiny head and replies thoughtfully.

“There’s only one way this relationship can work,” he says. He points a meaty fingeratMs.Revenue.“Youhavetobeallowed to succeed.” He then casts a dark glare at Mr. Cost. “And you need to stay as far away from her as possible!”

It’s a humorous analogy, but it demon-strates the tenuous correlation that binds costandrevenueinanyproject.Youcan’t have one without the other. It costs money to make money. Wherever there is income, cost will follow closely like a relentlesslover.Thekeyisfindingawayto maximize revenue while minimizing the associated cost.

Cost vs. revenue

Digital signage carries its own unique sets of costs and revenues.

In addition to the forms of income that already have been discussed, the network operator — the individual or company deploying the signage — can earn ad-vertising revenue from its digital signs.

“One of the business models is sort of an ad-revenue based model where a company can put a digital sign in a public space and advertisers pay to buy time, like a billboard, on that digital sign,

which can potentially be drawing traf-fictotheirstore,”Gleesonsaid.“Sothenetwork operator is making money on that ad time.”

There are other, more intangible rev-enues. A digital sign can facilitate brand-ing by displaying a company’s logos and slogans until they’re imprinted in con-sumers’ minds. It can let the client know about that major sale that’s coming up next week. It may even save your com-pany wages expense. Digital signage can often accomplish tasks previously done by employees.

Conversely, the costs of digital signage can be just as unique as the revenues.

The most obvious is the startup cost — the initial investment. There are hard-ware considerations: How many displays will you need? What sort of displays — plasma, LCD or projectors? Then there is the software. Should you buy it bundled with the hardware or have it custom-designed? How powerful should the software be? Does it run Flash or QuickTime?CanithandleMPEGfiles?

And what about content? Will your display use video or simply show text-based messages? Who will shoot the video? Will you need a graphic designer?

All of this must be decided on and pur-chased before your display can light the eye of a consumer. But even after your system is built and in place, there will be



ongoing costs. Content must be updated. The system will require regular service calls and routine maintenance checks.Yournetwork—theinvisible web that ties all of your digital signs together and provides you with administrative control over their content — will have to be actively managed.

Any company embarking on a digital signage deployment should understand both cost and revenue and know how to weigh one against the other. It’s critical, before the project ever gets off the draw-ing board, that management have some sort of rough economic framework.

What’s the minimum income they hope to generate? What’s the maximum cost they are willing to pay?

The next few chapters address how purchasing the right hardware, software and content can take the edge off costs andpropelaprojecttofinancialsuc-cess.


It’s critical, before the project ever gets off the drawing board, that management have some

sort of rough economic framework. What’s the minimum income they hope to generate? What’s

the maximum cost they are willing to pay?


Chapter 2 Hammering out hardware

I f the ultimate goal of your digital sig-nage deployment is to maximize your return on investment — and, unless

youworkforanonprofitorganization,that should be your ultimate goal — then you’ll have to design and deploy a sys-tem with components that work for you.

One of the most basic components is your hardware. In the case of digital signage, thatmeansthesignitself—specifically,the display. After all, you can’t deploy digital signage without the sign.

But so many display types are out there. There are LCD displays, plasma displays, projectors — even recently developed organic LEDs. How do you know which one is right for you?

The answer will depend on your applica-tion. How many hours a day will your display be active? Will it be showing full-motion video? How much ambient light is present in the space where you’ll deploy the signage?

Commercially viable?

But before you dive headlong into the battle between LCDs and plasma screens, industry leaders such as Doug Albregts want to stop you from making a critical error. As vice president of marketing and business development at NEC Display Solutions, Albregts shudders when he sees companies start their digital signage projects off on the wrong foot. He said that happens every time they choose to

purchase consumer-oriented displays from their local retail outlet, rather than displays designed and manufactured with an eye toward the commercial envi-ronment.

“From the hardware standpoint, the one thing that everyone is going to cheat on is the display,“ he said. “I think you have to remember that most displays that you can buy at retail stores … have consumer- grade panels in them. They are not built to run 16 or 24 hours a day, seven days a week, to show signage applications.“

Fred Arsenault, systems engineer for 3M Digital Signage, agreed.

“I think you should be wary of the ‘Go-

Many types of displays are available: LCD, plasma, pro-jectors and even organic LEDs. But how do you determine which is right for you?


CHAPTER 2 Hammering out hardware

to-Costco-and-buy-a-screen’ scenario,“ he said.

Like the others, Brad Gleeson, vice president of business development at Planar Systems Inc., said that, by pur-chasing these cheaper, mass-marketed consumer displays, companies sabotage their own projects.

“Asthemarketforflat-paneldisplaysstarted to develop, people wanted cheaper digital signage, so they would go to the local Best Buy or Wal-Mart, buy off-the-shelf TVs, hook up a DVD player and voila!” he said. “Now people are coming back around to buying com-mercial-quality display products. In other words, products designed and used in a commercial digital signage environment where they might be on 15 or 20 hours a day and possibly exposed to grease in theair,fingerprintsorwhatever.“

So what’s the problem? What’s the difference between a digital signage display and the typical plasma-screen TV that might sit in your living room at home?

One issue is image retention. Image retention became a problem with com-putermonitorswhendesktopsfirstbecame household items. When an image remains on a computer screen for an extended period of time, it tends to “burn“ or “bleed“ into the screen. When the monitor is switched off, or when the picture changes, a faint trace of that

image is frozen into the screen. This is why animated screensavers were devel-oped. In an effort to protect the integrity of the screen, these screensavers are programmed to activate after a predeter-mined period of idle time has elapsed.

Similar technical issues can arise with consumer-grade digital displays. It’s unlikely that a homeowner will leave his television on from morning to evening, so manufacturers of mass-market dis-plays provide only moderate protection against image retention. But the commercial market is a different environment altogether. A digital display in an airport may show times for arriving and depart-ingflights24hoursaday,sevendaysa week, with absolutely no downtime. Without the sturdy construction of a commercial-grade display, the airport will quickly have to replace the monitor.

“Over time — over hundreds or thou-sands of hours — the screen will dete-riorate,“ Arsenault said. “The brightness willdrop.Youwillseeadramaticdrop…in the functionality of the screen.“

Image retention is just one problem. There are other issues with store-bought displays, as well. To function effectively

“Be wary of the ‘Go-to-Costco-and-buy-a-screen’ scenario.”

— Fred Arsenault, systems engineer for 3M Digital Signage



as digital signage, the monitor must be able to connect to a remote PC. Com-mercial displays have special program-ming that enables them to interact with standard operating systems, such as Mi-crosoft Windows, via a special port. The user can then perform diagnostics on the display via his or her PC. Commer-cial displays can also be integrated into a digital signage network so they can be tied to signage all over the country.

“Youcan’tdothatbybuyinga40-inchLCD off the rack at Best Buy,“ Albregts said.

Plasma screens

Hopefully, you now understand the necessity of purchasing displays from a respected commercial vendor. The next step is deciding what type of display to buy.

Many types of digital displays are on the market, but, for the purposes of this guide, we will focus on the two most popular: plasma screens and LCDs.

Before pointing out the differences, it helpstodefinethetwotypes.

Theplasmascreenrepresentsasignifi-cant technological leap above its pre-decessor, the cathode ray tube (CRT) — what we came to know as television during the 20th century. By today’s standards, CRTs were bulky because of the method by which they functioned. A

small“gun“nearthebackendwouldfirea beam of electrons against a screen lined with phosphor atoms. When the electrons struck the phosphor atoms, they would glow a predetermined color that formed the image that would appear on the screen. The larger the screen size, the bulkier the television, because the “gun“ had to be able to hit all points on the screen.

Plasma screens operate on a different principle.Insteadoffiringagun,theyapply electrical current to plasma gas located in tiny cells behind the screen. When the current hits the gas, the gas particles become excited, bumping against each other and releasing pho-tons. The photons interact with phos-phorus material located in each of the cells and that creates visible light, which forms the image you see on the plasma screen.

The lack of a gun inside the mecha-nism means that plasma screens are less bulky and are usually only about 6 inches thick.

“It creates its own light,“ Gleeson said. “Think of it like a picture tube TV that hasbeentotallyflattened.“

Liquid crystal displays (LCDs)

Liquid crystal displays are another popu-lar display option because, like plasma screens, they can have wide screens and yet be only inches thick.


Made popular in laptop computers, LCDs have become increasingly com-mon over the past decade. They can be found in digital clocks, cell phones and MP3 players. LCDs are usually easy to recognize. If you touch an unprotected LCD screen, you will often see small “waves“ of color as the liquid crystals are disturbed.

So how does the screen work?

Athinfilmofliquidcrystalsisplacedbe-tween two sheets of polarized glass that make up the display’s screen. A back-light behind the screen activates and, as the light shines through the screen, it reacts with the liquid crystals, which

are electrically charged. As the electrical charge is varied, it changes the way the light passes through the crystals, caus-ing the image on the screen to change.

A tough decision

Both plasma screens and LCDs are relatively new technologies that have opened up entirely new creative oppor-tunities for companies trying to commu-nicate with the consumer. Their design represents a cosmic leap forward from the CRTs of the 20th century in that they can provide a wide screen that is only a few inches thick. But they’re both very different, with completely dissimilar tech-nologies that try to achieve the same

PLASMA SCREEN VS. LCD

Pros: 1. Slight cost advantage2. Advantage on screens larger than 50 inches3. Better performance with full-motion video

Cons:1. Heavier; mounting options limited2. Require more energy to operate3. Image-retention issues for lengthy static displays

LCDPLASMA

Pros: 1. Lighter2. More energy efficient3. Performs well in high levels of ambient light

Cons:1. Slower response time; full-motion video may suffer




goal. How do you know which type of screen you should buy?

“It’s one of those questions that has to be answered with the phrase ‘it depends,’ Gleeson said, laughing. “The technical answer would be that plasma has a little bit of an advantage on cost, right now. They have an advantage on sizes larger than 50 inches. They have an advantage on the performance of full-motion video — particularly cinema movie-style images. Sotherearedefinitelysomebenefitsthere.”

The downside to plasma screens, Albregts said, is that that they tend to be heavier, so the mounting options are limited. Additionally, plasma screens require much more energy to operate and suffer more from image-retention issues when displaying static images for lengthy periods of time.

But, Albregts added, LCDs have their own issues.

“LCDs are much lighter and much more efficienttouse,buttheresponse times in LCDs are slower, so full-motion video sometimes in LCDs is not always the best,” he said.

One distinct advantage of LCDs, however, is their performance in environ-mentswithsignificant

amounts of ambient light.

“If you’re going to use those in high ambiance, bright situations outdoors or near windows, the plasma can’t work,” Albregts said. “The image gets washed out.That’swhereLCDhasasignificantadvantage. That’s why you always see LCD-type screen applications outdoors — especially in drive-thru-type applica-tions — because you wouldn’t be able to see a plasma screen.”

He offers a simple rule of thumb:

“To sum it up, if you’re using the display just as a TV and you’ll shut it on and off, plasma is probably the best technology for you. If you’re going to use digital signage with full-motion video and you need the ability to change the image quickly, plasma is probably the best way to go in terms of pure vision.”

In a few years, it may not matter. Philip Luzbetak, president of Pallyn Interna-tional, laughs when he considers the competitive rat race between plasma

“To sum it up, if you’re using the display just as a TV and you’ll shut it on and off, plasma is probably the

best technology for you. If you’re going to use digital signage with full-motion video and you need the abil-

ity to change the image quickly, plasma is probably the best way to go in terms of pure vision.”

— Doug Albregts, vice president of marketing and business development for NEC Display Solutions



and LCD manufacturers. As time passes and the technology is becoming more advanced, the differences between the two display types are becoming increasingly lesssignificant,hesaid.

“I think there’s some equalization,” Luzbetaksaid.“Definitelythequalityin both has gone up and the prices have come down. So in that aspect, yes, I be-lievethere’samoreequalplayingfield.”

Message first

Luzbetak said the battle between LCD and plasma has been given far more attention than it deserves. He’s aware of the differences, but he is quick to recog-nize one fatal mistake companies make when deploying digital signage for the

“The key is not to choose the technology first,” he said. “The key is to identify what your goal is and what it is you’re trying achieve and let the technology

come from how you best achieve that goal.”— Brad Gleeson, vice president of business development at Planar Systems Inc.

firsttime.Fartoooften,hesaid,compa-nies get so caught up in the technology of their digital signage that they neglect more critically important issues, such as the messages they are trying to convey to the consumer.

Gleeson agreed.

“The key is not to choose the technology first,”hesaid.“Thekeyistoidentifyyour goal and what it is you’re trying achieve and let the technology come from how you best achieve that goal.”


Chapter 3 Software, anyone?

O nce the hardware is chosen, you can then move on to picking out the software that will power your

digital signage.

Think of the software as the mind behind your digital signage system. It holds your message content. It tells your display what to show on the screen and when. It communicates with the outside world via your signage network. It can even per-form diagnostics on your display and let you know if something is malfunctioning.

Without software, your digital signage is brain-dead.

“Yoursoftwareisthecoreofyourdigitalsignage infrastructure,” Philip Luzbetak, president of Pallyn International, said. “Yoursystemisnotcompletewithoutit. It’s just as important as the display, but unfortunately, many digital signage deployments fail because the minds behind them simply slap a generic, made-to-order software program into their system and expect it to work with their unique, individu- alized needs. It just doesn’t work that way.”

‘Bundled solutions?’

Brad Gleeson, vice president of busi-ness development at Planar Systems Inc., said it’s impossible to overempha-size the need for a company to do its homework before purchasing software.

“Software is one of those things that you want to work on very early on to identify

what your requirements are, which prod-uct matches your requirements to that, which ones have real-world examples of networks that are currently being used with computers that you’re going to try to use and which companies have the best support, the best service, the best long-term reliability and the best reputa-tion,“ he said.

One question that will immediately con-front the buyer is whether to purchase so-called “bundled solutions.“

Bundling is a common practice in the digital signage industry. These situations occur when the display and the software are sold together as one unit. The hardware and software are sometimes insep-arable.

Fred Arsenault, systems engineer for

When considering which software to purchase, companies must be certain it will support the type of content they’ll be using.


3M Digital Signage, warns companies against what he sees as a fatal mistake.

“If you buy software that only runs on a certain platform, you’re at the mercy of that platform throughout your investment,” Arsenaultsaid.“Youdefinitelydon’twantto tie yourself to anything proprietary.”

Luzbetak said the decision whether to purchase the software bundled or sepa-rately rests, again, with the goals of the system.

“Usually, it depends on what you’re do-ing,” Luzbetak said. “I’ve done both. Ba-sically, it depends on the overall network and what you need.“

He admitted that, in some cases, bundled hardware and software can place severe limitations on what your system can do.

“With some applications, if you’re doing bundled hardware or software together, you’re usually tied into that manufac-turer’s hardware or software and things arelessflexible,”hesaid.“Ifyoudoyourown integration, obviously you’ve got muchmoreflexibilitytotweakyournet-work to get to where you want it to go.“

Gleeson concurred and quickly spotlighted thedifficultiesthatarisewhenamisguidedcompany eagerly purchases bundled software from a pushy consultant.

“They get a consultant in there who is a specialist in one particular software

and it’s sort of the hammer vs. the nail scenario,” he said. “The consultant says, ‘I don’t know if this software is the best for you as the customer, but this is the one I can sell. This is the one I know, so I’m going to try to sell it to you.’ If he’s a really good salesperson, he can get the customer to buy that software, but in reality, it was not the right one for them.”

Sometimes there are advantages to a bundled system. Luzbetak said the cost oftheincreasedflexibilitythatcomeswith customized software that has been purchased separately is a much more complexsystem.Youareworkingwithtwo parties: the hardware company and the software company. If your system malfunctions, they both may be inclined to play the blame game rather than work together to resolve the problem.

Flexibility vs. simplicity. Which do you choose? Again, Luzbetak said, it all de-pends on your system needs.

Content matters

“There are really two components of

CHAPTER 3 Software, anyone?

“If you buy software that only runs on a certain platform, you’re at the mercy of

that platform throughout your investment. You definitely don’t want to tie yourself

to anything proprietary.”— Fred Arsenault, systems engineer for 3M Digital Signage


CHAPTER 3 Software, anyone?

software,” said Doug Albregts, vice president of marketing and business development for NEC Display Solutions. “There is the ability to create content, andthereissoftwarespecificallyforthat. Then there is the ability to deliver the content to a vast group of people.”

You’llreadithereandthroughouttherest of this guide: Content is the most important part of your digital signage system. Any software package you pur-chase must be able to manipulate and displaynotjustcontent,butspecificallythe type of content you’ll use in your unique application.

There is a wide variety of content types. Typically, one major component of digital signage content is video. But what type of video player will you use? Will it be Flash video? QuickTime? Windows Me-dia?Youhavetobeabsolutelycertainthat the software you purchase will be abletohandlethesefiletypes.

“There are many different types of media,” Luzbetaksaid.“You’vegotMPEGvideo,Flash File, scrolls and static information. Do you need to pull in real-time data such as news and weather feeds? Part of your consideration has to be related to the content you need now and the con-tent you believe you’ll need in the future to keep the audience entertained.”

Albregts said some companies create software that facilitates content for spe-cificindustries.

“There are a lot of software content deliv-ery folks who specialize by vertical mar-kets, he said. “In some cases, they do averygoodjobinthefinancialmarket-type software and some do a very good job customizing retail-type applications.“

Another consideration that must come into play when choosing a software package is whether it is powerful enough to facilitate and maintain the type of network your system will require. The network is such a vital component of a digital signage infrastructure that it requires a chapter of its own.

Content is the most important part of your digital signage system. Any software

package you purchase must be able to manipulate the type of content you’ll

use in your unique application.


Chapter 4 A network that works for you

W hen you think of a digital signage system’s network, think of power. Power to com-

municate with every digital screen in the country — or on the planet — that oper-ates within your network. It’s the sort of power that provides you with the ability to change the content on a display in California … all from a laptop in your of-ficeinAlaska.

That’s what a properly functioning net-work can do.

“A network, in layman’s terms, is a com-munications grid that enables you to connect all of your digital displays to a central control location,” said Philip Luzbetak, president of Pallyn Interna-tional. “In general, this is done through an open Internet or a private intranet connection.”

Why is that type of unfettered communi-cation important?

For one thing, it’s important to keep digi-tal signage content dynamic. If you keep the same content up too long, consum-

ers will begin to ignore it, as they would a bad television rerun.

“What you need to do is get into your signage network and make it work for you,“ Luzbetak said. “It’s not just a pas-sive thing just to sit there … and put on the same image you would on paper and have a static image up on your digital sign all day long. No one does that, but you can see how ludicrous that sounds.”

“The idea is that, if you’re doing a truly centrally managed digital signage network, the player has to be able to get its content from somewhere,” said Brad Gleeson, vice president of business devel-opment at Planar Systems Inc. “In order to make that sign or display as produc-tive as it can be, you have

“In order to make that sign or display as productive as it can be, you have to keep the content fresh and relevant and you have to be able to send different content … continuously on the fly.”

— Brad Gleeson, vice president of business development at Planar Systems Inc.

A network enables a company to connect all its displays to a central location, allowing increased control over content.


CHAPTER 4 A network that works for you

to keep the content fresh and relevant and you have to be able to send differ-entcontent…continuouslyonthefly.“

But the power to change signage con-tent instantly and across great distances means more than just keeping the viewer entertained.

Angel Bustamante of BMCom in Mexico knowsfirsthandthepowerofaneffec-tive digital signage network. Bustamante recently enlisted the help of Pallyn International to oversee the design and installation of his company’s digital sig-nage system. Displays were deployed at more than 500 points in the United States and Mexico where Bustamante’s company provides digital advertising for tobacco companies.

Bustamante recalled what it would take to change the content of each of these signs before the technology for digital signage networks became available.

“To do that, it would take a lot of human effort,” Bustamante said. “With this system,youcandoitallfromthisoffice.You can control every single store of the 500.”

This is helpful for Bustamante, who said advertising can change daily — even hourly.

“Advertisings are in different hours and in different locations,” he said. “When they start a new campaign, with this system, they can have every single

store at the same time at the same day starting the campaign. They gave us the power to start all over the country the same campaign.”

Crisis management

One crucial advantage in any segment of the business world is the ability to expect the unexpected and to react to itquickly.Youwon’tbeabletopredictevery crisis, but your longevity in a free-market environment depends upon the speed with which you recover from unexpected mishaps. Used correctly, your digital signage network can be an awesome crisis-management tool.

“If a world crisis occurs that makes cer-tain advertising less appropriate, you’re able to respond quickly,” Luzbetak said. “Youcanremovetheinappropriatead-vertising and replace it with something more appropriate.”

He provided an example.

“Suppose there’s a large salmonella outbreak among chickens and you have chicken sandwich advertising and a lot

“If a world crisis occurs that makes certain advertising less appropriate, you’re able to respond quickly. You can remove the

inappropriate advertising and replace it with something more appropriate.”

— Philip Luzbetak, president of Pallyn International Inc


of chicken ads,” he said. “Instead of being stuck with those up for a whole month, you just change that content in a hurry.”

In such a situation, chicken ads are wasted money. Instead of getting con-sumers excited about your product, the ads simply make them sick to their stomachs every time they think of your company. Instead, it pays to remind them about another of your products, such as fish.Aquickresponsehelpsyourbottomline. And that helps your ROI.

Another important advantage to hav-ing a powerful network is the ability to react to crises of a more technological nature. Many networks have the ability to conduct maintenance and diagnostics checks on all of your signage. A properly functioning network will immediately recognize kinks in the system. Is there a problem with sign number 423 in your retail store in Boise? The network not only will alert you to the issue, it may — depending on the nature of the malfunc-tion — be able to run a check on the dis-play to identify and repair the problem.

Connection type

There are several different methods of connecting digital signs across a net-work. Cellular, satellite and wireless communications each offer their own advantages.

“To be honest, I would say 98 percent of the installs today are a hard network,

not over cellular and not wireless,” said Doug Albregts, vice president of marketing and business development for NEC Display Solutions. “The good thing is that it’s easy to transmit a large amount of data over that network, but it’s cumbersome. It’s harder to wire and it’s harder to install. We are seeing a lot of digital signage applications being run over cellular types of networks, but the problem is the amount of information is much smaller.”

He added that satellite communication is promising.

“That seems to be a wave of the future, but when you consider its reliability in terms of weather and everything else — most people don’t feel comfortable with satellite either,” he said. “I think, pretty soon, wireless is going to be the best way over some sort of hard network.”


There are several different methods of connecting digital signs across a network. Cellular, satellite and wireless communications each offer their own advantages.


Luzbetak said one important consider-ation for companies installing any kind of digital signage network is security.

“I would say that the good news is you can run this on the Internet. The bad news is you can run this on the Inter-net,”hesaid.“Youhavetoworryaboutpotential hacking and viruses. From an operational standpoint, how reliable is it going to be? How vulnerable will it be? If you’re using an internal network, like a private network — let’s say a company has all their own internal stuff — you also have to work with all of your inter-nal IT people. Are you going to have firewallandbandwidthissuesdependingupon what kind of content you’re going to be moving around within that internal network?”

The amount of bandwidth becomes increasingly important when you con-siderthetypesoffilesyoumightbesending over the network. If you plan on simplysendingtextfilestoyourdigitaldisplays, a network with medium-to-low bandwidthwilllikelysuffice,butlargefiles(suchasvideo)willrequireahigh-bandwidth network to avoid clogging up the connection.

“If you want to start moving large mul-timediafilesoverthat,you’vegottobecareful,” Luzbetak added. “I mean, you don’t want to do that during the lunch hour when you’re going to clog up trans-actions when people’s credit cards are going through, you know what I mean?”


The key to ROI

To obtain the maximum ROI possible, networks, like any other component of digital signage, must be optimized to give you the most bang for your buck. The network must be designed not only tofunctionefficiently,butalsotoforwardthespecificcommunicationgoalsofyourcompany or organization.

“I really try to impress people to empow-er their networks,” Luzbetak said. “There is so much you can do through the use of software and hardware … there’s no reason that you can’t empower your net-work to get the most out of your invest-ment.”


Chapter 5 POW! Made you look.

T his is it. If you have time to read only one

chapter from this guide, this is the one you should read. Throw out everything you’ve heard so far about hardware, software and networks. Don’t spend all your time haggling over whether you should get a plasma screen or an LCD. And network connection type? Sure, it’s important, but don’t obsess over it.

The truth is, your digital signage proj-ect won’t live or die by your display choice. The astute soccer mom lugging two children isn’t going to stop in the middle of a grocery aisle, stare up at the digital sign hanging precipitously from the ceiling and cry out, “Why did that company choose to use an LCD display for this signage? Didn’t they know that plasma screens have a slight advantage over LCDs when it comes to full-motion video?”

She’ll never say that. That’s because the display isn’t the most important compo-nent of your signage. The content is.

“The content is what the customer, or the passer-by, or the employee is really looking at,” said Brad Gleeson, vice

president of business development at Planar Systems Inc. “They’re not looking at the network. They’re not looking at the software. They’re not looking at the display. They’re looking at the informa-tiononthedisplay.You’retryingtogetthemtodosomething.You’retryingtoeducateorinform.You’retryingtogetsome reaction from them.”

For any digital signage project, the key to success — to maximizing your ROI — is based on the content. Certainly, the other components of the signage are important and should be optimized at the lowest

cost possible, but the content is what will cause the consumer to purchase your goods or ser-vices and add to your revenue. Youcanhavethebestdigitaldisplay system money can buy, but if the content fails to deliver

You can have the best digital display system money can buy, but if the content fails to deliver its message, all of it was a waste of money.

The display isn’t the most important part of signage — the content is.


its message, all of it was a waste of money. The consumer may stand gawk-ing at your sign for hours and when he gets home, he may regale all of his friends with stories about it.

“I just saw the most amazing display the other day!” he may exclaim. “The reso-lution was incredible. The sound made you feel like you were right there in the middle of the action!”

All of that is great, but if you ask the excited customer what the sign was about and he can’t remember, you’ve failed. It’s money out the window. That customer will not purchase your goods, he won’t complete your survey and he definitelyisn’tgoingtodonatetoyourpledge drive. Forgettable content kills revenue … and that eliminates ROI.

Attracting attention

So is there a secret to catching the consumer’s eye? If so, what is it? As technological advances such as TiVo and DVR continue to empower the average Joe or Jane to tune out regular television commercials, more and more advertisers agree that digital signage is becoming a more powerful marketing tool. The problem is that an explosion of media and commercial outlets means that, in many cases, no one is watching.

“It’s tougher to get people’s attention,” said Doug Albregts, vice president of marketing and business development for

NEC Display Solutions. “If you go back to the ’60s when TV advertising was run, there were only three or four channels. If you could run advertising on one or more of them, you could basically cap-ture the attention immediately with one ad. (Today) you’d have to run that same ad 116 times to get the message across to that particular targeted audience.”

Some companies design their own digi-tal signage content while others choose to outsource it to media companies that specialize in such advertising.

“A lot of the creative content is going to media companies that are going to rely on that as part of their income stream down the line,” Albregts said. “As the dynamics of advertising continue to change, as we’ve seen TV advertising and print advertising continue to plum-met, they’re looking at digital signage as the wave of the future. So they’re going to start becoming very crafty, very adept and very intuitive at creating content.”

Whether or not your company decides tooutsource,onethingiscertain:Youshould set aside a substantial amount in your budget for the purpose of content creation.

“The No. 1 mistake that people make is that we think content is free,” Gleeson said. “Content is not free. Content is very expensive. Good, relevant, timely, updated content will cost you far more than the original capital investment of

CHAPTER 5 POW! Made you look.


the network itself, so build that into the budget.”

He added that content is so important that it pays to assign a dedicated em-ployee to consistently review the content for relevance.

“Updating content needs to be some-body’s job,” he said. “There needs to be somebody responsible to make sure that happens. Otherwise, before you know it, the content gets old and stale.”

Keep it short … if necessary

Philip Luzbetak, president of Pallyn International, challenged deployers of digital signage to remember that they borrow one valuable commodity from the consumer every time that consumer glances up to view their signage. That valuable commodity is time.

“That consumer’s time is valuable,” Luz-betak said. “In today’s fast-paced soci-ety, that consumer’s time is very valu-able. Let me give you an example. If you have a sign somewhere where people are walking by and they only have about 10 or 15 seconds to look at it, you can’t

have content that takes three minutes to make its point. That consumer isn’t go-ing to stand around and watch that sign for three minutes.”

Fred Arsenault, systems engineer for 3M Digital Signage, said putting up too much content is one of the most com-mon mistakes that signage deployers make.

“Youdon’twanttotakeyour30-secondTV commercial and put that on your screen,” he said.

Gleesonagreed,specificallywhenthe display is hanging over a crowded shopping aisle in a grocery store. In the rough-and-tumble world of fast-paced shopping carts, he said it’s considered inappropriate — and downright rude — to stand in the middle of a shopping aisleandblocktraffictowatchasignagedisplay.

“Nobody is going to stand there and watch that thing for 30 seconds,” he said. “They’re not there to watch TV. What you want to do is give them a quick message. Youwanttoconveywhatyou’vegotinnine or maybe 10 seconds. That’s all the


“In today’s fast-paced society, that consumer’s time is very valuable. … If you have a sign somewhere where people are walking by and

they only have about 10 or 15 seconds to look at it, you can’t have content that takes three minutes to make its point.”

— Philip Luzbetak, president of Pallyn International Inc.


time people are willing to give you in that sort of environment.”

Luzbetak compared digital signage in this type of environment to billboard advertising.

“Billboard advertising was always very interestingtome,”hesaid.“You’vegotabout 12 seconds to read that picture that you’re driving by. It’s advertising that’s forced on you because you’re driving — you’re not there for a reason. You’reonthatroad.It’sthesamewhenyou’re on that moving walkway at the airport.You’renottheretobuyaprod-uct.You’rejusttheretogettheheckoutof town. The digital sign has to act like a billboard, not a television.”

Only 12 seconds. But everyone, includ-ing Luzbetak, admits that it’s not a set-in-stone number — it depends on the signage’s environment. Kristi Kinney, a creative team leader and spokeswoman for 3M Digital Signage, concocted a sce-nario in which a longer segment might be appropriate.

“Obviously, what you put in your content is going to differ according to how long you think people may be in front of that screen,” Kinney said. “Five to seven seconds … might be typical for a retail outlet, but it may not be typical for a financialinstitution.Theymightbetheremuch longer.”

Generally, environments where consum-

ers have to sit through lengthy waiting periods provide the best opportunities to target those consumers with lengthier content segments. Such environments mayincludealobbyinadoctor’soffice oralineatabankoragovernmentoffice.

Luzbetak said there’s one other exception to the “keep-it-short“ rule. If consumers areataretailstorelookingforaspecificproduct, they’re often willing to stop at a display to view a presentation on that product.

“Is it a situation where I’m going to pur-chasesomethingspecific?”heasked.“Let’ssayI’mgoingtobuyafishingpole. When I get to the store, I see there are some digital signs displaying videos onfishingpoles.I’mmuchmorelikelyto stand there and watch that digital sign for a long time — to see to it that I pick the right pole — than I would be if I’m some guy that’s walking through the airport and headed to my gate.”

He said a signage deployer can choose the right length for a presentation by learning two necessary abilities: the abil-ity to know your customer and the ability to know your environment.

A place with a view … of your sign

It may sound like simple common sense: Don’t place your signage in an area where it won’t be seen. It is common sense but, unfortunately, many signage



deployers fail to follow this business rule. Far too often, signage is relegated to an area of the store or building where customers fail to frequent.

Arsenault suggested taking some time before the signage is deployed to watch people as they walk through the envi-ronment. Where do they stop? Where do they congregate? What areas of the store or environment do they avoid?

“Generally, you want to look at your sitesurveytoseehowthetrafficflowsthrough the environment,” he said. “Tai-loryoursignageplacementtotheflowof the environment. Keep it on a level where it is effective.”

Kinney said she frequently discovers signage in hard-to-see places.

“Too high is very common,” she said. “Too far back is also very common; they bury the signage at the very back of the store.”

It’s also common for misguided employ-ees to place signage in highly visible areas of the store without thinking about exactly what the signage is trying to accomplish. The visibility is great but, for some reason, the location makes it inconvenient for the viewer to do what the sign suggests. Everyone agrees that the most common example of this occurs when signage is placed above the check- out line in a retail store.

“My personal pet peeve is when they

advertise slushies at the check-out line when you have 20 people behind you, you know?” Luzbetak said. “I’m not getting out of line to go buy a slushie. That just doesn’t make sense. Now if it’s a nice, hot day outside and they’re advertising slushies at their gas pumps, the consumer is much more likely to re-spond to those advertisements. They’re more likely to come in and buy a slushie than they are when they’re already in line at the check-out counter.”


The best place for digital signage, most industry experts agree, is not at the point-of-sale, but at the point-of-decision. “Put the digital signage right next to the product you’re promoting,” said Brad Gleeson of Planar Systems Inc. “Let people see the ben-efit on the sign … and pick up that product as they go by.”


The best place for digital signage, most industry experts agree, is not at the point- of-sale, but at the point-of-decision.

“Put the digital signage right next to the product you’re promoting,” Gleeson said.“Letpeopleseethebenefitonthedigital sign and then reach down right under the sign and pick up that product as they go by. That’s an example of great digital signage placement.”

Avoiding overkill

When it comes to digital signage, some-times it pays to be subtle. Remember, the goal is to entice consumers into some sort of action: purchasing your product, donating to your pledge drive or remembering your brand. The goal is not to blow them away with an elaborate presentation. If they walk away from your sign thinking about your presenta-tion and not your message, then all your efforts are simply bluff and bluster.

“A very pivotal mistake is that a lot of people like to put every-thing up there at once. I think people need to pay attention to how that screen is going to be viewed, for how long and what their key message is,” Kinney said. “What you want them to go away with is your brand and your product, not the weather.”

Albregts said at least one company learned this lesson the hard way.


“This company was a grocery store chain and they had a sign in the produce aisle with a very loud audio sound,“ he said.

There were additional signs in the area, each with directional speakers. Albregts said the audio from each of the speak-ers together created a cacophony of noise that he called “obnoxious.”

“They learned very quickly that they were annoying people and that people didn’t want to hear it,” he said. “People were moving away from that area. They actually had cameras and they were measuring how quickly people were moving through that section. When they turned the audio off, people spent more time … shopping through that section.”

Remember, bells and whistles cost money and if they drive away custom-ers, they’ll cost you more than that. That hurts ROI in more ways than one.

When it comes to digital signage, sometimes it pays to be subtle. The goal is not to blow

consumers away with an elaborate presentation. If they walk away from your sign thinking about

your presentation and not your message, then all your efforts are simply bluff and bluster.


Chapter 6 Warranties and maintenance agreements

I n 1850, a German physicist and math- ematician named Rudolf Clausius formulated what later became known

as the Second Law of Thermodynamics. A pinnacle of modern physics, the law states: “The entropy of an isolated system not in equilibrium will tend to increase over time, approaching a maximum value at equilibrium.”

The law introduced this concept of en-tropytoacuriousscientificcommunity.What is entropy? Essentially, entropy takes place when time passes and mat-ter breaks down. It ages. It becomes less, rather than more, complex.

This begs an obvious question: What does a groundbreaking physics dis-covery have to do with digital signage deployments?

The answer: A lot — especially when it comes to maintenance and service agreements.

Next to content and the initial purchase of hardware and software, your larg-est expenditure probably will be routine maintenance. It’s a fact of life: Entropy affects more than science experiments. It also will affect your hardware. Nothing runsat100percentefficiencyallofthetime.

“It’s going to cost you money,” Brad Gleeson, vice president of business development at Planar Systems Inc., said of maintenance service. “Nobody

is going to give you exceptional service for free, so don’t think you’re going to be able to negotiate that in and not pay for it. Somehow, it’s going to be paid for.”

Hardware concerns

When it comes to your hardware — such as your digital display — the name of the game is to make sure your warranties will cover it for as long as possible.

“Probably the most important thing to do to help with your return on investment and to control costs is to look at your maintenance and warranty agreements to see if they are in synchronization with your contracts or commitments,” said Philip Luzbetak, president of Pallyn

As with all matter, your digital signage system will break down. After content and the purchase of hardware and software, a company’s largest expenditure probably will be routine main-tenance.


International. “Here’s the deal: Let’s say you have a two-year warranty on every-thing else and a three-year contract for your signage. Well, if in three years everything starts breaking, you’re going to have a big problem on your hands. You’vegottoreplaceitwithnewgearand guess what? Now your contract may be up in the air.”

For some companies, the digital signage system itself is “mission critical.” That means the company is temporarily crippled during the time the signage is malfunctioning. In circumstances such as these, the company may want the service provider to guarantee on-site service within 24 hours. The company also will likely have to purchase extra equipment to get the system up quickly.

“What that means is that they may have to actually physically buy extra compo-nents — extra players, extra displays — and then store them somewhere on-site, so that when the service guy gets there, he can take them out of storage, hang the new one up, replace the PC and taketheoldonebackandhaveitfixed,”Gleeson said.

Regardless of the extent of coverage, you’ll want to make sure your warranty and service agreements are clearly spelled out on paper.

Protecting your software

Youoftendon’tthinkofsoftwareas

something that has to be covered by a warranty or maintenance agreement. After all, software has no moving parts. It’s not like hardware where components degrade, wiring short-circuits or back-lights go out. Software is temporal and thus, in essence, eternal. Why would it need maintenance?

It’s true that a software package may remain the same, but the technological landscape does not. Windows 3.1 was a powerful operating system when it was released in 1992. Billed as the user-friendly alternative to the complicated DOS operating system, it quickly rose in popularity.

Windows 3.1 can still be found in used-computer stores. If you discovered an old copy of it on a CD-ROM, the program would still consist of the same logic that it always did.

But try to run one of today’s computer systems on a Windows 3.1 operating system and you’ll immediately run into problems. Today’s computers are much faster than they were in the early 1990s. They have new accessories such as MP3 players, laser printers and high-

CHAPTER 6 Warranties and maintenance agreements

Regardless of the extent of coverage, you’ll want to make sure your warranty

and service agreements are clearly spelled out on paper.


resolution digital cameras. Any computer still running Windows 3.1 in today’s environment is dead in the water — if it’s even functioning at all.

The same holds true for digital signage software, and if you’re paying for a war-ranty on that software, that warranty needs to explain what the manufacturer is willing to do if its software goes out of date.

“Probably the most important thing is their ability to keep up with new media formats as they come up,” Luzbetak said. “If media types become more complex, how are they going to be able to tie in those new formats? Is that part of a free upgrade package or are those things that you may have to purchase separately?”

Obviously,thefirstoptionispreferable.

CHAPTER 6 Warranties and maintenance agreements

The bottom line is, make sure your hardware and software are covered

for as long as possible, but don’t exceed the amount of time they are expected to be in operation.

The bottom line is, make sure your hard-ware and software are covered for as long as possible, but don’t exceed the amount of time they are expected to be inoperation.Youdon’twanttopurchaseafive-yearserviceagreementonaplasma screen that you know will be in service for only three years.

Gleeson also gave this advice:

“Make sure you buy professional, commercial-quality gear to begin with.“


Conclusion Power at your fingertips

D igital signage is the advertising medium of the future. Consumers are abandoning television in

droves. Newspapers and magazines are rapidly going bankrupt and closing their doors. But at the same time, the Internet and the video-game industry are both skyrocketing.

It’s clear that traditional media outlets are being forsaken for more progressive ones. As today’s demographic becomes increasingly tech-savvy, their eyes are drawn toward the colorful presentations that digital signage has to offer.

And it pays to have them looking at your message.

If you’re not investing in digital signage, giveitashot.You’llfindittobeanun-tappedsourceofsignificantrevenue.Byputting your brand, your products, your services and your message in front of theminflashinglights,you’llestablishyourself and your reputation as a leader in your industry.

But don’t just throw a generic signage project together at the last minute and expect a huge windfall of cash.

Digital signage is not an automatic guar-antee of success. It’s a tool — an instru-ment — that can give you an edge over your competitors. Like any instrument, it must be wielded with skill and dexterity.

In most situations in life, you get out

what you put in. But that’s not the goal of business. The goal of business is to get out more than you put in. That’s the logic behind return on investment.

To maximize your return on investment, the key is to focus on your message first.Everyactionyoutake,everydecision you make — should be seen through a prism: Does this help me com-municate my message to the public?

Yourmessageshoulddeterminewhatkind of display to purchase. Case in point: If your message is going to run continuously throughout the day — and if you’re trying to maximize your revenue, it should — you’ll need to purchase a commercial-grade display. Otherwise, you’ll be replacing a consumer-grade display every few months, and those are costs that add up quickly.

Yourmessageshoulddeterminethecapabilities of the software you should buy. What form will your message take? Video, audio or both? Will your digital display on cappuccino include a live feedfromthecoffeefieldsofColumbia?If so, you’ll need to purchase a software

In most situations in life, you get out what you put in. But that’s not the goal of

business. The goal of business is to get out more than you put in. That’s the

logic behind return on investment.


package that can handle this informa-tion. It doesn’t pay to have a program that crashes every time you attempt to run a scroll of today’s weather. A blank screen does not make revenue.

You’llalsoneedtodesignandimple-ment a powerful networking system to tie all of your digital displays together. The power to communicate is the power to control, and you need to have com-plete control over the content on all your displays, no matter what side of the planet they’re on. Instant communication means you can react quickly to changes in the market. That quick response can add up to big bucks in the long run.

Finally, be a smart buyer. Think about the future. Remember: Technology marches ever onward, whether we do ornot.Youcaneitherbeatthefrontofthe parade, or you can bring up the rear. Make sure your warranty and service agreements make provisions for new

hardware and software developments.

“I’mpersonallyexcitedaboutthefieldof digital signage,” said Philip Luzbetak, president of Pallyn International and sponsor of this guide. “Every time I help a client successfully deploy their system, I recognize the growing potential of this rapidly emerging industry. We haven’t begun to explore the possibilities that exist with this creative technology and I’m proud to be an ambassador for the field.”

Looking for your passport into a new world of communication? Look no fur-ther. Call Pallyn International today to get started.

CONCLUSION Power at your fingertips

Technology marches ever onward, whether we do or not. You can either be at the front of the parade, or you can bring up the rear.


Appendix Selected articles from Digital Signage Today

Managing digital signage contentBy James BickersEditor, Digital Signage Today

This story was originally published in “Content and Content Management for Digital Signage,” a free how-to guide from Digital Signage Today.

Opinions are sharply divided on whether it is a good idea to divide the screen real estate on a digital signage network. Of course, there are those networks whose entire business model is built on the segmented screen — for instance, cap-tive audience networks such as those in elevators or airports that sell ad space around and alongside streaming media content such as news and entertainment.

Butasidefromthoseveryspecificmodels, it is sometimes wise to seg-ment screens into different “regions” or “zones,”eachwithaspecificpurpose.Doing so wisely requires more than a little restraint, as well as a concerted focus on what is in the best interest of the viewer.

Here are six “best practices” for dividing screen real estate:

Go with the flow. The screen as a whole shouldsuggestalogical“flow”—thatis,viewers should intuitively be able to tell wheretheyshouldlookfirst,whattheyshould look at next, etc. Generally, this is accomplished by making the content

that is of greatest value to the viewer the largest. If a recipe is sharing screen time withanadforaspecificfoodproductfeatured in that recipe, the recipe itself should get the majority of the screen space. Otherwise, the consumer will subconsciously register the entire screen as an ad, and is more likely to ignore it.

Keep it consistent with your brand. On-screen content should be consistent with all other messaging in the enter-prise. This begins with simple things such as color schemes and fonts and extends into more esoteric matters such as the size of design elements, relative positioning of type and images and visual styles. It doesn’t matter whether your content is created in-house or by an external agency; in-store digital media needs to be added to the list of products managed by your creative team, and that same team should be involved in meetings to decide how to allocate screen space.

Make smart use of contrast, color and size. Human eyes will always land on the largest, brightest item in any given field—usethisasawaytoguidethe viewer around the screen. If you are using scrolling text for ancillary messaging, don’t make that text larger or brighter than the message that needs to get the primary focus. Minimize the attention given to information that people will seek out when they need it, such as weather conditions or news updates. And again,


APPENDIX Selected articles from Digital Signage Today

usecolorschemesthatreflecttherestofyour branding — if your brochures and static signage have trained people to know that your headline text is in beige type on a light yellow background, use the same pairing on-screen to create a psychological connection with other messages.

Understand motion and how it affects viewers. If something is moving or changing, our eyes are naturally drawn toit.Youcanusethistoyouradvantage,or you can allow it to become a liability. If animation or motion is going to be used, make sure it is most prominent in the area of the screen that deserves primary focus. Too much movement elsewhere on the screen will distract from the message, if not cause the viewer to give up in frus-tration and look away. And keep in mind that viewers hate unnecessary or gim-micky movement and effects — overly cute transitions, tickers that move too quickly and blinking text should all be avoided.

Keep it simple — but only if it needs to be. If you are trying to tell your viewers about the movements of the NASDAQ, updated every 10 minutes, you’re going to be presenting a visually sophisticated message, with lots of sidebars and graphs and scrolling numbers. If you’re trying to tell your viewers how to make delicious chicken skewers that the family will love in just a few minutes, the situation calls for a much simpler approach — perhaps a single large window with a video dem-

onstration. Understand the level of depth of your content, and plan a visual strat-egy accordingly.

Eschew gratuitous information. It’s a great time to be in the business of delivering content, because so much of itisoutthere.Weathertickers?Youbet.Sports scores, updated by-the-minute? Headline news? Latest blog posts on any given topic? Viral videos? User-generated content? It’s all there for the taking, but just because you can put something on your screens does not mean you should. Take a step back from the entire endeavor, and remind yourself what it is you are trying to communicate. Phrase it in the simplest terms possible (“I’mtryingtotellpeopleaboutXYZnewproduct,” “I’m trying to get people to go to the bank counter at the front of the store,” “I’m trying to increase sales of house brands.”). Now, what content do you truly need to convey that message?

Give the people what they want — building a content strategy based on customer expectations

Human beings enter into virtually every-thing they do with one or more expecta-tions, and when those expectations are met, they feel happiness. When their expectations are not met, they feel any number of negative emotions — disap-pointment, betrayal, anger, frustration.

Imaginepickingupaglassfilledwithiced tea and taking a drink — only to



findoutthatitactuallycontainssoda.The immediate visceral reaction is a negative one, as if the drink tastes bad.

It does not, in fact, taste bad — it’s just not what you were expecting, and your subconscious threw an alert at you, saying “Something is wrong here.” In fact, you like soda, and a moment later you take another sip, and this one tastes much better. The liquid did not change; your expectations did.

Customers entering your space will have expectations about the experience they think they are about to have; the same is true of each individual aspect of the ex-perience as a whole. If you serve coffee, it had better be good coffee; if you have shopping carts, the wheels had better not stick; if you hire “customer service representatives,” they had better give good customer service.

When customers look at a digital sign in your place of business, they are likely expecting one of two things: information that is directly related to their relation-ship with you (marketing-driven mes-sages, product promotions, etc.) and information that is not (weather, news, community events, etc.). Critical to the success of a digital signage network is delivering the information customers expect, when and where they expect it.

For instance, do subway commuters looking at a screen want to see informa-tion about what is on sale at the nearby

grocery store? Probably not, even thoughtheymightfindthatinformationvaluable at a later time. They would more likely appreciate weather informa-tion, since they are about to step out into the world where weather will directly affect them.

“Customers walking in a shopping mall will not stop or even slow down to watch an advertorial,” said Anke Gill, director of marketing for 1-2-1VIEW Corporation. “These customers want quick and rel-evant information that can be digested in a short period of time. Customers sitting in a doctor’s waiting room or in a bank, however, expect something very differ-ent from digital signage — they want to be entertained so that their waiting time is perceived to be shortened. The con-tent emphasis here should be on longer content segments with high entertain-ment value.”

“Shoppers want to be entertained and informed, not just advertised to,” said Tony Turiello, group manager for Pa-nasonic System Solutions Company. “Don’t broadcast advertising for 40 or 50 minutes at a time — break it up with other non-advertising content. While the audience is captive, don’t penalize them for it — creatively engage them.”

Some possible goals for marketing-driven messages:

Improved customer experience — making the customer happy through



entertainment clips, lifestyle messaging orpositiveaffirmation(“Thankyouforyour business!”)

Product information — not just where things are, but creative use of video to demonstrate product value (recipes in a grocery store; tax-time tips in a bank; in an auto parts store, video on how to change your own oil)

Special promotions — weekly sales, overstocks, upcoming events, “micro-sales” (“For the next 15 minutes, get 10 percentoffXYZ!”)

Ambiance — nebulous content that might not create a top-of-mind impres-sion on viewers but instead aims to create a general feeling of well-being; to make the customer glad he is there

Goals for information-driven messages:

News content — headlines, weather, financialnews,sports

Community events

Corporate communications — wel-come messages in a lobby, cafeteria menus, upcoming building events

Wayfinding

Public relations messages

Most digital signage networks will bene-fitfromaselectionthatdrawsfromboth

lists, usually woven together (i.e., don’t stack all of the sales information up next to one another; intersperse community information and ambience between pro-motions to eliminate the subconscious notion that “this screen just shows ads”).

“Consumers want to be engaged,” said Richard Fassio, founder and president of creative content agency Modern Digital. “Engaging can encompass ev-erything from entertainment to informa-tional content. Every situation will have adifferentdefinitionofwhatisengaging.Thisiswhyitsoimportanttodefinewhatthe user experience will be in order to create a compelling media strategy. If you aim at nothing you going to hit noth-ingsmackdabonthehead.Definingwhat experience you want someone to have…thisisthefirststep.”



Understanding digital signage softwareBy James BickersEditor, Digital Signage Today

This story was originally published in “Software for Digital Signage.”

Digital signage is still an emerging tech-nology, but already some trends have taken shape, and one of them is unfor-tunate: Since the screens themselves look very much like the LCD and plasma screens many of us enjoy in our homes, companies have looked upon them as televisions and have handled their con-tent plans accordingly.

But digital signage is not television; it is not an entertainment medium (even though it can be used as one), but a communications method. Companies that use digital signs to endlessly rebroad-cast advertising content are forgetting to take into account their customers’ mindset and reason for coming into the storeinthefirstplace.

“If your intention is to take your television commercial and simply play it in a store, that just becomes noise,” said Bradley Walker, president of software company Nanonation.“Yoursoftwareshouldbeable to very thoughtfully integrate brand elements and brand assets, but deliver them in a new way. We talk a lot about compositing — using the software to es-tablish a digital media brand for in-store

signage—andusetheflexibilityofthesoftware to populate those templates us-ing a variety of media types.”

Perhaps the key difference between at-home media and in-store media is the mindset of the customer at the moment of viewing, or the “time/place/manner” consideration. A person at home in the evening, watching television on his couch, is in a relaxed frame of mind. He is expecting to be in front of that screen for a given period of time — an hour, perhaps, or two — and his mind parses the content accordingly.

That same person standing in a retail environment at 5:30 in the afternoon is feeling things very differently. He is prob-ablytiredfromalongdayattheoffice;he really wants to squeeze in a workout and dinner before ending up on the couch for that decompression session, and that means he needs to get in and out of this store as quickly as he can.

To someone with this mindset, a litany of looping ads will not only be ineffective, it will be an outright deterrent. Chances are, his relationship with the brands of both the store and the items marketed on-screen will be damaged.

Visual elements and the customer experience

Clearly, the customer response to your digital signage is of paramount impor-tance; secondary to that is the cost



savingsandefficiencyyoubringtothecompany.Butfocusfirstonwhatthecustomer gets from seeing one of your screens.

For that experience to be a positive one, your digital signage software should be able to do several things:

Display a variety of media types. Screens that simply rotate through a seriesofstaticimagesarefine,butcus-tomers will quickly learn to ignore them, since they act so much like traditional signage. To remain effective, a signage networkneedstohavetheflexibilitytochange things up — animation one mo-ment, static imagery the next, live video the next.

Display media at appropriately high resolutions. Many consumers discov-ered something once they got their shiny new HD-TVs home — non-HD content looks terrible on them. The same holds true in the in-store environment, but the stakes are much higher. If your signage software isn’t built to handle HD, you’re asking for trouble down the road.

Integrate with other aspects of the environment. The signs will not be hanging in a vacuum, and that means they should be networked into the other things going on around them. For instance, if in-store music can be heard nearby, the software should be able to mute or lower the volume on it while a message with audio is playing on-

screen. Not all digital signage software is capable of this level of interaction, but it’s a valuable feature for future expan-sionandfine-tuningofthenetwork.

Dynamically generate playlists based on any number of criteria. Different media should play at different times of the day, and the software package should be able to pull the proper media, sched-uleitontheflyandupdateplaylistsasneeded. Managers should be able to insertmediawheretheyseefit,withtheplaylist adjusting itself accordingly.

Dynamically select media assets via tags. All media assets should have one or more “tags” associated with them, and your software should be able to intelli-gently pull media based on smart tagging conventions. This allows content creators to tag their work and place it in the proper location, and the system will automati-cally begin using it as appropriate.

Support audio. Not all signage applica-tions need audio, but it is an important feature to be able to add if needed.

Scale as needed. “Even if you start with a simple signage solution, having the right software to control your signage will improve your overall success,” said Jeff Hemingway, co-owner of software companyStormingImages.“Youmaystart out with one sign and grow to 10 signs per store. Software designed to scale and expand the network of signs is important when investing in a solution.



The ability to control the signs from a single point or multiple points is key to theflexibilityofcontrollingyoursignagenetwork.”



Make your digital signs brighter for shoppersBy Scott Slucher

This article was originally featured on Digital Signage Today on April 28, 2006.

It’s easy to get lost in the details of plan-ning a digital signage network. From software and hardware options to back-bones and integrators, the decisions can be overwhelming, and mistakes often are measured in the millions of dollars.

But a few critical success factors, if ad-hered to, are good indicators of whether a digital signage network will be success- fulininfluencingconsumerbehaviorina retail environment. Chief among them is the relevance of the message to the needs of the consumer.

“The real value of digital signage is not to play DVDs over and over and over again just because you have a plasma screen TV,” said Dick Trask, director of marketing at Scala Broadcast Multime-dia. “The real value of digital signage is to be able to deliver the right message at the right time to the right person. In today’s world, particularly in the retail industry, it’s growing more and more important to be able to focus your mes-sage to the audience you want to sell to.”

Making an impact

Contentisking,Trasksaid.“Youcanhave the best hardware in the world

(and) the fastest backbone in the world, but if what you’re showing on the screen isn’t relevant and has no value, it’s meaningless.Youhaveaterribledigitalsignage system.”

Studies indicate that as much as 75 percent of buying decisions are made spontaneously at the point of purchase, which only adds to the pressure of hav-ing something meaningful to say once the consumer’s attention has been grabbed.

So, what do people want to see and hear on a digital signage network? Bill Collins, principal at digital media market-ingandresearchfirmWBCNarrowcast-ing Group, said they probably want two things: help in navigating the store, and helpinfindingmerchandisethatisonsale or relevant to them.

Collins said retailers must focus on the needs of consumers to get their cooper-ation. “When a person is in a captive-au-dience setting, you really have to show respectforthem.Youcan’tjustassumethat because they’re there, they have to pay attention to you.”

As proof of this, he gave a brief over-view of how digital signage networks werefirstrolledoutinshoppingmallsbetween 1999 and 2002.

These early networks consisted mostly of loops of movie trailers, music videos and national advertising. They were



played endlessly in food courts using rear-projection technology.

“Itwasacompleteflop,”Collinssaid.“Just because you’re sitting in a food court in a shopping mall doesn’t mean you want to see movie trailers or nation-al brand advertising.”

The network developers retreated for a whiletofindoutwhatwentwrong.Theywanted to know what kind of content mallshopperswouldfinduseful.Oneofthe emerging networks is from a com-pany called Ad Space Networks based inNewYork.They’vespentmuchofthelast year in shopping malls, asking shop-pers to describe the kind of information they would want to see from a digital signage network.

Shoppers said most important was infor-mationtohelpthemfindcurrentsalesinspecificmallstoresandinformationabout activities going on in the mall.

“They’re having almost no national brand advertising unless it’s branding tiedtowayfinding,”Collinssaid.“They’rejust beginning to test that model out, and it seems to be working. It takes a while tofigurethesethingsout.”

Getting past mental ad-blockers

Consumers are a complicated bunch and are increasingly getting harder to reach. Advertisers have bemoaned the arrival of pop-up blockers and TiVo —

technological tools that allow viewers to skip ads — but that same process seems to be going on at a subconscious level, as consumers get savvier about what they notice and what they do not.

“There’s a whole set of technologies that consumers are using to avoid adver-tising because they don’t want to be shouted at,” Collins said. “When any new medium develops in the future, it will not be successful — people will block it — unless it provides something that is relevant to them.”

“The beautiful thing about digital signage, at least in a retail setting, is that the results are very apparent,” said Brad Gleeson, chiefexecutiveofficerofAbsoluteHD.“What you’re generally trying to do is influencethecustomer’sactioninsomeway: to use their credit card for the pur-chase or get involved with your loyalty club or just make sure they buy this product versus that product. All those things are measurable at the point of sale.

“That’s what’s unique about digital signage. No other form of digital media, aside from Internet advertising, has that kind of response capability.”

Metrics and matrices

Ringing cash registers are the most obvious validation of a network’s mes-sage, but they might not be the best way to measure its effectiveness. Metrics can be slippery, requiring an analysis



of multiple variables during the different stages of the network’s rollout.

“Youreallyhavetotrymultiplesce-narios,” Gleeson said, referring to some work done by ASDA, the U.K. Wal-Mart subsidiary. “Almost a matrix approach, where you’re addressing the content, the offer, the color scheme, the location of the display, the location of the prod-uct, time of day, etc. What you really have to do is a crosshatch pattern of many different criteria that you can test. Then you have to be able to measure all those criteria in real time and compare your results until you get a pattern.”

But what about small retailers, the regionalorlocaloutfitswithoutthedeeppockets of Wal-Mart to analyze their business?

Gleeson said testing, regardless of the size of the business, is critical.

“Youhavetobeabletovalidateormakea decision about your digital signage network on several different levels: Is it going to enhance the shopper’s experi-ence? Is it going to create a differentia-tion in your environment? Is it going to say something about your retail estab-lishment in terms of being current and exciting and interesting?” he said.

“Probably the No. 1 reason we see digi-tal signage failing is because people do it only because they think they need to do it. First and foremost, anybody who

is considering a digital signage system has to ask themselves, ‘Why am I doing this? What is the result I’m looking for? How do I describe a successful imple-mentation?’”

If smaller retailers do that, Gleeson said they will consider more than just sales as part of their ROI. “They have to be sophisticated enough to do some types of testing, or they need to partner or subcontract with somebody who can do that cost-effectively.”

And while testing is an ongoing process, so is the tweaking and improvement of content. Like any crucial business pro-cess,thisoneisneverfinished.

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