Fun video about the wall that was made out of synchronized iPods, just got the link from our digital signage marketing agent. The synchronization, as shown, is either fixed (all 20 iPods are running the same content at the same time, simultaneously), or start with it in the regular, short intervals, one after the other. Anyway, pictures always say much more than words – so, take a look at the video.
No, we are not talking about the green digital signage - we are talking today about the American band Green Day and their nice, transformable and digitalized stage.
The event took place on last Sunday, November 8th, at Zurich’s Hallenstadion (see the digital signage installation in Hallenstadion in one of our previous posts).
The concert is unfortunately not going to be remembered by good music heard on it, but the stage looked pretty interesting. The LED screens, which were changing the colours and some simple effects - one could have said that there are at least dozen scenographies involved.
It really is a vicious circle; good content helping our industry to grow. The blog at Rise display in a way underlines this (I couldn’t resist support the posting and react) and made my posting here at Miniblog be aiming at this subject again.
Don’t waste your expensive network and screens with rubbish shown on it. Our entire industry is facing hard times. The last fact of this is ASG in UK who didn’t make it. And we all know why. Advertising sales isn’t yet the moneymaker we all hoped for. It will come, but then we all HAVE to be smart! Don’t put all your money in hard- and software. Book a small amount for content, content development and content strategy. Your first two questions starting a network always should be WHY do I want screens and WHAT will be the objective of them. These questions only can be answered with content, not with hard- and software. Those will be additional and may never be the leading part in your quest for the WHY and WHAT questions!
So, if you can’t answer the WHY and WHAT questions properly, please be wise and don’t raise a digital signage network or even one or two screens. Apparently, you don’t need it then. Believe me, it is true! People in these time to often just place a couple of screens just because they think they must be part of this ‘ratrace’ called digital signage.
Networks, showing content with a professional look & feel will attract sponsors on screen faster. And let’s be honest, look for yourself in your own environment; the good-looking networks in your neighborhood contain advertising. Networks with poor content mostly don’t. Most of the time ‘good-looking networks’ in our business mean people at least did think about how to use their screens. So please, spread the word and let’s help each other towards a more profitable business and also have a serious look at your own screens.
Nothing to do with our industry but look below for a fun example of fun signage at a truck (not digital and not commercial). You’re looking at the backdoors of it.
In the pretty town Nimes, France, is the textile and decorations shop MacDan.
In this colorful shop, our digital signage agent spotted the following installation (see the picture below).
This was in the section of the featured product. Screen on the top was running the product adverts. The touch screen below was allowing different product structure combinations, giving to the product interactive and contemporary feeling. Since the rest of the shop was completely analog, this section definitely stood up.
And now – to take the Digital Signage Expert Tour – you don’t have to invest money into visiting the shows, or even move from your comfortable chair! Why is that? Simple reason – we brought the virtual version of The Digital Signage Expert Tour™ to you.
The Tour provides an explanation of the role of the different puzzle pieces involved in a digital signage installation as well as looking at some of the leading players in the industry and the roles they play. - says Dave Haar.
By simply clicking on the pieces of puzzle, one can get information about the particular part of the industry. Or, in the case one wants to get a complete overview of the full digital signage food chain – lean back and take the entire tour. One can even make a break as one pleases, and continue on some other occasion.
Since it is just launched, we would be happy to get your feedback! And, due to the fact that the number of featured technologies and vendors will expand - it would be a good idea to visit the Tour periodically.
The signage business as a whole is all about impact. How can we catch our customers? I just want to give you a couple of tips concerning clips you produce.
1. Always remember the ‘two times rule’. If you use text in your message, be sure people can read it twice. This of course will influence the length of your clip
2. Less is more (especially concerning the use of text)
3. Be sure the length of your program / loop is half the time people are in the shop
4. Use a large font (fat is even better) for short messages with striking colors (actually, always make messages short on your screens!)
5. You don’t always need to use (expensive) video. Nice stills can also tell the message most of the time
6. Be careful with ambiguous word jokes. Not everyone may catch the fun!
7. Sometimes images say more than words. See examples of signage below (not even digital).
Click here if you want to see more funny but catching advertisements.
Talking about digital signage at entertainment venues… Eleventh time in a roll jazznojazz festival was taking place last weekend in Zurich. Compared to the previous year, next to the Chick Corea and Marcus Miller, the big stars of this year’s festival, the big premiere was for the new digital signage installation in Gessnerallee theater.
This old building was turned into the flashing, digital signage pavilion. Well, OK, not really flashing, but the two huge screens, running the festival program, were nicely placed in the restaurant. The authors were obviously taking care of the architectural esthetics. Maybe they read the Ten Commandments of Digital Signage…
We can report also the big projector in the main concert hall, with almost the same (but not identical) content. Very similar to those we spotted at Montreux Jazz Festival, earlier this year.
There is so much news every day on all of the different quality websites about Digital Signage that it is sometime a daunting task just to sift through it all. Last week however I saw an article that I'd like to recommend to everyone to read. I saw it in Digital Signage Today. It was the lead story entitled: Q&A: Ten questions on Wachovia’s digital signage network . It is a great interview by Bill Yackey of Tracey Crowe, of Wells Fargo Creative Services, to discuss the company’s digital signage network from a deployer point of view.
I was particularly impressed with Tracey's answers to the last few questions concerning the challenges they are having with keeping up with the demand for good creative content. As a manufacturer of products that have nothing to do with the content, only its distribution to displays, I am amazed by how much we focus on helping our customers understand the importance of content and keeping it fresh and relevant for their audience in order for their network to have a chance of succeeding.
Whenever any of us in the industry look to help our customers design or implement their networks, we are always spending some significant amount of time answering their questions about content. I haven't seen any exceptional places for people to learn about creative and relevant content creation, though I would love to learn about them if they are out there.
As Tracey states in her answer to Bill's last question about information she would like to see provided by the industry, there needs to be more provided about how to measure effectiveness of the network and how to produce good creative content. There is a tremendous power in the screens we are placing in all of the environments where digital signage is being utilized or considered. Each industry has its own specific requirements and needs for creating purposeful, relevant, engaging content.
In the article, Tracey says it this way, "The digital signage industry covers such a wide range of users, designers, manufacturers, system integrators, etc. and they're all incredibly unique within their environment. Information written about outdoor digital signs may have very little relevance to designing content within a financial environment. Creating content for a large chain retail store is also very different from our world. So there has been a challenge in simply finding good, relevant information about designing content in general but more specifically around the financial-services environment." It seems to me that this dilemma is one of the biggest challenges holding the industry back. What do you think?
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