By Sanjay Manandhar

The proliferation of increasingly sophisticated mobile handsets offers the opportunity for a variety of interactive campaigns. To succeed, mobile engagement requires an integrated marketing mindset and attention to scalability, reliability and security.

Digital signage and mobile handsets are made for each other, but outdoor displays and mobile interactivity are particularly well-matched. Working together the attention grabbing outdoor display becomes a dynamic call to action. With such a successful pairing it is critical that both mobile and outdoor displays be consistent parts of a marketing mix—“a holistic approach” according to Bill Donabedian, managing director of Fountain Square Management Group that manages a 28 foot x 42 foot outdoor LED display in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Integrated marketing or the “holistic approach” is easier said than done. For one thing, marketing groups as well as agencies historically have had different teams handle various marketing avenues with labels such as TV, Print, Radio, Outdoor, Internet, Mobile, etc. These demarcations have to be dissolved. The end users don’t see these distinctions and are expecting marketing messages to be more integrated. Brands and some innovative agencies are starting to integrate various marketing methods and busting the proverbial “silos.” Kodak, who is powering a digital LED at Times Square, New York, and clearly has marketing programs in all imaginable media, says they integrate the outdoor display in Times Square as part of their overall marketing mix, not a distinct, one-off display. Hence, it was easy for Kodak to introduce campaigns that integrated mobile and digital out-of-home (as most marketers call the outdoor display) to sharpen their marketing message and enhance their branding.

Figure 1. Kodak LED Display at Times Square, New York, using Picture-to-Screen application that uses email to submit images and SMS to call up the approved images up to the giant display. This “Smile Gallery” campaign by Kodak is free to the public—send pictures to kodak@aerva.com

Nobody leaves home without their mobile handset—it’s a very intimate device quite unlike any other. What’s more, these mobile handsets come so feature-rich that they are more than just tools for voice communications—they are typically packed with SMS, MMS, camera features and the smartphones also allow full browsing, email and many interesting apps. Mobile handsets by themselves can entertain, engage the users and help communicate with others, but allowing users to interact with an outdoor display adds a new dimension to entertainment, engagement and communication. Providing call-to-action on the giant outdoor screens for users to collect coupons or sign up for sweepstakes are some of the simpler applications. Multi-user games, Text-to-Screen, mobile voting, Picture-to-Screen and even Tweets to the giant screen add much more to enhance the user experience and create a “wow” for the brand and the venue.

When high-profile outdoor displays promote their campaigns using mobile engagement, high volume user participation is the goal. It is, therefore, paramount that backend issues like scalability (the application stands up even when many users connect simultaneously), reliability (the applications or campaign continue to perform under user stress) and security (that the application or outdoor display is not compromised) become critical. Users are quite ingenious in their attempts to test the limits of the system or to use the exposure of a giant outdoor display to advertise their own wares (e.g. sending a picture in Picture-to-Screen application wearing a T-shirt advertising their company). So the final must-have is the ability for a system and/or human-moderation capability, especially for user-generated content.

With the proliferation of outdoor displays and increasingly feature-rich mobile handsets, the only limit to the range of marketing campaigns is human creativity. Be prepared for many more interesting and memorable marketing messages and campaigns that connect users and their mobile devices with outdoor displays.

Figure 2. Users sent in a photo to an outdoor display in Fountain Square, Cincinnati, running Picture-to-Screen application—sponsorship message appears alongside.

By Sanjay Manandhar

When entertaining key clients, companies want to make sure it is a memorable event. This is exactly what a major company was faced with when they were entertaining their top clients the day before the industry’s pre-eminent tradeshow/conference.

Text-to-screen, Twitter as UGC with Digital Signage

The audience was set: 250 of the most important clients. The location was set: a very high end sports bar with 40 or more LCD screens and state-of-the-art AV control room. The date was set: 3 weeks away. And the goal was set: To ensure the clients came away thinking the company throwing the party was innovative and cutting-edge.

At first the company was hesitant. They liked everything “buttoned-down” and any planning 3 weeks before was risky. Within an hour’s discussion, the company came away with ideas to de-risk the process and realized that they were in capable hands with Aerva Team. After hearing what was possible, the alternative seemed truly bland: they had planned to put the company’s logo on most of the screens and ESPN or similar sports channel on some of them.

We proposed creating a very long unique loop that involved the participants themselves with UGC (user-generated content). And here were the steps:

1. Get a Twitter hashtag just for the party event and start talking about it on their website, blogsite.
2. Create a Digital Signage program that uses user-generated content interspersed with company videos and logos.
3. The UGC were: Twitter, Text-to-Screen, Picture-to-Screen and mobile voting.
4. Mobile voting consisted of four fun quizzes. Participants voted using their mobile handsets. Every entrant got a sponsorship message back to their phone (along with  the correct answer to the quiz).
5. Text-to-Screen consisted of free-form text sent from mobile handsets, which showed up on all the screens after system and human moderation (the human was remote and monitored both text and images using a web browser). People sending in expletives and bad pictures probably realized after a few attempts that there was some kind of moderation going on.
6. Picture-to-screen consisted of simply emailing any picture from a mobile handset. They instantly showed up on the screens after successful moderation.
7. The set-up for the “Programs” was easily managed using the Aerva platform. The entire layout and design was kept simple, yet attractive. The designers from Aerva and from the company only had to meet  on the web several times to check for design, content and end-to-end operation.
8. Deployment was a breeze. One media player pre-loaded with all the content and widgets was connected to the internet and also to the sports bar’s AV station. All the screens on the top floor where the private party was being held were driven by the single media player which got Internet access via a Verizon wireless card.
9. The party was a success. Guests arrived and had a good time sharing pictures, texts, tweets, and trivia comments. “Wow” was heard many times and the company appreciated the compliments.
10. At the company’s booth the next day, people congratulated them on how tastefully user-generated content was integrated with digital signage.

Digital signage by itself is interesting. When user-generated content is designed in with business objectives in mind, the audience is fully engaged and the burden of creating unique content is shared by the viewing public.

By Sanjay Manandhar

Digital signage and digital out-of-home media are finally becoming more pervasive, yet it is evident that content going one-way only towards the viewers is not enough. It was clear from attendees at Aerva’s booth at the recent Digital Signage Expo that people are starting to understand the value of information going in BOTH directions—not just coming at viewers from screens, but going from viewers to the screens themselves. Granted, the amount of information going back from the viewers may be very little, but it is very important and relevant to those viewers. It also becomes one very valid basis of measurement for marketers and network operators of digital screens.

A good example of a viewer-engagement application is ‘Man-of-the-Match’ (or MVP of Tonight’s Game) - a mobile application that asks “Who is going to be the MVP of the game during halftime?” on the digital screen in a sports bar or on the Jumbotron in a stadium. The answers are sent in by viewers using their own mobile handset. The dynamic information can be seen filling up a pint jar, making it highly engaging to the viewers. For the marketers, it is highly measureable data.

Mobile Voting for Player of the Game (hockey rink)

Participation Rates

Aerva is frequently asked how to increase the take-up rates (or participation rates) of a mobile marketing campaign. Over the years we have come up with a very simple set of heuristics on how to make mobile campaigns successful. The goal is to get 100%+ take-up rates, or the mobile application is so successful that people participate more than once.

The chart below is self-explanatory. Here are some salient points:

• If there is immediacy on the screen (and on the handset) viewers become more participatory
• If there’s no promotion many people will ignore it
• If there’s promotion and incentive, people will participate proportionately
• It always helps to have mobile-centric audience (in some areas that is the only way they’ll participate)
• If the above points are heeded, you get 100%+ participation rate (now that’s an engaged audience ! )

Successful Mobile Marketing

Participation Rates as Proxies for Viewer Experience

There’s also an ‘emerging’ point of view that promotes the use of signage primarily as a way to enhance viewer experience. If digital signage network operators and venue-owners enhance the viewer experience, then the viewers will also tolerate advertising and other messaging. It is critical, therefore, to engage the audience with not just one-way messaging as with typical digital signage systems, but augment viewer experience. Mobile interactivity is a great way to be doing this, in multiple ways. When it’s done well, it’s canny and makes everyone happy – so it’s truly a win-win. And the proof of the viewer experience pudding is in the concretely measurable participation rates.

By Sanjay Manandhar

By all counts the current recession is bad. It might even be prolonged, prompting people to utter arcane words like stagflation and even the D word. But in the coming years, looking back, it may prove that these times were actually an inflection point for a sustained growth in digital signage.

First, the real fuel for large digital signage networks, ads and sponsorships, is actually moving beyond a token amount to something meaningful. Ironically, the shift of ads to digital signage can happen even as the broad ad market is seeing a serious downturn. Anecdotally, I’m seeing some digital signage advertisers get a significant uptick in ad revenues during this downturn, albeit coming from a small base. Why is digital signage benefiting when the broad ad business is off by 20% to 60% (depending on where you look and whom you ask)? My theory is that advertisers are genuinely cutting ad budgets, but, instead of cutting the same across the board, they are cutting more from more traditional media, such as print and TV, and adding a bit on some of the newer media like Internet, mobile, and digital signage. Internet is hardly new and is swiftly garnering the respectability of traditional media. So it appears some advertisers are trying the targeting and dynamic nature of digital signage, thus giving a nice uptick of ad dollars which, given the broader climate, can seem very countercyclical or counterintuitive.

Secondly, digital signage has gone through a sharp climb up the hype curve in the past few years, which is being rationalized right now. Removal of the froth is always good for any industry. In the past few years the digital signage hype created great expectations in the early adopter customers but, equally, it produced large numbers of new entrants, both in technology suppliers and network operators. Oversupply always engenders price reduction, which we have seen in display hardware, media players and also in software. Equally, the lack of a uniform media buying mechanism for ads in digital signage has meant that prices of the ads are coming down. These dynamics are removing the more recent entrants and weaker companies, both technology suppliers and network operators. While the demise of any entity is regrettable, the industry will grow stronger with quality companies and network operators.

Finally, the “try” will create a permanent “line item” in the budget of advertisers and ad agencies. The ad fuel will grow the industry and create sustainable ecosystem around it in hardware, software, content and applications. We have seen the “try” convert to a permanent line item for cable TV, for the Internet and other newer media. I’m confident digital signage will follow a similar path when it comes to acceptance by the advertising community.

By Sanjay Manandhar

Pay up front or pay as you go? Sometimes you get a choice, and with digital signage this choice can make the difference between success or a failed business. A decade ago someone who wanted to run a signage network would license the software with an up-front payment for the first year’s usage for their signs, buys servers and media player hardware. This was often no small payment. More recently, Software-as-a-Service (Saas) is a different business model that is more practical for many businesses.

So what problems does Saas avoid or solve? The first is ‘the IT problem’, and the second is the ‘Capex problem’.

These problems were brought into focus for us a few years back. During a ‘site visit’ to see how the young patrons entertained themselves at a club in Waterford Ireland (where the fancy crystalware is made). A chance meeting in with the owner inspired us to include the SaaS model of digital signage and mobile interactivity software delivery.

As many clubs do, this one featured very loud popular music, with lots of LCD displays everywhere showing trance-like imagery on some and sports on others. When it was time to talk about digital signage and software license pricing, the owner asked, “What license fee? We pay for everything outright if we use it on premises. If it is delivered from afar, like electricity, cable, phone, we pay monthly.” That comment was instrumental in shifting Aerva from a traditional software licensing model with customer-hosted servers to a more flexible model for increasingly larger numbers of customers.

Until then Aerva did it the old way. We licensed server technology to customers who bought their own server hardware and hosted it themselves. We charged a license fee upfront and a support fee each year after. For larger enterprises, this model was quite familiar, but pubs and clubs just did not want it that way. For starters, their footprint was so small that there was no way to squeeze a server rack in their back room. Secondly, they had little IT expertise. (The video disc jockey was the most IT-literate person they had). Finally, the thought of paying for software in a large balloon payment upfront was quite new to them.

SaaS addresses all of these issues and has two primary advantages:

1) Operational efficiency

2) Budgeting policy

Operational efficiency has to do with the customer off-loading the server hardware and maintenance away from their premises and off their books. This option wasn’t workable where bandwidth was low and expensive. But now that broadband is easily and cheaply accessible, there is no need for customers to bear the burden of hosting and managing their own servers – even when their business does have a core IT capability.

Budgeting policy lets customers pay a constant operational cost each month or each year, rather than spend a large capital expenditure upfront. The advantages of predictable expenses and easier planning are obvious, even for larger businesses. In addition, the ease of “try-and-deploy” form of commitment makes it quite risk-free for customers that sign up to the SaaS model.

There are two common pushbacks to SaaS models. First, neither the hardware nor, more importantly, the data is hosted by the customer. This represents a significant change for customers that have a very strict policy of keeping all data in-house. As the risks of data loss and privacy become much smaller than the convenience of tapping onto servers that are hosted by another entity, these organizations will migrate to the SaaS model. Every month, every year, we see this migration happening in organizations that never considered the SaaS model before.

Secondly, if an organization has sufficient capex budget but little maintenance budget, the SaaS model of paying a constant amount each month (or each year) will not work, although it can be made to work through pre-payments. Some organizations’ budgets have not been fully cognizant of constant incremental costs over time rather than up-front cost, so the budgets and SaaS may not co-exist, but clearly the trend is towards SaaS method of paying, not just for smaller operators like bars and clubs, but even for larger organizations.

Due to the unrelenting decrease in cost of bandwidth and use of browsers as the primary access medium SaaS is here to stay. In digital signage some providers have seen the light and are starting to offer a SaaS model. At Aerva, we are fortunate to have benefited from a very timely conversation with the nightclub owner in Waterford, Ireland in 2003.