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

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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.

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.

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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 measurable data.

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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)? (more…)

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.

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