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

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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