DIGITAL MEDIA

Not everyone is a physicist or a LED expert and designer. The average electronics consumer (that might know a few things about LED devices or any other illuminating apparatus) has to be informed on the important place LEDs hold in our life. Because everyone has seen a LED, but perhaps doesn’t know of its existence, we consider it our duty to tell you some things about it.

LED stands for Light Emitting Diode and it performs a great variety of functions, being found in many household appliances. Every blinking LED is a genuine unsung hero of the electronics’ landscape. The amazing LED colors vary, depending on the composition of the materials used and the outside conditions of the above mentioned semiconductor, ranging from almost ultraviolet to the visible spectre or even the infrared light. To put it shortly, a LED sign is simply a small series of light bulbs that can be inserted rapidly into electrical circuits. The major difference between a LED and some other common incandescent bulb is that, the LED doesn’t contain any filament which may burn out or get too hot. You can burn your fingers with a LED, as every LED is illuminated just by the rapid movement of electrons in a semiconductor material. A standard LED generally lasts as long as a normal transistor.

These devices can create the ciphers on digital clocks, light up your wrist watch, send information from a remote control or even warn you when an appliance is turned on. When altogether connected because of decorative or practical reasons, they can accomplish marvellous things as the LED illuminating sign of an everyday traffic light. In fact, the most obvious purpose LEDs have is to advertise and sell services and products.

After getting acquainted with what a LED is, one can focus on the uses of a standard LED. Our company has to step in at this moment to give you some ideas on how you can use a LED. We welcome you to the LED Signage Revolution, a concept created and put into practice by sign experts and top LED specialists. Xstreamsign.com offers you the most recent sign LED solutions in colour changing signage. This revolutionary sign technology gives you the chance to accomplish extraordinary things with your company’s branding sign and attract as many clients as you wish.

If you know exactly how you want your clients to perceive your image, if you want your brand to stand out when people pass by, if you want to capture everyone’s attention, then you have to appeal to the best LED effects and use the best colors and shapes for your sign. To get your brand profile known on the market and to develop new and improved connections with your company’s clients you have to use the advantages a LED sign can give you. Yes, LED signage is useful not only for appliances, but for marketing also. Sign LED technology can make it easy for you to change your corporate colors and improve your business.

These complex devices are organized by a Sign Brain Cell, meaning an extremely tiny controller, the smallest in stature digital LED programmable controller built until now. Even though it measures only 80mm x 40mm x 20mm, this piece of equipment for sign illumination does a miraculous job. It ensures that your company’s colors attract potential customers by all means. It enlightens about the possibilities your company can offer and sells your image in the most appealing way.

The X-Stream Sign system is represented by a modular RGB LED signage option. This modular system refers to the fact that it can be complex or simple, depending on your choice. Some high-tech sign modules are interconnected to form small basic systems or larger ones for more sophisticated signs of different scales and with color changing animated Sign drawings. These last complicated ones are run from a computer over a connected network and can indeed be called a work of art. A lot of work is put into the creation of a LED sign, but the effort is repaid through an eye-catching light show.

Our company can provide digital LED signage that can vary from the simplest advertising text to still pictures and to 3D animated videos. There are even available audio options. Generally, retail industry operators of digital signage firms see their colorful full-motion banners as comparable to TV broadcasting channels, entertaining parading or data distributing advertisements. The LED signs are popular and they enchant, inform and thrill just like any of the above mentioned ways of promotion. So, if you are company looking to get noticed, you should definitely try a LED sign!

Amelie Mag
http://www.articlesbase.com/business-articles/led-signage-a-way-to-make-your-company-seen-58543.html

Last week, I made a simple point in this space, namely that just because a display device, such as a plasma or LCD panel, is flat doesn’t mean that it’s capable of displaying high definition content as part of digital signage messaging.

By way of review of last week’s column, a display panel can be SD, or standard definition, ED, or enhanced definition, or HD, high definition. Displays are made up of individual picture elements, called pixels. Basically, the idea is the more pixels, the higher the resolution of an image. Thus, an SD display with a pixel count of 704 (horizontal) x 480 (vertical) has less resolution than an ED display with 852 x 480 pixels. HD displays, which have even more pixels and are at the top of the resolution food chain for displays, come in three flavors: 720p, 1080i and 1080p. (More on the “i” and the “p” in a moment.)

A 720p HD display has 1280 pixels (horizontal) by 720 (vertical); 1080i and 1080p displays have 1920 pixels by 1080 pixels, or more than 2 million individual picture elements. The letters “i” and “p” stand for interlaced and progressive, respectively. Interlaced displays, like ordinary TV sets and 1080i HDTVs, paint individual lines of pixels back and forth top to bottom across the display on the odd numbered lines (in HDTVs those are 1, 3, 5…1079) first and then the evens (2, 4, 6…1080) before beginning the process over and over. Taken together the odd numbered line “field” and the even numbered line field create one “frame,” or complete still image. There are 30 such frames displayed per second.

Progressive displays, like computer monitors and 1080p HDTVs, display lines sequentially (1, 2, 3… 1080) before beginning the process again. These 1080p HD displays paint 60 new still images on the screen every second. With twice the frame rate (60 versus 30), 1080p demands twice the amount of data as 1080i.

That difference in frame rates means different things to different parties interested in high definition. To marketers using an HD as the display technology in a digital signage network, 1080p is the top-of-the-line image quality they can expect to achieve for the foreseeable future. If the message they are communicating requires the utmost resolution, 1080p may be the right choice. However, 1080p displays are more expensive and there will be a price to pay in terms of content storage required to drive that messaging.

To broadcasters who must work within the law administered by the FCC for transmission of HD, 1080p is too much. Simply given what they must work with, 1080p is beyond their capacity to deliver. Thus, 1080i and 720p are the broadcast HD formats.

To movie studios wishing to distribute their films in the highest display format available in the home, 1080p is the answer. Much of the buzz over Blu-ray and HD-DVD optical discs is in part about the ability of the competing formats to deliver superb image quality. Those formats –and their use of a blue frequency laser with a shorter wavelength that can write more data per area of storage- were designed to be able to write the all of the 1080p data to disk that’s needed to playback a full-length movie plus bonus material.

But here’s the most important party in the 1080p HD resolution equation: the audience. Whether you’re a digital signage marketer, a broadcaster or a movie studio, you are faced with same question: How do I affordably deliver the level of quality to my audience that satisfies my desired communications goal? In other words, how much resolution is enough for the communications task at hand?

Only you can answer that question. To illustrate how subjective the answer is, consider this: ABC, ESPN, Fox and My Network TV rely on 720p, or 720 progressive lines, for HD service while NBC, CBS and PBS rely on 1080i. Perhaps before you decide which level of HD resolution is most appropriate for your high definition digital signage network, you should flip between ESPN’s “Sportscenter HD” (720p), “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” (1080i) and “March of the Penguins” (1080p) playing back from an HD-DVD player or “Mr. & Mrs. Smith” (1080p) from a Blu-ray player on your 1080p display. You may be surprised by what you observe.

David Little
http://www.articlesbase.com/multimedia-articles/digital-displays-a-little-more-about-high-definition-135215.html

The most obvious thing about digital signage is the display panel. It’s the first thing you see, and probably the last thing you think about once it’s hung and showing the content you want others to see.

But did you know that just because your digital signage messaging is playing back on a flat panel plasma or LCD that it’s not necessarily being shown in HD quality? While they’re somewhat less common today, for the past few years display makers have marketed -right next to the HD panels- something known as ED panels or TVs. EDTV stands for “Enhanced Definition Television” –something that’s better, to be sure, than the ordinary television in most homes across America, but nowhere near as good as HDTVs and HD monitors. So, what makes one panel “enhanced” and another “high-def”? Basically, its pixels, scanning and terminology.

Pixels first

If your interest in digital signage is more about what it can do for you than how it does it, you might not be very familiar with some of the basics. First, a pixel is a picture element. Many say it’s the smallest picture element in a display, but maybe a better way to think of it is as the smallest whole picture element in a display. That’s because just like Gaul, all pixels are divided into three parts –red, green and blue. Those parts are often referred to as sub-pixels. But for the sake of this discussion, let’s stick with pixels.

In plasmas and LCDs, pixel count is pretty cut-and-dry. These displays are made up of rows and columns of picture elements or pixels. An SD panel –or standard definition panel, the closest thing to your ordinary home TV- will have 480 rows and 720 pixels across. EDTVs have the same number of rows, 480, and 853 pixels across.

Besides having about 20 percent more pixels across, another important distinction between the two is the type of scanning used. An SD display is interlaced just like your fingers are when you do “Here’s the church, and here’s the steeple….” Drawing one complete picture, or frame, in an interlaced display requires the monitor to scan the odd number rows in an image sequentially first, i.e. 1, 3, 5 etc. and then the even numbered rows 2, 4, 6 etc. Together those two interlaced “fields” make up a frame. There are about 60 fields per second, or about 30 frames per second in SD video. (I won’t trouble you with the why regarding the term “about.”)

These interlaced fields are displayed so quickly that the scanned odds are still aglow, although decaying, while the evens are being scanned. However, that decay in the glow and constant refresh account for a flicker that’s visible to some.

ED monitors are progress scan displays. Like computer monitors, they scan lines, 1, 2, 3, etc. all the way to line 480. It’s the greater number of pixels and this progressive scanning that makes them better than SD, or in other words, enhanced.

Enter HD

HD or high definition can produce a view of the world that’s lifelike. If you doubt that, flip on the Discovery Channel and then flip over to Discovery HD on an HDTV. You will be amazed.

There are many different types of high definition standards, but you only have to be concerned about a few things when it comes to digital signage. First and foremost, HD is pixel count. If it’s got at least 1280 x 720 pixels, it qualifies as HD. However, here’s where things get a little confusing. HDTV and monitors also come with 1920 pixels across and 1080 pixels vertically, and they come with lots of different pixel counts in between. Those “tweeners” have more to do with the manufacturing capabilities and priorities of the company making the panel than they do with the actual HD standard.

Like the difference between SD and ED, there are scanning type differences among HDTVs as well. First, there is progressive scan called 720p (row 1, 2, 3… 720). Then there is 1080i, or 1080 interlaced (1, 3, 5…1079 followed by 2, 4, 6…1080). Finally there is 1080p, which some HD marketers call Full HD (implying that the rest aren’t quite HD, which is misleading and self-serving in my opinion).

Not quite as they seem

Without a doubt, HDTVs are burgeoning in the home and HD panels are becoming popular displays for digital signage. Their ability to reproduce lifelike images is breathtaking. That’s powerful clay in the hands of digital signage sculptors.

But don’t be confused. Just because a panel is flat, it’s not necessarily HD. Look for the panel’s resolution in pixels. Find out what type of scanning it uses. Together, those two pieces of information can tell you what you’re looking at, even if your eyeballs aren’t sure. It can also save you the headache of mistakenly acquiring the ED monitors that seemed like a steal when you thought you were buying HD.

David Little
http://www.articlesbase.com/ask-an-expert-articles/digital-displays-things-are-not-always-as-they-appear-133643.html

Experienced signage network operators often deploy content that fails to produce results. Even worse, if they haven’t implemented a reliable tracking mechanism (a topic for another article), they may not even realize that their creatives are hitting a wall. The problem isn’t exclusive to the folks who are in charge of the system; a lot of times, the ad agencies and firms who are brought in to assist have the same problem.

Today, we’re going to take a look at how well glossy content works when it’s deployed throughout your signage network. The fact is, slick-looking creatives may look fantastic, but still fail to produce sales, leads, contact information, and other actions. But, there’s a simple science to developing messages that can captivate your audience while delivering the goods. Let’s get started.

The Effect Of High-End Production

First, let’s consider creatives that are developed with high-end production. Unless you’re leading a talented team of designers, you’ll probably hire a design firm to come up with them. These creatives cost a lot of money, draw viewers in, and hold eyeballs. But, do they actually drive people to take action (for example, buying a sales item)? Or, can they support a brand?

In fact, they can. People have a natural tendency to investigate dazzling, artful displays. So, a team of designers who can employ the latest Flash tricks with tantalizing music can easily capture the attention of passersby. What’s more, the high-end content they produce will often create a lasting impression in the minds of those who see it. Think about how films affect moviegoers. When Jurassic Park was first released, it dazzled audiences. It created an impression. High-quality creatives that are slickly produced can generate the same response.

The Beauty Of Simplicity

On the other end of the spectrum are simple messages. There’s nothing in them that will astound your signage viewers. The graphics are clean and often produced by using templates. The message is clear without the distractions of audio and visual effects. Most importantly, assuming the network operator or designer of the creative is knowledgeable about advertising, there’s a clear, concise call for action. So far, so good. But, does it work to generate a response?

It does. In the same way that people are drawn toward the glitzy, smooth, slick creatives, simple messages can be powerful. It may not be glossy or seductive, but when it’s created with an eye for effective advertising tactics, it can drive customers to the register (or kiosk). The trick, of course, is knowing how to develop that kind of content. Here’s a hint: Attention, Interest, Desire, Action. The AIDA formula has been used with great success for decades. It’s just as potent when used in your signage content.

One Or The Other

So, which should you and your team generate, high-end content with a lavish production or simple creatives? Well, it depends upon your goals and your budget. If you’re building a brand, aren’t interested in immediately-trackable actions, and aren’t limited by a finite budget, glossy creatives may be a great solution. On the other hand, if you’re working with limited financial resources and need to produce measurable results, focus on developing simple messages. The trap you definitely want to avoid is blowing your budget on glossy content development that doesn’t generate the results you need to justify your signage network.

One last recommendation (and we’ll go into more detail on this topic in the future): avoid taking the middle road. Glossy content works. So does simplicity. But, the middle ground loses effectiveness quickly. There are reasons that are beyond the scope of this article, but stay tuned. We’ll get into that soon.

Frank Lucer
http://www.articlesbase.com/business-articles/digital-signage-does-glossy-content-work-745131.html

Taking a page from the entrepreneur’s notebook, non-profit organizations are now utilizing digital signage, touch-screen kiosks and interactive donor walls to promote capital campaigns, enhance donor recognition, deliver important fundraising messages, attract new donors and bolster their bottom line.

The convergence of interactive technology with multimedia content has created a wealth of new fundraising possibilities.

For-profit corporations and leading retail outlets embraced the superior attraction capabilities of multimedia displays to increase profits and cut costs long ago. Now that the technology has matured, progressive non-profit organizations are implementing similar systems in an effort to compete for the increasingly scarce fundraising dollar.

While traditional donor walls and static signage will always have their place in non-profit organizations, self-cycling and interactive multimedia presentations are now being used to attract inform, inspire and motivate donors, visitors, volunteers and staff at first point of contact.

Imagine the powerful attraction, retention and emotion-generating capabilities of a medium that allows for vibrant graphics, animation, full-motion video, audio and compelling text messaging – one that also allows for interactive participation and instant updates.

An exhibit where contributors are recognized in dynamic fashion; where they share stories of hope, gratitude and the future; where history unfolds in an illustrated, moving chronicle; where a capital campaign is illustrated and advanced by animated timelines, moving testimonials, and current contribution results – in effect – a display that inspires while also reflecting an organization’s mission, culture, values and ideals.

Multimedia displays provide a powerful marketing, communications and fundraising edge that is limited only by the imagination of the content creators. The presentations can be delivered via plasma displays, LCD screens and touch-screen kiosks and can either be self-cycling or interactive. They can be also be integrated into traditional donor walls, recognition displays and capital campaign promotions or can be utilized as standalone systems.

With virtually unlimited capacity, multimedia displays solve the age-old non-profit problem of finding additional recognition space when needed. They are also quick and easy to update from the comfort of any office with an Internet connection, addressing logistical and budgetary concerns that include updating and editing donor names and keeping fundraising messages current. Electronic multimedia displays can now also feature integrated credit card swipes complete with printer. This enables a visitor to make a donation and collect a receipt while enjoying and interacting with the presentation.

Interactive and self-cycling multimedia presentations are quickly becoming standard occurrences in non-profits and charities. Prestigious organizations currently using dynamic multimedia displays to enhance their donor recognition, promote capital campaigns and communicate their important fundraising messages include, among others:

Harvard School of Dental Medicine (touch-screen kiosk); United States Air Force Memorial Foundation (multiple outdoor touch-screen kiosks with credit card swipes and printers); Glens Falls Hospital Foundation (plasma display), Dr. H. Bliss Murphy Cancer Treatment and Research Foundation (plasma display), Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (digital signage), St. Boniface Hospital and Research Foundation (touch-screen kiosk and integrated plasma display), Shaarey Zedek Synagogue (electronic Yahrzeit memorial) and the Jewish Foundation of Milwaukee (touch-screen LCD display).

The future of donor recognition, capital campaign promotion and non-profit marketing – has arrived.

G Williams
http://www.articlesbase.com/marketing-articles/nonprofit-organizations-embracing-interactive-donor-walls-digital-signage-and-touchscreen-kiosks-to-promote-capital-campaigns-enhance-donor-recogn-137728.html

I had dinner the other evening with some friends from New England. The couple splits its time between a home in the southern part of New Hampshire during the winter and a scenic farm in northern Vermont during the summer. In the past, I’ve had opportunities to visit both places and travel with them between their homes.

As dinner progressed, the conversation turned to the Old Man of the Mountain, a natural rock formation on the New Hampshire landscape that serves as a symbol adorning state highway signs and license plates. I’d stopped on several occasions at Franconia Notch State Park to view the Old Man from a distance.

In May 2003, erosion, wind and weather finally took their toll on the Old Man, when in an instant the rocks gave way and the landmark slid down the mountain and into history. At dinner, I asked in passing about the event and my friends told me a few things I had never known about the landmark.

The Old Man of the Mountain had existed in a tenuous state for years, my friends said. In an effort to preserve the landmark, the state had wrapped chains and cables around portions of the face to keep it in place. Plastic was strategically placed in an effort to prevent rain from penetrating crevices, freezing, expanding and making the face more unstable. Volunteer quarryman even regularly inspected the landmark and did their best to maintain its integrity. However, despite everyone’s best efforts, the Old Man of the Mountain collapsed in a heap May 3, 2003.

As my friends discussed the Old Man and the efforts to preserve it, I couldn’t help but think about the similarities between the fallen-away landmark and TV, commercials and digital signage.

As a mass medium television is the undisputed champion, but I see signs of erosion, unstable features and steps at preservation that ultimately are likely to prove futile. TV is in a state of transition, and the medium as it’s been known for the past 60 years or so is undergoing radical changes.

Sure there’s the transition from analog to digital that the government has mandated for February 2009, but that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m referring to a transition being forced upon the medium that’s about as welcome as the rain and snow were to the Old Man.

Since it’s inception as a commercial medium, television in this country has been linear. Programs have a set starting time and known finish –for the most part. In between show segments are commercial breaks; and in between shows are more commercials. Networks and stations have relied on this structure to build program lineups, audiences and desired demographics that advertisers wish to reach.

However, with the roll out of digital video recorders over the past few years, viewers –not network programmers- are in charge of when a show gets watched. Worst of all for the marketers and the networks, viewers can use the same recorder to “zap” or zip by commercials. Each time a viewer does so, it’s like another drop of rainwater penetrating a crack in the Old Man’s face, wearing away the underlying soil and rock holding the structure in place.

Add to that the growing availability of video-on-demand from cable and satellite TV operators, TV network Web sites that make popular shows like “Lost” and “Grey’s Anatomy” available on-demand via streaming broadband connection, and the countless shows, movies and events available for download via file sharing, and it’s easy to see the cracks are growing and the edifice is nearing a shift.

To be sure, the networks rolling out the chains, wrapping up their franchise tight to hold the status quo. Shows like “American Idol” garner huge ratings and encourage viewers to buck the VOD trend by asking them to call in and vote for their favorite performers live. But that strategy raises some interesting questions, like how broadly can it be applied, and doesn’t it just feed the desire of viewers for interactive control over the content they view?

Technology and interactivity are only two of the elements eroding the status quo. The other is demographics. Closely tied to technology and interactivity to be sure, the highly sought after younger demographic is fluent in technology. From text messaging to gaming, on-line chats to music downloads, younger audiences are immersed in the stuff. Unfortunately for television networks and their advertisers, this group also appears to be less interested in television than older viewers.

All of these shifts, as gradual as they may be, are good news for digital signage networks. On one level, digital signage gives marketers who may grow uncertain about the stability of the Old Man of Television a refuge for targeted advertising. On another, digital signage bears a close resemblance to television and can easily take advantage of the cache of the medium without falling prey to the elements eroding its stature. On yet another, digital signage displays can be configured to work in hybrid mode, offering the benefits of linear program playback, which can be interrupted with something as simple as a touch of the screen and sent into an interactive, digital kiosk mode. This in particular, positions digital signage to capitalize on the propensity of younger viewers to feel at home with interactive technology, and thus offer marketers direct access to a highly desired demographic.

Will television slide down the media mountain just as the Old Man did in New Hampshire? Perhaps, but I can’t say when with any more reliability than the surveyors 100 years ago who predicted the demise of the Old Man. What I can say is this: The forces buffeting the edifice of television are growing in strength. Whether or not that media landmark can withstand them in the long run, television and its traditional business model are likely to continue changing. As they do, the prospect of digital signage networks to offer marketers an attractive alternative will only grow.

David Little
http://www.articlesbase.com/advertising-articles/digital-signage-payoff-whats-a-challenge-for-tv-may-be-a-boon-for-digital-signage-networks-115866.html

Out-of-home advertising –the nice-sounding term for all types of advertising consumed away from home, including digital signage- is likely to become an even more important component of the advertising landscape with this week’s announcement that Clear Channel Outdoor Holdings will roll out digital billboards in four more cities: Akron, OH, Columbus, OH, Memphis, TN, and Wichita, KS.

Making up the digital billboard network in each city are:

• Memphis: five 14-foot-by-48-foot digital displays;

• Akron: six 14-foot-by-48-foot digital displays;

• Wichita: six 12-foot-by-24-foot digital displays;

• Columbus: six 12-foot-by-24-foot digital displays.

While the size of Clear Channel Outdoor’s displays and its ongoing commitment to building digital billboards networks are impressive, what’s more impressive is the flexibility the new medium brings to the advertising community. The company plans to rotate advertising copy on each network display in an eight-second loop, totaling a minimum of 1,250 advertising spots every day!

Compare that staggering number to the paltry 23 advertising messages the signs would have carried for weeks or even months if they had been made of paper and ink.

What’s clear from the Clear Channel Outdoors example is the dramatic impact technology is having on the way advertisers can communicate their unique marketing messages to people away from home.

The same is true of indoor digital signage networks. They combine the appeal of television –graphics, text, animation, sound and video- with a growing presence in retail stores, malls and other venues where consumers go to shop. Perhaps even more important, just like the Clear Channel digital billboards, the messaging on digital signage networks can change frequently –even more than a thousand times per day if required.

The flexibility to update messaging easily throughout the day is huge in retail. Consider only a few examples. First, many large retail stores spend seemingly countless hours changing thousands of printed signs in various departments to keep their promotional and marketing messages in line with their retail goals. digital signage can slash the time spent on this activity. Second, updating or replacing signs at different times of the day to match the changing demographics and desires of patrons is at best difficult. Imagine a café in a mall that must post its specials on a placard outside its entrance three times per day –once for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Now extend that concept to other retailers in the same mall that would like to target their messaging to seniors in the morning, students after school and families in the evening. With printed signs, such day parting is nearly impossible. But with digital signage, day parting marketing messages is simple and fast. Third, consider ROI. Traditional signs do not lend themselves to advertising support in a retail setting. Digital signs do, and best of all because they’re easy to change, advertising messages can be sold again and again.

There’s one other important component of Clear Channel Outdoor’s announcement that relates to indoor digital signage networks. The four newly announced cities join deployments in Chicago, Boston, Cleveland, Las Vegas and Minneapolis/St. Paul. In total, the company intends to roll out networked digital billboards in at least 100 markets by the end of this year.

How long will it be before Clear Channel Outdoor’s parent company, which owns or operates 40 TV stations throughout the country, begins combining the sale of commercial TV time with the sale of networked digital billboard ads? What sorts of economies of scale and sales synergies would that type of approach bring?

In the indoor digital signage areas, how long will it be before competing, fractured digital signage networks coalesce into a unified market that can be sold in the same way? Just forward this column to Google. Given what they’ve been up to in the online, radio and television ad markets, they might just be the ones to pull it off.

David Little
http://www.articlesbase.com/printing-articles/digital-signage-strengths-resemble-those-of-growing-digital-billboard-networks-131161.html

Perhaps you’ve read a few interesting articles about digital signage and have the notion that getting your message out with this exciting technology is a great idea. Or, maybe you work for an organization where a key manager has done the same thing, except that manager is delegating the responsibility to you.

If so, may I offer a bit of advice? Know the precise purpose of your digital sign or network of signs. It’s tough to state this anymore bluntly: You will waste thousands of precious dollars, hundreds of hours of unproductive work time and aggravate managers, co-workers and even yourself, unless you have an exact, clear understanding of what you wish to accomplish with this new communications tool.

It’s not good enough to “sort of” have a goal. You must know up front —before you ever spend a dime, take the time of your co-workers asking for help, or even pick up the phone to call a digital signage vendor— what it is that you wish to accomplish. My reason for feeling so strongly about this advice is simple. Success with digital signage will only come to those who can recognize it.

Without understanding precisely what you wish to accomplish, you will never be able to judge how well your sign is performing. Increasing sales, raising awareness, communicating effectively, improving your organization’s image are all fine goals as far as they go. But they aren’t specific enough.

Why? Because without quantifying these goals, without measuring the status quo pre-digital sign –whether it’s sales volume, profitability, consumer perception, level of knowledge- and without measuring the results post digital signage installation, you’ll never know whether your individual digital sign or network of digital signs network has achieved its purpose.

Once you’ve identified your goals, write them down. Schedule a meeting with your management team and discuss these written goals. Ask for management’s input in further honing these goals down to a sharp edge. By involving management in this early phase before a single monitor is purchased or a single cable run, you are getting them to invest themselves in the success of this project. Be sure to have your management sign off on the specific goals you jointly identify.

Doing should insulate you from misunderstandings about the nature, purpose and value of the digital signage installation down the road. However, let’s be clear. Management isn’t signing off on achieving these goals. That’s your job. It’s simply confirming in writing that these are the goals for the project so you have a quantifiable, measurable goal to achieve.  

Digital signage is a powerful communications medium. It can inform, brand, sell, educate and entertain. It can attract attention, build interest, brand a product, explain a concept and even give people a reason to stop what they’re dong and pay attention. In fact, digital signage literally can do hundreds and hundreds of different things. But the one thing it cannot do is succeed without a clear understanding up front about what defines success.

If you are seriously considering adding a digital sign to your organization, the first step is defining your goals. Doing so will make it possible for you and your new digital signage system to succeed.

David Little
http://www.articlesbase.com/marketing-tips-articles/digital-signage-goals-define-successful-measurement-716050.html

Many people and businesses are entering 2009 with a healthy dose of trepidation about what lies ahead –and with good reason.

Billions upon billions have been pumped into the financial system to keep banks afloat. The nation’s auto industry is on its knees, pleading for government loans. New and existing home sales are tanking. Foreclosures continue to rise. The number of people unemployed is mounting. The list goes on and on. No wonder many get that gnawing feeling in the pit of their stomachs when they consider what the new year will bring.

But before you hit the panic button, consider this: even in declining markets and times of economic contraction, opportunities exist to survive and thrive. While it’s beyond the scope of this space to discuss all of the ways a business might go about this, it does seem like a good time to reiterate that advertising, promotion and marketing are not luxuries that are easily dispensed when times get tough. Rather, they are essential components of surviving and even increasing market share while competitors succumb to a slowing economy.

Even in a severe recession, there is economic activity. People continue to buy and sell, albeit to a lesser degree than during an expansion. The question for business really is how to best spend limited marketing, promotional and advertising dollars to achieve the greatest return on investment. Note that during economic recession this question isn’t really much different than it is during an expansion. The difference lies in the added importance on answering the question in a way that reflects the realities of how consumers change their behavior in response to the tougher economic environment.

Over the past few years, digital signage has established itself as a viable alternative to traditional forms of advertising and promotion. Digital signage has distinguished itself as the only medium to offer dynamic messaging that reaches consumers when they are making purchasing decisions. During a recession, this presence at the point of sale along with three other advantages –immediacy, responsiveness and economy- make digital signage a critical tool to help businesses succeed.

When it comes to in-store immediacy, digital signage cannot be beat. Printed signs, banners and point-of-sale displays require relatively long production times. Add to that the time needed to coordinate special offers from suppliers with these sorts of promotional materials and the time from concept to fruition extends further. Digital signs, on the other hand, offer the ability to respond immediately with messaging appropriate to special offers, unexpected new merchandise that shows up on the loading dock and corporate decisions to offer sales on items that somehow don’t get communicated to sales floor managers. During a recession, the ability to respond immediately with appropriate messaging keeps managers and shopkeepers nimble, which can translate into sales that otherwise might be delayed and ultimately lost.

Such nimbleness is at the core of being responsive to changing conditions in the marketplace, allowing retailers to promote new pricing, new offers and new specials. But this responsiveness isn’t limited to these types of circumstances. Digital signs can also meet the individual consumer’s need for specific information by fulfilling a dual role as a digital sign and an interactive kiosk. For example, a digital sign playing back linear promotional content, can be interrupted with a simple touch or via a signal from a pressure-sensitive or photo-electric sensor to switch into an interactive mode, offering consumers a way to find the information they require and facilitate the sales process.

Finally, consider the economy digital signage brings to messaging. No one would argue that a flat panel display and digital signage controller costs less than a single printed sign. However, consider how many signs must be printed in a year in addition to the labor involved in replacing old signs with the new, and the economic equation begins to shift. In my experience, it is not uncommon for many organizations that frequently update their printed signs to reach a break-even point with their investment in digital signage within a year’s time.

So while 2009 promises to see the recession continue and potentially deepen, there can be a silver lining in these economic storm clouds for those individuals and business that can adapt and take advantage of opportunities when they are presented. One tool essential to doing so is improving the effectiveness of promotions, marketing messages and ads. Digital signage offers a powerful means to do just that.

David Little
http://www.articlesbase.com/marketing-articles/digital-signage-facing-the-challenges-of-2009-head-on-728809.html

Whenever I write these columns, I share a common predicament with those who create content for digital signs: How do I communicate my message to a mixed audience, some of whom have a detailed knowledge about my subject and others who at best have a passing familiarity?

I’ll do my best in this column to serve up some information that old hands and newcomers alike can take away that I hope will make the next few moments of your time well spent.

If you’re brand new to digital signage, struggling to understand where it fits into the communications landscape, here are five basic principles that will help you put digital signage into context –whether you’re thinking about using it to greet visitors in your company’s lobby or influence shoppers to make a purchase.

• Dynamic messaging: Digital signage transforms dull, static signs into a dynamic mix of video, graphics, text and animation that can communicate and influence viewers in ways more akin to television than a printed placard.

• Easily changed: Unlike signs that have to be reprinted to update messaging, digital signage text and graphics can be changed in a matter of moments to reflect the exact messaging that’s needed at any given moment.

• Scheduled to maximize impact: Because it’s easy to update digital signs, they can playback messaging needed to address an audience that changes throughout the day. For example, a digital sign outside a hotel restaurant can entice early risers to visit for breakfast in the morning, transition to lunch fare in the afternoon, display an elegantly appointed table with dinner specials in the late afternoon, and promote featured music acts that will appear in the lounge after dinner.

• Comfort and credibility: The very fact that digital signage relies on LCD and plasma panels and even CRTs for display –just like the one’s in the living rooms of most U.S. households- and that it can present messaging every bit as appealing as anything on television, imparts a degree of credibility to the medium that’s easy to take for granted but difficult for other new media to attain.

• Linear and interactive playback: Digital signage can be used to playback a series of pieces of linear content –that with a beginning, middle and end- as well as stand in for digital kiosks that give users access to branching interactive content to meet their needs. The same digital sign can do double duty in a hybrid application to attract an audience with linear content and deliver specific content in interactive mode at the touch of a screen.

For the old hands, here are five factoids about digital signage that are worth considering:

• Fine Art: With so much attention focused on the commercial aspect of digital signage, it would be easy to miss the fact that large flat panel plasma displays are currently being used as a digital canvass for the a series of 30 high definition video portraits at New York’s Phillips de Pury and Paula Cooper galleries and at the Ace Gallery in Los Angeles. The exhibit, VOOM PORTRAITS by ROBERT WILSON, underscores how the technology at the heart of digital signs is becoming increasingly common.

• Changing media markets: On their own, digital signage networks are becoming a significant advertising medium. Well-positioned to complement the skyrocketing online advertising market, which is expected to grow 35 percent this year, digital signage networks are coming into their own as a viable advertising medium.

• Proximity sensing: As hybrid interactive digital signs increasingly stand in for digital kiosks, the need to recognize the presence of viewers grows. Not only can such knowledge automatically launch a presentation, it also can control audio volume to prevent audio from closely spaced signs from competing with one another and creating an audio mess. Proximity sensors that easily interface with interactive digital signs can take control and create order from what otherwise would be chaos.

• Projector alternative: New technologies that allow projected images to be clearly seen on screens mounted in full daylight are emerging. Coupled with new technology that corrects for geometric distortion of projected images from oddly placed projectors, the new screen technology opens new opportunities for projectors to be used in digital signage applications.

• Flatter all the time: For the first time, flat panel displays have surpassed CRT-based televisions in consumer sales. Not only does that mean economies of scale will continue to make digital signage displays less expensive, it also means digital signage will continue to blend easily into the media landscape.

There you have it, five things you need to know about digital signage and five things you may not have known. Whether you’re an old hand or newcomer, I hope it was time well spent. If you have a digital signage topic that you would like me to research and write on, please provide feedback.

David Little
http://www.articlesbase.com/multimedia-articles/digital-signage-five-things-you-need-to-know-five-may-not-122187.html