Are you going to Digital Signage Expo (DSE) next month in Las Vegas?

If so, you can support and connect with the Digital Signage Association in these ways:

1. Attend the DSA Membership Meeting and Reception. The Association will hold its annual Membership Meeting on Tuesday, Feb. 23 at 4:30 p.m. in Room N258 of the Las Vegas Convention Center (site of DSE). Despite the name, the meeting is open to all - members, non-members, tire kickers - basically any interested parties. We'll keep the meeting short and give you a quick update on the Association's plans and activities. It's free to attend. The reception will be held next door from 5-6 p.m. in Room N260. This is a great way to mix and mingle with professionals involved with digital signage. Again, this is open to all, but there is a small fee ($25) that actually doesn't cover our costs. Click here to register.

2. Stop by the Digital Signage Association booth (1113) and say hello. If you are a member and interested in volunteering to work in the booth, please contact me.

3. Attend the DSE Awards Dinner on Feb. 24 at the Paris Hotel. DSA is a co-sponsor and proceeds from the banquet go to support DSA and its mission.

While I will be running around the show, you can definitely catch me on Wednesday morning, Feb. 24 at 9 am, where I'll be moderating a panel called "Digital Out-of-Home Buyer/Seller Face-Off: What Media Buyers Want/What Digital Out-of-Home Network Operators Have to Sell" in Room N260.

I hope to see you there!

On Thursday, December 3, we reached a milestone in the young life of the Digital Signage Association. We celebrated our two-year anniversary just last month and we now we have over 400 members. Member #400, The University of Illinois and #401, individual member David Carbert, joined that day.

I remember how we got started.

Some of you may know that I also serve as the executive director for the Self-Service & Kiosk Association (SSKA). In 2007, we decided to start a Digital Signage Council due to the fact that we had a number of members in the digital signage space. We held our first (and only) meeting in Chicago at the Digital Signage Expo.

At the time, we talked about whether it made sense to change the name of SSKA to include digital signage. “You’ll have to get new shirts,” one of the participants joked, since we were wearing SSKA-logoed oxfords at the time.

In the months that ensued, it became apparent that the digital signage industry deserved its own association. We talked to several members of the Council as well as others in the industry and received support for the idea, though admittedly there may have been a few skeptics wondering if we could pull it off. After all, some associations were involved in digital signage even if there wasn’t a dedicated association to it serving all market segments.

We “soft launched” the association in October at KioskCom in New York City, but really didn’t sign anyone up officially until November. By the end of 2007, we had 22 members. By Digital Signage Expo in February 2008, we had 62 members and a 24-person Advisory Board. The board met for the first time at that show. Stu Armstrong was elected as the first president of the Association in the summer of 2008.

So here we are two years later, with 401 members, a 41-person Advisory Board, eight committees and task forces and whole host of activity going on.

One industry blogger wrote to me recently: “As you know I poked at you guys a little in your early days to question the motives and value of the DSA, but to your absolute credit (and I am being sincere) you have made it the real deal.”

Of course we couldn’t do it without all the support of our board, committees and members.

Onward and upward!

I just returned from Chicago where I attended Strategy Institute’s “Building Your Successful Digital Signage Business” conference. It was an excellent event with great content. While Strategy has always put on good conferences, some of the conferences in years past contained a couple of sessions with thinly veiled sales pitches. I think it is safe to say that is the case no more.

During the conference, I had the opportunity to meet Chuck Gose of MediaTile. Chuck is an active blogger and frequently tweets on behalf of his company. Since I follow Chuck on Twitter, I felt like I already knew him.

Keith Kelsen, who has moderated previous Strategy events, moderated this one and did a fine job keeping things moving along.

Chuck came up with the Twitter hashtag, #BuildDSbiz, and we both tweeted throughout the conference. While you might want to check out the full stream, I thought I would select some of my favorite tweets from the event. Since Twitter displays the most recent tweets at the top, I have placed these in chronological order so it’s easier to follow.

Here’s a report on the conference, no more than 140 characters at a time:

Day 1

• Healthy Advice Networks took a "reverse Field of Dreams" approach: got sponsorship before building their digital signage network
  
• Healthy Advice Networks owns all screens; 100% funded by advertisers; updated with dial-up connection; no rev share w/ drs. 
  
• Healthy Advice Networks started with 125 locations in 2001; they are now in 7,000 locations
  
• Kim Luegers of MC Media (Draftfcb): MillerCoors using digital signage to drive consumer demand at restaurants/bars 
  
• Metrics and measurement a focus of the questions for the panel of media buyers and planners 
  
• Matthew Olivieri, CEO, AdSemble: huge hurdle with digital signage advertising is all the different formats 
  
• Kim Luegers, MC Media (Draftfcb): tip to digital signage network ops: "the dollars will flow if we can prove sales increase" 
  
• Panel consensus: online/interactive creative translates better to digital signage than TV ads 
  
• Luegers re audience recognition tech: "to have true numbers instead of estimates would be the holy grail" 
  
• Bill Myers, Indoor Direct: we are entertainment co, not a digital signage co. 2nd person today to say "we're not a DS co."
  
• B. Myers, Indoor Direct re sound: "it's a tricky world;" #1 complaint from customer; use attenuator to adj vol based on ambient
  
• Indoor Direct worked with Park Media to develop app to remotely manage content and hardware - adj vol, brightness, on/off
  
• Indoor Direct has 1000 screens now, plans to add about 1000 per year
  
• Greg Argyle, GoGo Cast: pros of SaaS: low capital, employee costs, maintenance
  
• Greg Argyle, GoGo Cast: cons of SaaS: relying on provider, custom APIs are costly, if provider goes down so does your signage
  
• Sanjay Manandhar of Aerva now presenting "Hosted, SaaS or Hybrid?"
  
• Sanjay distilled his presentation down to one slide. wow, you have to be succinct to do that!
  
• Sanjay: if you have a small number of screens, you should use SaaS
  
• OpenEye and Arbitron up now talking about digital signage value proposition for ad-based and non ad-based networks 
  
• Rob Winston, Arbitron: "what good is reach if you don't have the right target?" 
• Arbitron presenting their out-of-home digital video display study. Free download here: http://bit.ly/VYVKq
  
• Bryan Meszaros, OpenEye: there are alternate ways (besides advertising) to create value & drive success 
  
• Bill Collins @BCollinsSignMan: Overall, trends are positive – we’re still standing after the recession 
  
• Bill Collins: PQ Media has the best forecasts for digital out-of-home advertising. http://bit.ly/2edZYs 
  
• Bill Collins: "Arbitron study was a tremendous shot in the arm" 
  
• Bill Collins: 3 leaders in digital out-of-home space: outdoor advertising, cinema advertising, medical networks 
  
• How big is the digital signage industry? The answer everyone wants to know: about $1.2 billion @BCollinsSignMan 
  
• http://twitpic.com/q1eni - At ING Direct Cafe in Chicago

Day 2

• Jason Katz: digital has changed how we shop in store, from kiosks, handheld scanners, QR codes on pkg, IPTV, etc.
  
• Jason Katz: Walmart TV has more viewers than ABC, NBC, CBS and FOX combined
  
• Jason Katz: Walmart is incredibly innovative when it comes to technology 
  
• Jason Katz: A big brand retailer gets more web visits in one month than a big CPG brand gets all year 
  
• Question for Jason Katz: will mobile replace digital signage? A: No, I think there will always be interaction 
  
• Up now: higher education panel with Univ. of Illinois and Villanova Univ. 
  
• Villanova has 25 digital signage screens around campus in high traffic areas to get info out to students in an entertaining way 
  
• Michael Hoffberg, Villanova University: having an emergency notification system is very important even if it's only rarely used 
  
• University of Illinois has 60 digital signage screens in 11 departments across campus 
  
• Univ of IL plans to have 300+ digital signs in next 2 years; Villanova plans to have 60+ signs in next 2 years 
  
• Manolo Almagro of Show & Tell productions up now 
  
• Manolo Almagro: user-generated content provides analytics & tracking data. 
  
• Principles for User-Generated Content Services http://bit.ly/1Whse2
  
• Manolo is talking about multi-player gaming/polling via SMS that can take up to 25 people at one time 
  
• Eli Lilly has been involved with digital signage for 13+ years; 64% say they watched the screens at least once a day 
  
• Chris Bias, Eli Lilly: 68% said they saw something on the screens that caused them
  
• Chris Bias, Lilly: localized content is important (done both manually & with feeds) 
  
• Brad Gleeson: key criteria for choosing right display: reliability, durability, image quality, operational and upfront cost 
  
• Brad Gleeson: LCD rules the day. Trends: larger, brighter, thinner, higher res, thinner bezels, outdoor 
  
• Brad Gleeson: ultra thin, LED backlit screens haven't made it from residential to commercial, but it will 
  
• Brad Gleeson: digital signage will really take off when we make it as simple as using a color printer 
  
• Vertigo screens for the CTA had to be rugged enough to withstand a blow from hockey stick, beer bottle or baseball bat 
  
• Brad Gleeson: new type of screen tech coming out: laser phosphor display (LPD); low power, seamless, flexible sizes 
  
• Brad Gleeson: thanks to the iPhone, touch tech (esp. multitouch) is becoming popular; example: Ralph Lauren touch window 
  
• Brad Gleeson: outdoor, sunlight readable digital signage is possible.
  
• Brad Gleeson: next phase: outdoor interactive digital signage 

 

 

For the past 17 years, I’ve built my career in association management. There has been one common question or theme with the members and prospective members I’ve talked to over the years: what is your organization about and why should I be a member?

While the Digital Signage Association is only two years old, it’s no different. In fact, as a newer organization – and in this economy – the question is even more pertinent. I mentioned three words that I felt summed up our association in a nutshell earlier this year and it seemed to strike a chord: education, networking and advocacy.

Let me share some examples of these words in action:

One of the main purposes of the DSA is to educate our members and the industry. Our first activity to this end was the publication of the Best Practices for Digital Signage Content in late 2008, written by the members of our Best Practices Committee, chaired by Keith Kelsen. The publication of that document was followed by our first webinar in January on the same topic. Registrants totaled 860 from 68 countries.

Due to the popularity of that topic, a follow-up webinar on content best practices at the point of sale was held in August. On Tuesday, Nov.3, we’ll hold our third educational webinar of the year. As we’re all making plans for 2010, we thought it would be a good time to talk about “Digital Signage Future Trends.” The webinar also coincides with the release of our latest report by the same name. At last count, we had over 640 registrants.

We plan to hold webinars on a quarterly basis in 2010. These are free and open to anyone.

Since we are often asked to provide speakers for industry events, we established a speakers’ bureau to meet this need. We have provided speakers for the National Retail Federation (NRF), GlobalShop, Strategy Institute, Screenmedia Expo, Shanghai Digital Signage Show, Via Satellite and others.

Of course we provide a substantial amount of education through our website in the form of case studies, white papers, publications, answers to frequently asked questions, and now blogs. Through the work of our Education Committee, you’ll be hearing a lot more from DSA on this subject in the near future.

Many organizations are valuable simply for the networking opportunities they provide. Our members have the chance to meet other members at membership meetings, social functions, through our LinkedIn Group and especially though Advisory Board, committee and task force involvement. If you really want to make the most out of membership, it pays to be involved.

In my position, I get the privilege of making personal introductions. I love matching up members who can connect on a business and even personal level. Sometimes members will contact me to ask me to make a personal introduction to another member, but more often I am having a conversation with someone and say “you know who you ought to meet?” Since I attend many trade shows and talk to members on a daily basis, I have the unique situation of knowing a lot of people and companies.

Finally, DSA serves as advocates of the digital signage industry. When you hear the word advocacy, you may think of political action. While we’re willing to take political action if necessary, no burning industry issue has come to the fore. However, we are actively promoting our association and the benefits of digital signage.

To this end, we had the opportunity to work with a company called Media Planet as they produced a supplement on digital signage in USA TODAY in March with 750,000 copies that reached 2.3 million targeted readers.

We also get contacted by the consumer and business press for quotes and to submit articles. DSA has been featured publications such as Buildings magazine, Forbes.com, Financial Services Technology (FST) and MSNBC.com.

Since the DSA does not have its own trade show, we develop strategic relationships with many trade shows and conferences covering the digital signage industry as well as those in vertical market segments. Currently, our partners include Digital Signage Expo, DisplaySearch, GlobalShop, InfoComm, In-Store Marketing Expo, KioskCom Self Service Expo/The Digital Signage Show, NRF, Screenmedia Expo, Shanghai Digital Signage Show, Strategy Institute and Worship Facilities Expo (WFX).

As you can see, the DSA has been very active in educating, connecting and promoting our members and the industry over the last two years. I look forward to keeping you abreast of these activities and sharing my observations through this blog.

You know the saying, "you get what you put into it"? That is certainly true of participating in the Digital Signage Association. Since I often counsel our vendor members on how to get the most out of their membership, I thought I would put it down into a top-10 list. I’m sure there are more than 10, but this is a good start.

1. Write a carefully crafted company description for your membership directory listing. Include all the keywords individuals might use to search the Internet to find you. Make sure we have a clean company logo. Review your listing periodically to make sure it’s up-to-date and let us know of any changes.

2. Send us press releases on a regular basis. Every time your company lands an important new client, launches a new product, wins an award, speaks at a conference or makes an important hire, tell us about it and we’ll publish your news on our Web site.

3. Submit case studies for publication. People love to read real-world stories of how companies implemented a new technology successfully. It doesn’t have to be long. Simply describe the scope of the project, any challenges faced, the solution provided and the results. Include at least one high quality photograph.

4. Write a “Perspective” article. You’re an expert in your field. You can help the industry by writing about what you know best. Or give your opinion on an industry trend in this 500- to 1,000-word column. If you’ve ever written a blog post (or read one), you can write a “Perspective” article. We have editors on staff that can take care of the grammar and punctuation. The article will contain your picture and reference to your company.

5. Take action on sales leads received. Each week we’ll send you sales leads that are generated through our website. Carefully review these for opportunities that fit your company’s offerings. Even if the lead is not requesting your specific product, they may still want to hear from you. They may not know they need your product until you inform them! Consider adding the contact information from leads to your database and/or your company newsletter distribution list.

6. Use the project help form to receive quotes and information from fellow members. No one company does it all. You can use the same online form users do to find information on products needed for the project you’re working on.

7. Sign up your staff to receive our e-newsletter. You can sign up as many people on your staff as you wish. Just send us a list of names and email addresses and we’ll add them to our distribution list. Your staff will stay abreast of industry news and trends. They’ll thank you for it!

8. Use the Member logo. Promote your membership in the Association by using the member logo on your website, business cards, brochures, etc. At major industry trade shows we participate in, we’ll have a floor decal for your booth to publicize your membership.

9. Join a committee. Have you been looking for a chance to get involved, meet other people and help advance industry issues? Now is your opportunity! If you have an area of interest not currently covered by one of our committees, please let us know; we may want to organize a committee or task force to address that topic.

10. Ask us! Do you have a question you can’t find the answer to? If we don’t know the answer, we’ll probably know where to find it. Is there someone you would like to meet, or do you need help contacting a company or finding a particular product? We are happy to make an introduction for you or provide the contact details needed.  

As you see, it takes a little work on your part to take advantage of all that membership in our Association has to offer. But I promise you it will be worth it.

David Drain is the executive director of the Digital Signage Association.

At the In-Store Marketing Expo in Chicago last week, I attended a session called “Measuring and Continuously Improving Digital Sign Network ROI.” The presenters were Brian Brooks and Kelly Canavan of 3M.

Brooks, with PhDs in cognitive psychology and neuroscience, has taken his knowledge of how the brain works and applied it to measuring the effectiveness of digital signage. To make his case, Brooks laid the groundwork by reporting on experiments that were done to measure what is going on at the brain level as it relates to branding.

 

In a blind taste test, consumers were asked to describe the Coke or Pepsi they were given versus a “generic” brand. What they discovered is that the taste testers thought that the Coke or Pepsi tasted better than the generic brand even though in fact the “generic” was really Coke or Pepsi. “Branding doesn’t just change our emotional experience, but literally our physical reaction,” he said.

 

Brooks and 3M claim to have developed a method, using “vision science technologies,” to engineer a physical environment to achieve the desired results. In other words, 3M says they can take what they’ve learned in the lab – with humans wearing special goggles detecting eye movement – and apply it to real environments without humans and goggles.

 

As an example, Brooks showed a picture of a typical big box store and with numbers, showed the first four places the eyes would look. In this case, to a static sign on a table, then on to other static signage. The next picture showed the same scene, only this time a digital sign was added. Since the digital sign had a brown color on the page, the eye traveled to other places first and the digital sign last. But once the color on the digital sign was changed to yellow, the eye went to the sign first.

 

As Brooks would explain the science, Canavan would interject or interpret how it was relevant to the business world. When we walk into a store, “it’s not that we’re trying to decide what to look at, we’re trying to decide what to ignore,” explained Canavan.

 

Canavan went on to present case studies of hotel and foodservice environments which benefited from the implementation of digital signage. In the first pilot, a hotel was looking to increase sales at its restaurants. Sales increased 15-35% per day when digital signage content was used to promote the restaurants.

 

In the second pilot, the objective was to drive foot traffic to a specific station in a corporate cafeteria. When that station and a particular product were featured on digital signs, 27.8% more consumers went to the desired station and sales of the featured product increased five times.

 

With these vision science principles and tools, 3M asserts you can determine the best sign location and creative content for those screens. By conducting experiments in the field and analyzing the data, Canavan contends, you can determine the cause-and-effect relationships and make methodical adjustments for improvement.

 

We all know there’s an art to effective marketing, but now there’s a little more science to it.