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Feeds
Feb
28
Does Your Brand Stick Out?
Filed Under Advertising, Digital Signage | 2 Comments
People seem to be coming out of the closet with their good work all of the sudden. it’s great to see.
Akkerman pointed me at another one that is great to drive the point home on what we’re all exposed to, daily.
This is reminiscent of Blade Runner to me but, you tell me….Where’s your brand in this art?:
Feb
27
I LOVE this video. Not so much for the message as much as for reaction to the screens.
This was sent to me by HP Akkerman in Holland who has a blog at narrowcasting.blieb.nl. I couldn’t get his full name because his profile link is busted. He has a great collection of videos on Digital Signage.
It’s a great creative piece done by the Anti-Advertising Agency with Graffiti Research Lab (GRL).
About half way through, watch the responses of the audiences to one of the “ads” that GRL puts up. Their reaction is why Digital Signage will grow faster than any other medium out there and why agencies are going to flock to use our already undervalued media.
Feb
27
“Context” in Digital Signage Advertising Somewhat Irrelevant?
Filed Under Advertising, Digital Signage | 2 Comments
A friend of mine, Dan Stiavnicky, who is Director of Digital Media over at Y&R, a WPP company, just pointed me at an article on CNN that echo’d something I mentioned a little while ago on consumer behaviours and propensity to consume advertising that I thought I would highlight again because it helps the Digital Signage networks with their advertising.
I mentioned before in my post “Digital Advertising: “Targeted” Media versus “Relevant” Media” that we may want to stop talking so much about how “targeted” our network spaces are because the “context” of where someone sees an advertisement may not matter so much.
Feb
26
More on GM’s $600 million smackdown
Filed Under Advertising, Digital Signage | 2 Comments
My friend Stephen over at ScreenVox wrote a post on GM a while back on a potential opportunity for Digital Signage: GM Cuts $600 Million… and I wanted to add some of my own points, which I found interesting given the “follow the leader” type of approach you may see a lot in the channel/medium business.
To give some background to my follow up post, From Jan-Sep 2006 (9 months) GM spent $1,753,000,000 in advertising (all channels). A $600 million lop off the top is 1/3 of their overall (9 month) ad budget - that’s incredible.
There are much more educated people than I in this industry/area but as I was digging through the numbers even more, I started noticing some other trends which could have a pretty big impact or at the very least were interesting to see.
Feb
24
Getting Pumped at Esso
Filed Under Advertising, Digital Signage | 4 Comments
While filling up at my neighbourhood Esso, I happened to pull up to a dead screen which was still playing audio. While I thought this was mildly amusing, I came back 8 hours later for a snack and it was still down:
This really is too bad. I’m not sure who manages this implementation anymore (I think it’s still VST Canada (aka FuelCast Network))
but having this dead screen for that long really cheapens the whole effect at that location. If you’ll notice in the picture, debit payment was also down so maybe there’s some bigger problems 
But this post isn’t about dead screens. Seeing this dead screen and not seeing ads or content made my “perceived wait time” unbearably long. I’ve noticed this before but this incident prompted me to write about it.
Has anyone noticed how long it takes to fill up at Esso compared to any other gas station out there?
Feb
17
More Social Networking on Mobile
Filed Under Digital Signage, Mobile, Social Networking | Leave a Comment
Last month I wrote about Social Networking and mobility and where I thought it could go. Looks like things are continuing to move ahead in this area.
I just saw an article on TechCrunch that talked a bit more about a new solution in this space.
Down2Night is a service that integrates local events and venues and allows you to create alerts for yourself. It’s a combination of a voting style Digg service (you get alerts for the top voted venues/events) and the beginnings of a social networking application (in my eyes) because you could link it to networks of friends, have top voters profiled for successful events, etc. I’m not sure if you can also vote with your phone at this point.
I wrote last time that EVite would probably enter this market eventually and Down2Night might be a good acquisition target for them.
I could even see this being a good tie in for content for Digital Signage for some of the In-Bar networks that are being set up as you can provide relevant content at the bar produced by users that are both at the bar and elsewhere - almost a placed based self promotion marketplace…and we all like to self-promote now, don’t we.
Feb
16
It’s times like this I wish my Blackberry did video. It would make this a lot more impressive.
While jumping from meetings late last night, I jumped in a cab and lo and behold what do I see but RoadRunner Media’s Digital Signage taxi implementation:
While SOME of the content was a little chintzy in its production, all around it was a good little experience. I do have to say that the touch screen capabilities left a little to be desired. The “mouse” icon would be 2-3 cm away from where my finger was touching.
I had heard that they can do payments too but wasn’t looking for it so am not aware if this one could.
[UPDATE: February 17, 2007 -
One more comment on this, it was kinda obvious that they’re hurting for advertisers on these screens…In my 5 minute cab ride, I saw about 27 ads for Bell’s Blackberry and 27 for the Canadian Ballet.
No actual “content” or “entertainment” was built in. If I were Bell, I wouldn’t be too happy about that media spend. You can only throw the same ad at someone so many times before it gets annoying and actually has the inverse effect of what advertising is supposed to do. You need to have a longer loop and infuse it with value as I said earlier this week: http://digitalads.wordpress.com/2007/02/12/mediocrity-in-thought-process-in-digital-signage-content/ and you need to ensure, as Stephen mentioned, that it is compelling]
Feb
14
Litefeeds: Crack for Information Junkies
Filed Under Tools | Leave a Comment
I’m absolute sponge for info. Strangely, I have data in my head about market conditions/forecasts from 3 years ago, and I use it to forecast out about what’s going to happen to industries and my clients. The more info you give me, the closer to accurate I become. So when I find relevant sources of opinions or news, I like to have it on me at all times:
First round-up: Litefeeds (http://www.litefeeds.com).
This is a wicked little application for phone or Blackberry where you can download RSS feeds (basically, things like what I’m writing right now, accessible on your phone/BB)
If you get a chance, give it a try. I believe you just have to point your phone or BB to http://www.litefeeds.com/m. It’s free and really keeps you in the know on competitors and market info
Feb
13
CogMap: Org Charts for Dummies
Filed Under Social Networking, Tools | Leave a Comment
If you’re in sales, I highly reco this tool.
The wikipedia of org charts:
http://www.cogmap.com.
I’m a big believer in sharing
Feb
13
First Comes Google, Then Comes Cisco, Who’s in the Baby Carriage?
Filed Under Digital Signage | 1 Comment
Just a short little post:
There’s been a lot of hyperbole from the media over the past little while about the big players finally entering what we’ve all known for some time as a fantastically deep business opportunity in Digital Signage, Content and Advertising.
Big market entrants are a very good thing for all of us. They’re providing the validation, traction and attention to our industry that we could not generate on our own over the last 5+ years. It’s healthy competition and it will be great for all of us.
Funny enough, it’s all just different approaches to the same problem.
Cisco - we all know why they’re in it (networking) and they will be desperately needed as this roles out because the current infrastructures aren’t built to handle what we’re about to throw at them.
Google - Advertising and distribution. They haven’t actually declared themselves “in it” - just a patent application and some rhetoric. It’s a big ship to turn with a lot of very big, angry companies and people starting to gun at their hull. Will the same old google model work for this industry? My vote is no, at least not the way their existing business runs (far be it for me to question “one” of the large media conglomerates though - FYI did you know OMD, the largest media buying company in the world, does 10 Billion a year in North America?)
The point of this post, however, is not to welcome these 2 cats in to our world, it was what I started getting whispers about going on behind the scenes after the aforementioned companies both opened up the kimono.
The Baby Carriage in this story:
Now here, I get to be like my prom date and I can only tease you….NDAs, sworn to secrecy and all that. Sorry. There are some VERY big plays going on behind the scenes and deal brokering that I’m pretty excited about. A number of companies have been very quietly putting deals together to spring on the market. Announcements that will really start to kick this business into gear. My guess is; expect a bunch of cool announcements starting in June, so the fall should be a good time of year for us all.
