With local authorities raising various stinks about digital billboards and stopping some of those plans in their tracks, it's nice to see some government rules and regs that have the potential to drive growth in this sector. Myles Mjolsnes of WAND Corporation, a Minnesota POS vendor that has expanded in to digital signage, sent out a note suggesting the new health care reform passed into law by U.S. Congress last week (and last I checked, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse did not ride onto the scene when this happened) sets new national standards for nutrition labeling on restaurant menus. The reform will affect all Quick Service Restaurants with 20 or more locations, regardless of ownership, says Mjolsnes.QSR franchisees who own only a few locations will still be affected if the total number of brand stores is 20 or greater. By setting one consistent national standard the National Restaurant Association says the new law will help consumers make better choices for themselves and their families. Since details may remain unclear until as late as the end of July the versatility provided by digital displays justifies a solution to replace standard printed menu boards.“This is a complex and industry changing event for the entire QSR community,” said Greg Perrill, Chief Operating Officer for WAND Corporation. Caloric and nutrient information will be required on restaurant menus, menu boards, and Drive-Thru displays. WAND Corporation, the global leader in Digital Menu Board and Point Of Sale technology for the QSR space, plans to be a part of the solution process. WAND Corporation’s Digital Menu Boards already handle nutritional information and their dynamic content can be changed or updated instantly. “We foresaw the need for providing customers with nutritional information of menu items and built the feature into our Digital Menu Board technology,” added Perrill. You can read the 2,016 page bill here, something I'm sure most of you will do right after this ... I'm not as convinced this will be a major catalyst for more investment into the sector. Nutritional information is no more fluid in its changes than the actual menu items, and could be built in just as easily into revised back-lit material than to digital. This added stuff doesn't demand digital, as far as I can tell. But what it does do is present a compelling reason to now make the cut-over to digital, something i'd imagine most chain QSRs are looking at anyways. In other words, "The new regs mean we need to change out what's on all of our menu boards. This is as good a time as any to make the digital transition." WAND, by the way, is tied pretty closely to Wendy's - so a full conversion would be a very big deal with that client. UPDATE: Austin, TX-based Starmount Systems has done up a release about its menu-board capabilities as it relates to this new legislation... Starmount Systems today announced that it will unveil their digital software suite at KioskCom 2010 in a proof-of-concept demonstration for restaurant chains that are facing new requirements to disclose nutrition information to the consumer. The provision in the U.S. health bill passed last week will require all restaurants with 20 or more locations to publish information such as calorie content and sodium levels for all of their menu items.“With menus changing on a regular basis, restaurants using static or printed menus face costly updates to fulfill this requirement. Many will be looking at new technology solutions such as digital menu boards and interactive kiosks to address this need,” said Joe Halloum, President and CEO of Starmount. “With Starmount Marquis™, we are proud to offer an easy-to-use, cross-platform software solution that can be implemented today to address the new provisions that are coming two to three years from now.” With Starmount Marquis™, we are proud to offer an easy-to-use, cross-platform software solution that can be implemented today to address the new provisions that are coming two to three years from now. Digital menu boards and self-serve kiosks are becoming widely popular in a variety of industries including the restaurant and retail space. Marquis provides an easy interface to assemble, monitor and manage media assets for digital signage and interactive kiosks. It can be tightly integrated with mobile and point-of-sale applications to deliver a complete multi-channel commerce solution.
I have my doubts that membership counts are all that telling until real money is being dropped, but nonetheless some 200 companies and individuals have signed on as members of the new Digital Signage Federation. The DSF says memberships are from the US and Canada, as would be expected, but there are also sign-ups from Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Czechoslovakia, El Salvador, France, Ghana, India, Italy, Japan, Korea, the Philippines, Russia, Slovenia, Taiwan, the UK, and Vietnam. The organization also got some people to stick their hands up and lead the interim board, with Rich Cooley, the CEO & Founder of Visser Digital Media acting as chair, Bob Stowe from Wendy's as Vice Chairman and consultant/industry trainer Alan Brawn as Secretary/Treasurer. The DSF also now has a lot more shaking on its Website now and Executive Director John Johnson appears to be doing all the meat and potatoes stuff needed for things like bylaws and codes of ethics to make it a real non-profit body. I remain happily on the fence, watching this play out between the DSF and Digital Signage Association. The DSA had 400 plus members when this all bubbled up, and it has been announcing any new members of its own via Twitter. Meanwhile, the newly re-dubbed Digital Place-Based Advertising Association now has a splash page that redirects to the older OVAB site. Not great, but better than a placeholder page on Go Daddy pointing to Doberman Pinscher breeders , which was the case last week.
I was chained to a booth two years ago at DSE, when three guys wandered up and told me they were from Muzak and looking to expand their operations into video. Music they really knew, video ... not so much. It was Jon Luther and a couple of consultants.A year ago they had a small booth towards the back of DSE, and had just officially announced they were in the game with a Visual Solutions wing, albeit at just about the same moment as they were heading into Chapter 11. I had a retail network client last summer sniffing around about a music and video solution, and spoke with Muzak. They were still, at that point, getting organized, with about 10 people in an office up around Charlotte, NC and plans to be something of an integrator.Now two years out, Muzak has done a partnership with YCD Multimedia, an Israeli company with a large, growing office in NY. Muzak is effectively a YCD reseller.I mention all this for a couple of reasons. It is a great snapshot of the real-world sales cycle in this space. Most deals take for-e-ver to come fully together. I no longer sell stuff, other than my services, but am aware of more than a few software deals that are well into year two now. My last brush with working for someone else involved a couple of guys who concluded, unilaterally, that closing deals in this space was a one-or-two meeting, done in days kinda thing. Nope.It happens once in a while, but nope. So if you are new to this sector and expecting things to happen quickly, good luck to you!I mention this, as well, because this is a good deal for all concerned. YCD has a direct background in marketing a full licensed music and video solution, so their platform was likely ready to go out of the box, with limited monkey work to get it all going. And Muzak is now out of Chapter 11 and pretty active. What they have, which should raise eyebrows, is a huge client base and a very solid brand.Congratulations to Josh and Noam at YCD and Joe Hall down at Muzak. Looks like a smart partnership and a well suited pairing.Side note: YCD does a really nice e-mail newsletter, which is how I learned of this deal. I know EnQii does one, as well, but very few companies in the sector do a client and industry-focused email newsletter. That's a missed opportunity, I think, to let people know what you are up to without it being a merciless sales piece. My guess is a lot of companies would like to but don't have the time or skills. A little shamelessly, I'll just mention I know someone who could do that stuff in his sleep.
Christie Digital took over a nightclub in New York last night and formally launched its MicroTiles products, with the event hosted by fellow blogger Adrian Cotterill of DailyDOOH fame.This was the second time I have seen the gear and was impressed once again, this time by the scale. Bob Rushby (below), one of the inventors of the tiled displays, showed off a wall of tiles that was 16 wide and 6 high (96 tiles) that amounted to (I think he said) a 37 million pixel image. It was some crazy-big number like that.The Christie folks also showed some other new designs and more content, including a huge display suspended at an angle and meant to emulate a 16-sheet out of home poster shape. Impressive stuff, and good event. Lots of familiar faces there, as well as a lot of people from the AV industry who will be all over this. (Disclaimer: I do some work for Christie, but I'd like it no matter the ties)
I got the PR direct from YCD Multimedia but I am too stinkin' busy to post (and others do that stuff all day long). However, this is very nice and worth noting. A nine-screen tiled array using, I assume, the Samsung thin-bezel screens.Flat panel screens are so ubiquitous now that consumers would walk by one or two sprinkled around a cosmetic section. But a wall of them three-high and three-wide, has genuine pop and impact. More detail on OOH-TV.
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
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