Tag Archive | "nine"
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)
Toronto-area audience measurement guys CognoVision has been named Canada's Innovation Leader for 2009 at the Canadian Innovation Exchange (CIX), describe as Canada’s most important gathering place for innovative technologies. The exchange does an annual search for innovative technology, products, services and companies in Canada, and whittles that down to a list of 20 finalists who then present and pitch to both Canadian and US senior executives and investors at a one-day conference held last week in Toronto. Industry peers at the event then vote on who they believe should be the year’s Innovation Leader.“This year’s competition brought out some of the country’s most amazing companies and technologies. From super computers and unmanned aerial intelligence gathering systems to new cleantech solutions, we were extremely pleased to see such impressive technologies being developed by Canadian companies,” says Robert Montgomery, Co-Chair, Canadian Innovation Exchange, in a release. “CognoVision was chosen by industry peers based on their innovation and dedication to using technology to provide in-demand solutions consumers will benefit from.”CognoVision (winner of Innovation Leader Award and Digital Media Award at the 2009 CIX) was commercially launched in 2008 to help companies measure the effectiveness of in-store media and shopper behavior in retail environments. This is achieved with the use of CognoVision’s proprietary retail audience measurement software solutions. Using small camera sensors and computers, the Company’s anonymous face detection and people tracking software gathers data on how people watch ads and how they navigate within retail venues. This information is easily communicated to clients with the use of CognoVision’s proprietary reporting system. This system allows end-clients to make data driven decisions to: dramatically improve the effectiveness of media campaigns, increase product sales and advertising revenue, optimize retail execution and to reduce operational costs.The runners-up by were companies that make unmanned surveillance planes small enough to fit in the trunk of a police car and financial grade GPS metering technology that, oh great, provides data needed to migrate roads and parking from taxpayer-subsidized to pay-per-use.
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.
When I was selling software, one of the things that came up and that I was coached to use as a selling tool was the whole issue around what is OK and not OK about using Adobe Flash.There were a few schools of thought or lines of attack, depending on how you looked at the world.1 - the Flash End User License Agreement (EULA) expressly forbade the use of the Flash player for digital signage, and software companies needed to buy/license the developer libraries to be legit2 - the EULA did not apply to PCs and therefore it didn't matter3 - it was unclear, and Adobe wasn't helping add any clarity4 - Flash for digital signage sucks, and is such a buggy, memory-leaking, CPU-intensive pig you'd be crazy to use it anywayI hovered somewhere between 1 and 2, knew 3 was true, and figured 4 was pretty much true, but there were too many good capabilities in Flash and too much of it out there to just go away. Flash is installed on 98 per cent of PCs, after all.I wrote a piece on this years ago and the post still comes up high in searches when I look up digital signage and Flash, but I am not, at all, certain, my assertions in that post still hold. I have been revisiting the question recently with industry contacts, and been dismayed to learn the whole issue remains clear as mud.One contact told me the new Adobe media player, not the Flash player, makes the issue go away. Another said the Open Screen Project removed any restrictions. Another said the EULA does not apply with the latest version of the Flash player. Another said nothing has changed. Sheesh. These are all smart people and they are all operating on different points of view.Here's what it says:3.1 Adobe Runtime Restrictions. You may not Use any Adobe Runtime on any non-PC device or with any embedded or device version of any operating system. For the avoidance of doubt, and by example only, you may not use a Adobe Runtime on any (a) mobile devices, set top boxes (STB), handhelds, phones, web pad, tablets and Tablet PC (other than with Windows XP Tablet PC Edition and its successors), game console, TV, DVD player, media center (other than with Windows XP Tablet PC Edition and its successors), electronic billboard or other digital signage, Internet appliance or other internet-connected device, PDA, medical device, ATM, telematic device, gaming machine, home automation system, kiosk, remote control device, or any other consumer electronics device, (b) operator-based mobile, cable, satellite, or television systems or (c) other closed system devices. That suggests OK for Windows-based PCs, but maybe not Linux. Who knows on Apple OS. Or does it??? Does it mean you may not use it on any digital signage device???Oh, bother. So I sent a note and left messages at Adobe. And got no love back. Digital signage is all-encompassing when you live this stuff, but to Adobe's people, I assume it remains a little side project they keep hearing will be big, but doesn't merit much attention yet.The Open Screen Project, which is intended to make Flash available with a consistent runtime across multiple platforms, SEEMS to suggest licensing issues will disappear:From the FAQ: What motivated Adobe to remove the licensing restrictions from the specifications?The SWF specification has been published since 1998. Until now, the specification had a license agreement associated with it, which said that developers could write software to output SWF but could not make software that would "play" SWF files. These license terms were initially included to prevent fragmentation, which most client technologies have experienced. These terms have worked well for Flash Player over the past decade as it now reaches over 98% of personal computers on the web with a consistent runtime, enabling things such as the video revolution we see today across the web. With this announcement, Adobe is removing this restriction from the SWF specification, as we have established a consistent runtime and we want to ensure the industry can confidently continue to support the SWF format. This will permit the development of applications that play SWF files. Adobe will, of course, remain focused on making the best, most reliable, and most consistently distributed implementation across desktops and devices. SO ... I am doing a little manual crowd-sourcing here. I want to develop and release V1 of the definitive point of view on working with the Adobe Flash/Media Player. I want to be able to knock something out that puts to rest all the head-scratching and "I'm not sure" stuff, and clearly tells industry people, these are the rules ... if there are indeed rules.A side project would be best practices (or is it practises? ... never nailed that one) on working with Flash and how to stop the leaks and keep systems happy.I am hoping people will:a - comment, usefully, below ...b - send me their thoughts or insights ...c - or point me to the person at Adobe, or the definitive letter or document, that says what's OK and what's off-base.d - or Adobe sends a note that we can all use, so we can move on ... please. Private note? dave.haynes at presetgroup.com
Tons of people will know Rebecca Walt as one of the more broadly experienced and sharper people in this space, having come out of retail and packaged goods, and spent time with both Convergent and Reflect Systems.
One of the guys who spoke last week at that industry forum in New York is the CEO of an interactive agency, and not all that suprisingly, he said the future of digital signage is all about interactivity ... and therefore the better name to hang on this industry is Interactive Out-of-Home, or IOH. Trevor Kaufman, of the agency Schematic, suggested one of the reasons NOT to go with DOH is it is too reminiscent of Homer Simpson's DOH!!!, and DOOH is far worse for some reason. Now while I heartily agree that interactive is a big part of the future of this space, it's just a part. There are countless ways in which digital screen are going to be used that will have little or nothing to do with interactivity. They're just going to be a more efficient means of getting information across, and I can't even fathom the chaos of every screen in an environment beckoning to be touched or wireless devices constantly popping up invites to download coupons and more information, and on and on. I recently read a separate suggestion that the term In Store Digital Marketing be used, or ISDM. They're both good, but they're both just more words. The industry news portal AKA.TV was launched with that handle a few years ago because no one could land on the perfect name, so it was digital signage, Also Known As .... My impression is that there are lots of things holding back this industry, like good content, sustainable success stories and better customer education, but I don't think coming up with JUST the right name -- that encompasses it all -- is holding much back. Digital signage is well short of perfect. Same with Digital Out Of Home. But they're out there and I don't think confusion or derision abound. And I have never heard anyone use DOH.
Pretty much every major street in Winnipeg had a succession of banks and strip malls with full color digital LED boards flashing away at drivers and passersby. These were not full-tilt billboard replacements, but sheet of plywood-big screens, nonetheless.
MediaPost handed out its first Digital Out-of-Home Media Awards last night following a day long conferencer in New York.
n">Wired: Adobe Flash for Your TV Means Hulu in Your Living Room Adobe is at the National Association of Broadcasters show in Lost Wages this week, and its big announcement was how the company has put the pieces in place to allow it to deliver Flash content and interactivity to residential TV.
I like this for the simple reason that it is useful for people. People waiting for a bus can key in their route number or destination and get real-time information back, as the shelters are 3G connected. This is one of the larger out of home companies out there, so ads on these units will follow.
There has been a buzz for almost a year now about the Intel Atom CPU and its ability to offer a small form-factor PC at an affordable price - but the ones that have come out to date have had mixed reviews about their real capabilities versus the marketing hype.
The Strategy magazine digital out of home event that was planned for next week in Toronto has been canceled due to weak ticket sales.It's unfortunate because there was a pretty good roster of ad-oriented speakers lined up, and Canadian Out-of-home Digital Association board member Peter Irwin had worked his butt off to get this pulled together with event organizer Strategy magazine. It was a Strategy event through and through, but CODA had a big influence on how it would come together. Both Strategy and CODA were prepared to shut it down if the sales and sponsorship levels weren't there.This is a busy time of year for events, and with budgets tight and a lot of marketing directors hiding under their desks when the accountants are about, the cancellation is no surprise. Better times are ahead, but I'd imagine it's pretty hard these days to get budget approved even for local events, never mind ones people need to travel to.It probably didn't help that MediaPost's own DOOH Forum and Expo is on next week in NYC, and I know some locals going to that. CODA is still busily planning its own breakfast series and there will be news on those soon.
Neo Media Group has finally come out with formal word that they have designs on building a digital out of home footprint in the US as they have done in Europe, and to a lesser extent, in Canada.The Swiss-based company has retail-oriented networks in several European countries and has screens in the food courts of many malls in Canada, with designs to get into the rest of the mall area.The company announced today, after months of quiet work, that it is going after the US market.Neo Advertising Inc., a leading digital OOH network owner in Canada, has established an infrastructure for US operations. As a result of legal restructuring, Neo Advertising Inc. has become part of a new parent company, Neo Advertising North America Holdings Inc. (”Neo Advertising NA”), which formed Neo Advertising USA, LLC to lead the holding’s activities in the US.Neo Advertising USA, LLC has set up sales and marketing offices in New York, NY, and a production and operations facility in Los Angeles, CA.Former CEO of Neo Advertising Inc. Benjamin Mathieu, who has brought the Canadian company to profitability two years after its inception, has been appointed President and CEO of Neo Advertising NA. Christian Vaglio-Giors, founder of Neo Advertising Group and CEO of the holding Neo Media Group, will act as Chairman of the Board.Phil Tweedy, formerly VP of Operations at Ascent Media, has joined Neo Advertising NA as Chief Technology Officer. Mr. Tweedy is an industry pioneer who brings along extensive expertise in building and managing the world’s largest digital signage networks. “With my vast experience in the Digital OOH market combined with the great team we are building in the US, the timing could not be better for Neo to become a sector leader in the US in a very short time,” says Tweedy.“The US market has been in our sights from the very beginning,” says Benjamin Mathieu, CEO of Neo Advertising NA. “We needed time to field-test various business models and establish a solid track record in Canada. We had also dedicated a lot of time and effort to researching the robust market south of the border. We are now confident that we can import Neo’s success story into the United States. Strategically, it is also a good moment for such a move, as entry barriers for real estate acquisitions are lower when the economy slows down.”Various surveys suggest that digital OOH is one of the few sectors that have been growing despite the recession, while all other media contracted.According to Benjamin Mathieu, further announcements about Neo Advertising USA, LLC’s progress are to follow later in the year. Mathieu and Tweedy have actually been at this for a year or so, and are well advanced in their plans and discussions. I am aware of some of what they are up to, but it is for them to announce. They are former clients and I have particularly enjoyed chatting with Tweedy (no slight on Benjamin), as he has a really intriguing background in video and entertainment work going back to his roots in London, England. Among other things he was a concert promoter as a youngster, and toured with The Who, capturing concert footage. Cool guy. And smart.
Once in a while, and mercifully only once in a while, a client has asked about whether the pots and pans I sold could support a digital screen network in a place like a ballpark or hockey arena. I even had one that was already doing that sort of thing.But generally speaking, it scares the willies out of me ... because it strikes me as way more complicated than everyone seems to think.A Gizmodo photo tour behind the scenes at the new ballpark where the Mets play is a great confirmation of that. Granted, this is a big stadium in a big city. It's going to be a less than typical job. But the tour pretty much confirms that this sort of thing is best left to the AV pros who build TV stations, because that's what's really shaking here.The control room for the 850 screens, all of them Sharp (except in the control room), looks very much like a TV control room, and the screen network does everything from pump live TV into the luxury suites you and I will never see, and the more public walkway and concession areas. You can see all the pictures on Gizmodo, including how a couple of $100K monster LCDs are used.
Well, it is no great reach to suggest nothing draws a Canadian to an event like free drinks.Which is my only logical conclusion as to why last night's mixer numbers dipped by about half. Sheesh.I also know some people who are regulars couldn't make it because on travel, commitments, kids, you name it.
Paul Flanigan is a relative newcomer to the digital signage blogging community, but almost immediately started writing one of the more interesting ones, called Experiate.He runs the in-store screen network for Best Buy and spends his time thinking (and some spare time writing) about content and the impact of screens. Flanigan has a lengthy post this morning raising questions about the timing and merits of audience measurement, combining his own thoughts with quotes cherry-picked from a bunch of industry smarty-pants.At a time when technology and content are finally developing a synergy that enhances the experience, is it truly imperative that we start measuring right away? This industry is growing so fast that any statistical measurement done today could be obsolete within a few years, if not a few months. Network operators and venues are in no hurry to become metric compliant; media planners and buyers don’t fully understand the medium yet; agencies are still working toward a full understanding of creative and compelling communication techniques for OOH; OVAB is trying to enforce compliance with only a few dozen members; and there are other companies out there with different and perhaps stronger methods for measurement and definition. This feels like I should grade my daughter on calculus while she’s still learning to count to 10. Good stuff, and very relevant, compelling questions. I agree with Paul that the argument for audience measurement as it is now done is flawed, particularly as it relates to retail networks that are more about sales impact and shopper experience. But for full-on ad networks, SOMETHING, ANYTHING is needed to at least start herding the cats and creating some commonality in how networks sell themselves.The elephant in the room, though, when measurement results come in is the discussion around how many people are actually watching versus the raw numbers that have been used to tout audience size. Well worth a read ...
This is what I would describe as a big reach, and funny, in a tortured, silly, shark-jumping kind of way. Somehow or other, the rather relentless freelance PR machine working for a small Maryland-area digital signage company has put Noventri and pop singer Madonna together in the same press release.Madonna Makes an Appearance on Noventri Digital Menu Boards at Minute Maid Park Madonna fans never missed a minute of the sold-out concert, says the press release, as they purchase goodies from food stands at the Minute Maid Park. The stadium's club level digital menu boards, previously installed by Noventri, provide tasteful and dynamic menu solutions with a live video feed of the concert to attendees.Madonna performed at the Minute Maid Park on November 16, 2008 for her Sticky & Sweet Tour. Noventri's Content Creation and Management Team, who continues to create and manage content for the stadium's menu boards, created digital menus that featured Madonna and her tour with a video feed that encapsulated the live concert to prevent fans from missing any part of the show. Oh, where to start ... It happened four months ago. It was embedded live video in a menu board at the hot dogs and soda stand (way, umm, cool). It was Madonna!!! At least if you are going to do this, somehow drag Barack Obama in on it. Or the Octo-mom-thing. The PR person, who is perhaps paid by the press release, has been mercilessly firing off marginal stuff about Noventri for several weeks now (she has my e-mail, and she's using it). With this one, she has officially helped her masters jump the shark. Now I don't know a thing about Noventri. They may have an amazing solution. But I'm not sure I subscribe to the notion that PR press, ANY PR press, is good press. This is just goofy press.
There's been piles of coverage about this today in various spots, but I will jump in nonetheless and note a press release today by my friends at Adcentricity, who have struck up a deal to get themselves mobile marketing-ready.According to the news release, Adcentricity and Toronto-based Impact Mobile (whose head office is maybe three blocks away from Adcentricity world headquarters) have worked an arrangement to offer a "full-service, cross-carrier mobile marketing solution" for networks and advertisers.By combining two of the fastest growing categories in advertising – digital out-of-home and mobile – advertisers can now take advantage of the unique opportunities within digital out-of-home executions and activate consumer dialogues where they live, work and play. By providing marketers with a holistic approach to their planning needs, ADCENTRICITY makes campaigns more powerful and dynamic with this added mobile component.“The convergence between digital out-of-home media and mobile is happening now and smart marketers are figuring out how to use these forms of media together to create the ultimate engagement tool,” said Rob Gorrie, CEO of ADCENTRICITY. “Adding a mobile component to a digital out-of-home plan is a great way to enable consumers to interact with your brand messages with relevance and introduces additional means to evaluate ROI.”Today’s mobile subscribers send more text messages than phone calls, according to Nielsen. The proliferation of iPhones, Blackberrys, increased bandwidth and unlimited texting packages have made mobile marketing a high growth category. With the addition of this service, ADCENTRICITY can plan and execute digital out-of-home campaigns among 140,000 screens across North America and is the only digital out-of-home provider that can bring scale and mobile applications to life at this level. ADCENTRICITY’s unique capabilities for digital out-of-home planning can be extended seamlessly into the mobile strategy, driving efficiency and impact.There have been stabs here and there for years now to integrate digital signage networks with the mobile world, particularly given the monstrous market penetration of handheld devices and the crack-like addiction many people have to them.Locamoda has done and is doing some very cool stuff, some bar-focused networks are doing things on platforms like Aerva, but it is still seeming to be very much a onesey-twosey kinda business in which network operators and their vendors have to start from near-scratch each time a new idea or request bubbles up.Having something baked in and ready to roll beats the hell out of the old "Let me get right back to you" dodge if and when the mobile question gets popped during an ad sales pitch meeting.I don't know how seamlessly anything can be integrated into dozens or scores of networks on a variety of platforms, but I think Rob and the boys are being smart in being able to actually walk the talk when this sort of thing comes up.
The UK industry news watcher AKA had a post up last June about a US company called doPublicity that has a digital signage platform aimed at local businesses. The weirdness that can happen with alerts and industry portals is I just read about it now, and not by going to aka.What caught my eye was the reference to an online network assessment and profitability calculator that can help its potential customers figure out what a system might cost versus what it might bring back in new ad revenues.ROI calculators like this can be a really useful mechanism for starting to sort out the potential impact a DS install may have for a business, though it can be wildly imperfect. The one this Los Altos, California firm has pulled together is clever, and in many ways useful, but where it starts to fall down is on the advertising revenue side. It perpetuates the whole Pot of Gold theory about digital signage screens being amazing new revenue sources for small retailers. With some possible exceptions, it isn't happening like that, and probably never will.The calculator does a good basic job of sorting out the elemental site costs, asking how many locations, and baking in the costs of screens, players and installs. The player cost is pretty high, but not crazy-high.So using my cooked-up scenario of a five location dollar store chain, the start-up costs is $10,500 using the calculator.Now comes the part that doesn't work so hot. The calculator asks a series of questions intended to estimate advertising capacity and revenue, and therefore the profitability of the screens. Where it gets hung up is on what to estimate as the cost per ad. This thing is asking me to estimate the price per spot, as in how many cents per spot?Huh?This industry does media planning and sales using things like cost per thousand calculations and rate kits built around yardsticks like cost per venue per week. But costs per spot play?So let's say it is as low as you can go - one cent per play of a spot. The spots are 15 seconds, and the media loop is 60 per cent ads.That kicks back an estimate that the aggregate of ads will play out 302,400 times over a month, and therefore generate $3,042 in ad revenue, or $600 per store. After costs, including a pretty interesting rev share stab/grab by doPublicity, the margin is $1,800 to the good, or $360 per store.The calculator also includes a break-even point analysis, which is a nice way of either grounding expectations a bit or getting retailers more whipped up by thinking they only actually need to fill 14 per cent of the available ad inventory to break even.Now here's the trouble with this sort of thing. Selling local advertising is really, really hard work, and an intensely local system may end up being more of a barter network than one where checks are actually being written and passed around. Small business people are getting hit constantly by people wanting to sell them things, including advertising.The reality of this:A - Somebody has to sell this store network, which means either the retail owners or staff are taking time away from the core business, or somebody else is doing sales for probably 25 per cent of more sales commission. Those are very real hidden costs, either way.B - The filled inventory rate will be much lower than expected, and subterranean for six to nine months. Unless the planets somehow align immediately, these things are not revenue-positive for at least a few weeks ro months.C - Ad calcualations need to bake in audience size through some sort of report of foot traffic, percentage who notice the screen and dwell/loop time. The real revenues versus real costs are really hard for things like calculators to spit out. Calculators don't have perspective fields in them that can bake in what really happens.If it seems like I am kicking these guys around a little bit, I'm not. I actually think it's great when companies try to apply some business discipline to this stuff, and this is a pretty nice but imperfect run at things. They do stress it is not intended as accounting advice.But it has to be just a tool to start the analysis, not close the sale. It should not be regarded as some conclusive evidence of why a screen network is pretty much a money tree. It might generate some business early, but also nurture an ever-growing crowd of disappointed customers.The problem is people get all whipped up about how great this will all be, based on some simple calculations, and only find out once thewy're into it just how hard the advertising sales game can be.I've seen and also built some spreadsheet calculators based more on what well-placed screens in retail can do for boosting sales, and for a lot of retailers weighing the merits of investing in DS, THAT'S the sort of number-crunching they should be doing. That's immediately relevant and measurable for them, and in-store sales promotion (unlike ad sales) is something they know how to do.
I have read two or three gadget blog pieces about a Japanese company that plans to blend biometric technology with digital ad boards.Most of the descriptions are going off in one direction, but when you actually read what's planned, it's nowhere near the nightmare Minority Report-Blade Runner thing at least some commenters are trying to conjure up.It is being described as an intrusive digital billboard that will spit out ads by gender as people walk by.Reports CruchGear: A Tokyo-based company called Comel has teamed up with Yahoo and is responsible for the hardware. NEC Soft provides the facial analysis technology. Yahoo Japan will start using a total of 500 billboards in train stations and shopping malls in Fukuoka (Southern Japan), displaying content like news, weather and - of course - ads. The post also notes: Starting this fall, these camera-equipped billboards will take pictures of people walking past by them, detecting a person’s age and sex. Once these characteristics are determined, the billboards will display content tailor-made (as good as it can get) for the person in question. This is a creepy and intrusive way to use digital signage technology, but it’s most probably more effective than static billboards. It's pretty obvious from the picture and the description that this thing is just an information kiosk, and what it will do is have a little camera attached that can look at what's standing in front of it, trying to get some information, and skew the returned information according to the best guess of male versus female, and possibly by age. In a place like a train station or mall in a busy Japanese city, an ad board that was actually trying to tailor ads to people walking by would be trying to change ads by the millisecond and the unit would be a smoking, melted ruin within hours.The CrunchGear report also shows a screen shot, which clearly shows how this kiosk will make something like a dining recommendation, using Yahoo Japan content.Is this interesting? Yeah, sorta. Touchscreen interfaces will get people to what they want to see without needing help from a camera sorting out who they are. But what the cameras can do is track how long people spend in front of the screens, and how many walk up but don't even engage the things. They can also do an imperfect version of the whole presence and notice audience thing.Is it intrusive? No more so than most advertising. I'll take this every day of the week over some field marketing team getting in the way of people at that train station or mall, trying to hand out perfume swatches to all the young women stampeding their way through. Is it an invasion of privacy? Well maybe if the camera actually captures and archives the bracketed faces, but most if not all of the audience technology stuff I know about just counts and discards the image captures. I also have a pretty strong sense Japanese train stations are littered with surveillance cameras that ARE watching and remembering what's going on.Update: Engadget has also posted, with a different pic, and yet another Minority Report reference. On the plus side it does confirm face captures are discarded.
Thursday, December 10, 2009
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