Advertising sees new potential

Clear vision: As one of the success stories of the IT industry, digital signage can be adapted to fit in with the tastes of a particular target audience.

Advertisers love the concept of digital signage, but until recently sales were stymied by the age-old fear that paralyses all media buyers. Nobody knows what works and what does not. The cliché about advertising ­ half of it works, if only we knew which half ­ may soon be less relevant, as new inventions enable machines to measure consumer reaction to adverts.

The digital signage market is one of the success stories of the IT industry. It is growing at 30 per cent year on year, according to special audiovisual (AV) analyst Futuresource, previously Decision Tree Consult-ing.

And yet, according to another report by the same company, there is a dangerous flaw in the business case for this technology. In a high incidence of cases, it does not actually work.

Futuresource identified five key challenges standing in the way of AV resellers in its white paper Digital Media Networks can’t fail to succeed this time…can they? Report author Chris McIntyre-Brown said project failures have tarnished the reputation of AV.

Of 100 projects studied in depth, nine failed to meet a single objective and 10 were only partial successes. “The risk of potential failure was high,” said McIntyre-Brown.

Recognising the problems
The problem is that an agreed industry standard for return on investment (RoI) modelling has yet to emerge. Other main barriers to success in the digital signage market were identified as a lack of advertising proof points, too much network fragmentation and not enough scalability, project complexity and a lack of understanding of content requirements.

Until these can be met, advertising and media agencies will recognise the potential of digital signage, but will not invest, he warned. But advertisers are desperate for digital signage to work because the effects of traditional communications are becoming diluted, concluded McIntyre-Brown. “The potential is huge if these problems can be ironed out,” he said.

However, a flood of products is on the way that might unblock this bottleneck of media buyer goodwill.
Samsung recently unveiled 35 digital signage products to the market as part of a channel recruitment and training push, and the company claimed it would triple its internal channel support team.

Featuring LCDs ranging from 32in to 82in and touchscreens, its show-stopping product was the Matrix ID. This Lego-brick design for display screens can take a variety of shapes, such as a pyramid, cube or flat video wall.

These might be eye-catching in a car showroom, explained David Smith, Samsung’s business development manager, but the real technological breakthrough for the channel is the launch of a product that sits in the background.

A 3D motion sensor that sits next to a screen and detects the height, weight and gender of each person looking at an advert, will have far more impact, he claims. “The system can tell who is reading the screens, and deliver the right content for the right person at the right time,” said Smith. “This will please advertisers.”

Consumer detection
So a man in a replica football shirt, for example, might be weighed up by the camera/computer combination, which may then decide that showing him a pie advert is the best way to stimulate an impulse buy. Although it may broadcast this verdict, very publicly, on a giant screen.

A new technology from Israel goes even further in the information-gathering process. Tru-Media’s iCapture technology does not just pass judgement on your personality and show an appropriate advert. It gathers data on consumer behaviour and compiles a report. So everyone ­ sign placers, advertisers, media buyers ­ gets a comprehensive breakdown of the sex and age of the consumers who view digital signage.

By placing a second camera on the perfume shelves of a store, it can even measure how many consumers have looked at an advert and been driven to seek it out in a shop.

“If we can quantify the effectiveness of adverts, the advertisers can fine tune it, and the media buyers can see the returns they will get on their investment,” explained Myra Cohen-Doukhan, marketing manager at Tru-Media. “It makes selling the technology a lot easier.”

Tru-Media’s iCapture is distributed throughout the UK by Surrey-based True Colours.
Meanwhile, Blackburn-based Dynamax has launched its own RoI tool. The AV reseller became a vendor after it designed its own software for managing AV networks and the content that runs on them. Now it is offering an RoI tool too.

“One of the biggest criticisms of digital signage has always been its lack of a measurement component,” said Ian McKenzie, chief executive of Dynamax. “People need to know it is not just revamped public broadcast content.”