DigitalSignage Issue 2 by Alchemedia Publishing

issue #2

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Reach Out & Touch Something

Editorial:

Story: Christopher Holder

“I once left my fouryear-old daughter unsupervised with my iPhone and within 10 minutes she’d put a down payment on a rather nice villa in Tuscany”

it wasn’t that long ago that touchscreens were all a bit science fiction; all a bit Minority Report… it helped if you wore

a silver jumpsuit and had a data port planted in the back of your cranium. Boy, did Apple change all that.

When the iPhone was released, touchscreens became mainstream overnight. I don’t know how many gazillion iPhones have been sold, but quite a few, I’d warrant. So many, in fact, that there doesn’t seem to be a man, woman or child in the western world who doesn’t instinctively know how to use a touchscreen. And little did we know that the now-familiar two-fingered pinch and squeeze movement is actually written into our DNA. I know this because I once left my four-year-old daughter unsupervised with my iPhone and within 10 minutes she’d downloaded a Lady GaGa video, video chatted her cousins interstate and put a down payment on a rather nice villa in Tuscany. ‘Kiosk’? It’s a bit quaint and vaguely Scandinavian, isn’t it? Yes, there are still ‘kiosks’, but if you put a screen out in public then just about everyone under the age of 20-something will reach out and check if it responds to touch. All screens are now fair game for pawing.

There are plenty of technological ways to skin the touchscreen cat. Let’s see, there’s resistive, surface capacitive, projected capacitive, infrared, surface acoustic wave, and optical imagining. Other technologies include: dispersive signal technology, acoustic pulse recognition, LCD in-cell optical and force sensing. Phew. See what I mean about the silver jumpsuits and cranial dataports? Actually, it’s not that

complicated. The optical methods are better suited to the larger formats… in other words, our purposes.

And when it comes to cool applications, this one caught my eye.

Check out this bar in Tokyo’s notorious Rappongi district. It’s touchscreen heaven! Suck on an Asahi as you browse the touchscreen menu. Down another Sapporo as you do something odd with another big touchscreen that seems to do something that I’m not entirely sure about… Look, it’s Japanese, okay? You remember Clive James’ show? It was mostly about playing re-runs of Japanese game shows where people are routinely maimed or tortured with predictably hysterical consequences. The Japanese aren’t like us… they’re different. And touchscreens aren’t simply for getting you to the third floor of Westfield so you can redeem your Country Road gift card – or indeed to do mysterious hand-wavy things in Rappongi – touchscreens can help you sell. Have a look at Chris Seymour’s Retail column and hear how Microsoft’s Surface technology can be used as a sales weapon. Another example sees Mood Media working with PopCap Games to sell its download games through interactive displays. Which sounds fiendishly clever, yet so obvious. These are just a tiny snapshot of what’s possible. And the message is: if you want to get your customers involved, then reach out for a touchscreen. Ó Christopher Holder, Editorial Director

Reach out to Chris at: chris@dsmag.com.au

Digital Place-Based Media & Technology

CONTENTS ISSUE 2 2010 Digital Place-Based Media & Technology

Advertising Office: (02) 9986 1188 PO Box 6216, Frenchs Forest, NSW 2086

Editorial Office: (03) 5331 4949 PO Box 295, Ballarat, VIC 3353

Publication Manager: Stewart Woodhill (stewart@dsmag.com.au) Editorial Director: Christopher Holder (chris@dsmag.com.au) Publisher:

Philip Spencer (philip@dsmag.com.au) Art Direction & Design: Dominic Carey (dominic@alchemedia.com.au) Additional Design: Leigh Ericksen (leigh@alchemedia.com.au) Contributing Editor: Graeme Hague (news@dsmag.com.au) Technical Editor Andy Ciddor (andy@av.net.au) Accounts: Jen Temm (jen@alchemedia.com.au)

IN ACTION 8 Subaru Dealerships 9 National Museum of Australia 10 Graffiti Bar, Tokyo 15 World Market Center

FEATURES 18 University of Sydney 20 Feed Me 24 BIG W 28 Val Morgan digilites Network

EXPERTISE 12 Retail: Making DS Pay 14 Back End 16 Retail: Touchscreen in Action

REFERENCE 38 Whoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Who Company Profiles

NEWS 32 News & Product Info

COMMENT 42 Mug Punter

Circulation Manager: Mim Mulcahy (subscriptions@dsmag.com.au)

alchemedia publishing pty ltd (ABN: 34 074 431 628) PO Box 6216, Frenchs Forest, NSW 2086 info@alchemedia.com.au All material in this magazine is copyright ÂŠ 2010 Alchemedia Publishing Pty Ltd. The title AV is a registered Trademark. Apart from any fair dealing permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced by any process without written permission. The publishers believe all information supplied in this magazine to be correct at the time of publication. They are not in a position to make a guarantee to this effect and accept no liability in the event of any information proving inaccurate. After investigation and to the best of our knowledge and belief, prices, addresses and phone numbers were up to date at the time of publication. It is not possible for the publishers to ensure that advertisements appearing in this publication comply with the Trade Practices Act, 1974. The responsibility is on the person, company or advertising agency submitting or directing the advertisement for publication. The publishers cannot be held responsible for any errors or omissions, although every endeavour has been made to ensure complete accuracy. 13/8/10

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Tele Sales How Subaru salesmen are using iPhones keep customers in the moment.

In Action

Digitalinc (02) 9380 4044 or info@digitalinc.com.au 8

Digital Place-Based Media & Technology

Applications for iPhones are all the rage. A few years back people used to compare the hardware in a traditional ‘mine’s better than yours’ bar room spats. Now it’s all about ‘apps’. There are thousands of ‘em out there and it’s easy to forget that what with all the games and gimmicks the iPhone can be used as a serious money-making tool. London-based Digitalinc with offices in Sydney and Melbourne is one of those companies with a suite of applications it developed called ARIS. Designed to run on the Apple iOS4 platform, ARIS stands for Automotive Retail Interactive Showroom and it’s a digital signage system aimed at new car dealerships. The four components of ARIS are (ARIS) Media, Incentive, Communicate and Toolkit. Media is where ARIS tackles the problem of automotive sales showrooms never having exactly the car the customer wants on the floor – the right combination of colour, model and accessories, for example. The next best thing to a real car is to create a virtual representation of the vehicle with ARIS Media using applications called Colour My Car and Accessorise My Car (or in the case of above: Bomb my Car with an Albatross – Ed), and displaying the results on selected screens throughout the showroom, interrupting any global broadcast. ARIS Media also provides for a wide selection of Content On Demand material such as promotional or informative videos all dialed up with the iPhone from the floor. It’s about maintaining customer interaction with demonstration models and allowing potential buyers to continue a hands-on experience of the vehicle – that means

letting them kick the tyres, which is apparently always better than dragging punters into a sales office. ARIS Media allows sales staff to stay on the showroom floor where they can ply their trade best. The installation count is well past the 250 mark. The displays are Samsung 460DXn-2, which is a 46-inch LCD network-ready monitor. ARIS can be operated from just on the iPhone or with the Samsung display active. Regular ARIS updates that are downloaded into the phone and server software ensure the salesperson isn’t making any promises they can’t keep (feel free to choke on your coffee here). However, pricing and special deals aren’t included in ARIS, mainly because it is a national network and too many regional factors and local conditions affect the costs for each dealership. A unique part of the ARIS application is its ability to access a large database of vehicle types and their available options then accurately present the final combination for the customer to see. Also, it’s worth noting that no limits are placed on the size of the large screens. Digital signage technology would allow for a life-sized display or even video wall to show the imagined car. At present the ARIS solution offered by Digitalinc includes the application, appropriate screens and the iPhones themselves. A version for Apple’s iPad is in the pipeline. — GH.

King of the Road The Canning Stock Route comes alive.

For the those people who have a taste for the Australian outback driving their massive 4WD cruisers with roof racks and ‘roo bars, huge antennae with pennant flags, extra cans of petrol stacked to the skies, spare tyres bolted to the windscreen wipers… you know the type – well, for them the Canning Stock Route is an exciting, heart-thumping adventure. It traverses some of the most inhospitable country in Western Australia (ignoring the Northbridge nightclub strip for a moment) filled with endless deserts, sand dunes and a vast array of wildlife that can kill you with a single spit. For normal people feeling faint just reading that – good news, there’s an easier way to see it that doesn’t involve getting bogged or bitten every five minutes. Because of its dramatic history the Canning Stock Route (CSR) is the subject for a new multi-screen AV display called ‘One Road’ in the National Museum of Australia (NMA), Canberra. It’s a signature part of the overall Yiwarra Kuju Exhibition, mostly told in traditional paintings, which is a focus on the many perspectives of Aborigines who grew up in the country around the stock route, including those who worked as drovers and those who strongly opposed what they regarded as trespassing on their land. The central component of the display is 10 x 46-inch MultiTouch Cell units arrayed in what is claimed to be the first asymmetric multi-touch installation for a

museum exhibition. The combined units are more than 7m long and enable visitors to stand around corners and collaborate with the cells as a single, connected display. The design encourages use by more than 20 people at a time, while the staggered alignment is to allow for a real-world reproduction of the shape of the CSR itself, properly following the geographical course of the route via the connected screens as they spread across the floor of the display room. The exhibit features more than two hours of video, over 70 paintings and about 100 separate stories by artists from the countryside surrounding the Stock Route. MultiTouch’s patented computer vision system, which reads up to 120 frames per second in bright daylight or dark environments, can react to unlimited touch points including hands, fingers, fingertips and 2D markers across the table surface. From start to finish the interactive project needed 12 months to complete, building on a threeyear project undertaken by FORM, a Western Australian arts organisation, in partnership with nine Aboriginal community art centres. – GH Ó

In Action

NMA: www.nma.gov.au/exhibitions/ yiwarra_kuju Lightwell (supply & installation): (02) 9319 0311 or www.lightwell.com.au AMX (system control): (07) 5531 3103 or sales@amx.com.au Digital Place-Based Media & Technology

In Action

Scribble Strip This Tokyo bar takes interactivity to a new level.

Tokyo’s Graffiti Bar has gone hard with its interactive multi-touch LCD interactivity – the world’s largest hospitality multi-touch display installation, no less. It consists of seven 46-inch and seven 32-inch MultiTouch Cell LCD units set up as bar-top and lounge tables and two large wall projection screens. The innovative applications installed in Tokyo’s Graffiti Bar employ a novel interface that includes interactive visual effects, a multitouch menu for bar patrons, and information capture on patron’s VIP cards and drink glasses. Central to the theme of the Graffiti Bar, which offers ‘artistic dining’, patrons can draw their own graffiti on the MultiTouch displays, and can browse drink and food menus, interact with their waiters, play games, and enjoy media content provided by the bar. Interactive special effects, including virtual champagne bubbles and lightning bolts, react to touch and objects placed on the tables. VIP cards placed on the MultiTouch displays will trigger exclusive VIP content. All content is remotely controlled from the MultiTouch Control Interface, located behind the bar.

Graffiti Bar: www.tokyo-graffiti.com Lightwell: (02) 9319 0311 or www.lightwell.com.au

“We live, work, eat, and sleep in a multi-screen world, and now we are expanding to a multi-user, multitouch screen environment, where we can manipulate information in a collaborative fashion, even when enjoying a cocktail,” said Hannu Anttila, vice president of sales for MultiTouch Ltd. “Tokyo Graffiti Bar is a template for the future of public information display, and how entertainment in restaurants and bars will be consumed.” “Bars and restaurants have evolved in the past four decades from table screen implementations of videogames, such as Pong, to large-screen projection TV and, of course, high-definition displays, for patron enjoyment. Now, the multitouch, multi-user display enables restaurateurs to deliver specialised, even individualised, content to patrons, and provide application which complement patron’s mobile applications,” said Mike Verweyst, the owner of Green Light Productions (the content authors). “Our clientele benefits from the MultiTouch displays as an active ingredient in their existing human interactions; we can generate an experience that is unparalleled for today’s bar patrons.” Ó

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On the Market The world’s biggest home store needs a big digital signage system.

In Action

World Market Center Las Vegas is an integrated home and hospitality contract furnishings showroom and trade complex, covering a whopping 57 acres. When fully built, World Market Center Las Vegas will be the largest trade show complex in the known universe – 12 million square feet across eight buildings. The $3 billion campus will showcase furniture, decorative accessories, gifts, lighting, area rugs, home textile and ‘bamboo rugs’ (according to the above picture), as well as the Las Vegas Design Center, which is open year-round. Harris Broadcast Communications and CoSign, a Las Vegas interactive systems developer, were chosen to create a comprehensive digital signage solution for World Market Center Las Vegas. Harris Digital Signage solutions were installed in each of the three buildings comprising InfoCaster Creator content creation stations, InfoCaster Manager network management products and InfoCaster Player content playout devices. In its role as interactive systems developer, CoSign creates the templates, produces video and banner ads, converts World Market Center content for use in the InfoCaster system, schedules the content, and maintains hardware and software. Today, World Market Center entertains and informs thousands of visitors with a digital signage network that has a broadcast-quality ‘cable news channel’ look and feel. The

Harris: www.harris.com

Digital Place-Based Media & Technology

many benefits of Harris Digital Signage – dynamic visuals (including live video/audio), flexibility, speed and scalability – were essential to the success of this facility. Here are a few examples of what a broadcast-style system of Harris’s sophistication can do for a facility such as this: s 7ORLD -ARKET #ENTER HOSTS A NUMBER OF SPECIAL EVENTS throughout the year, such as seminars and concerts, which are broadcast live over the digital signage network. The live video cards installed in the InfoCaster Player provide broadcast-quality video, as well as other functionality, including the ability to build a template around the live video or drop a logo box in the corner. s $URING 7ORLD -ARKET #ENTER EVENTS n ESPECIALLY THE bi-annual Las Vegas Market – content must be continuously updated. InfoCaster is extremely flexible and allows World Market Center to quickly change content, particularly adding/dropping any piece of content without affecting the other pieces. The system also allows operators to create crawls and change them ‘on the fly’. s 4HE 7ORLD -ARKET #ENTER DIGITAL SIGNAGE SYSTEM IS expected to become about 70 percent larger over the next five years, as World Market Center completes the addition of five more buildings. As there are plans for additional InfoCaster products to be installed as the expansion progresses, the system’s scalability is a key benefit. Ó

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madis n a u d i o v i s u a l 1800 00 77 80 av@madisontech.com.au

The Back end:

Know your mission before it’s ‘mission accomplished’.

Story: Lou Giacalone

In my last column I talked about some of the challenges that face the industry and some efforts underway to advance things. This issue, let’s talk about some specific strategies that you can do today to be successful with signage. If you are thinking about a signage deployment for your own organisation, this should provide a good framework. If you are a reseller or other industry participant, this should provide a good sanity check as to how you are guiding your clients.

First let’s be clear, it’s all about results. It’s never about the technology for technology’s sake. Sounds simple but this foundational principle is often ignored or made secondary to other considerations, like convenience or cost. Another obvious corollary to this is that you have to have a clear idea of the results you’re trying to achieve. I often say “if you don’t know where you’re going, you certainly won’t get there!” It’s also really important to try and wrap some metrics around your goals so you do indeed know what’s working and what isn’t. So let’s run through some of the most common objectives and discuss them a little. Mission: Attract You want to get people to come into your venue that might normally not. You will need to use a fairly large screen, bright enough to overcome ambient light (which may include daylight), and you’ll want bold punchy content that’s visible at a glance. After all, you want to catch as many people passing by as possible. You need to make an immediate impact and compel the viewer to take action. Content should focus on more promotional or novel items, there’s not enough time to do branding in this environment. Measurement: door traffic counts.

Mission: Direct So you got them to come in? Now you need to make sure they can find what it is they’re looking for. Signs inside near the entrance can go a bit deeper in terms of the number of offerings shown, but keep it moving quickly (a few seconds each) and let them know where to go to find it. Be obvious, use big arrows to point, or tie into existing colour-coded static directional signage. Don’t make them have to work hard to find what they want. In some cases you may want to provide an interactive wayfinding capability. Just make sure that it’s easy to use! Measurement: customer survey.

Mission: Environment Sometimes creating a dynamic environment is key to advancing your brand perception and recognition. There are no hard set dos and don’ts when it comes to branding. Little screens in droves with your brand logos; large screens or projections on walls creating an ambiance in sync with the brand vibe – it can all work. Shoot for something fairly unique and related somehow to your brand. Unusual form factors are now becoming possible with tiled screen technologies like those from Prysm and Christie. Measurement: customer survey. Mission: Merchandising If you have something to sell, signage is a great way to sell more. Many studies have shown this. But be careful, it’s not a panacea and results are highly dependent on execution. For commodity items offered promotionally, spread the message around with as many signs as possible to educate people about the

Digital Place-Based Media & Technology

a small dim screen in a store window will barely be visible to someone across the street, much less compel them to change their behavior offer. For high-ticket items, use smaller signs right by the product to educate about the features and benefits – and don’t forget to spike in some sizzle. As always, the signs have to be placed where people are looking – eye level or next to products – never above aisles or near the ceiling. (People don’t look up!) Measurement: sales, and in some cases return rates. Mission: Employee communications/training In today’s economy, most businesses have fewer people than ever doing more work than ever. Keeping those precious human resources up to speed is critical. Signs in lunch rooms, break rooms, even digital picture frames on desks can all serve as private information superhighways to get your employees the latest on new product offerings, company performance, HR or compliance issues, motivational and other messages from management. Bear in mind that even screens used in ‘front of house’ applications can be used before and after hours to do employee communications. Measurement: Sales performance, employee satisfaction surveys, other appropriate metrics relevant to content pushed out.

These certainly aren’t all the various facets of signage – up-selling/ cross-selling, a reduction in perceived wait times, driving sales of impulse items at point of sale, third-party advertising, etc. What’s critical is to explicitly define what it is you’re trying to achieve, designing with those specific goals in mind, measuring results, and adjusting the program to maximise those results over time. And don’t forget to be realistic – a small dim screen in a store window will barely be visible to someone across the street, much less compel them to change their behavior. Pick and choose what you can accomplish within your budget, execute well, and then move on to new objectives. With prices of gear lower than ever, now is a great time to jump into signage. And for our industry insiders and resellers, please guide your customers well and avoid selling them something that won’t perform. Remember, the customer isn’t always right when it comes to digital signage! Ó

Lou Giacalone is a pioneer and expert in digital signage. In 1998, he conceived the acclaimed CoolSign software suite and also founded AdSpace Networks, now the world’s largest digital mall advertising company. Reach him at: lou@cool-sign.com

Smart retailers are making digital hay while the sun doesn’t shine.

Retail:

Story: Mark Schroeder

Retailers who have been struggling with the slowdown in consumer spending might be surprised by some advice published by McKinsey’s in the depths of the recession: “Retailers should bear in mind that the least effective thing to do during a downturn is to simply ‘hunker down’ and ‘weather the storm.’” (The McKinsey Quarterly, September 2008). Whilst many retailers’ first reaction when things get tough is simply to cut spending, taking decisive action to improve store performance is even more important. As we emerge from the recession many researchers have noted that consumers are approaching shopping differently, actively reviewing their purchasing behaviours. This period of change provides opportunities for retailers to newly influence decisions about what and when to buy.

That’s why, despite continued patchy trading, this is no time to run for cover but rather to identify investments that can deliver business improvements by retaining customers, acquiring customers or maximising basket size. If cost reduction can be achieved in addition to these aims, even better. Where to find such opportunities means looking for any area of your retail operation where performance-improving technology has not yet been applied and asking why not. After all, if such technology is available, what’s the cost of allowing your competitors start using it to their competitive advantage before you do? The growing pile of case studies makes digital point of sale (aka shopper marketing or digital signage) a perfect candidate; offering the magic combination of increasing revenue and reducing operating expenses – it is rapidly becoming the savvy retailer’s tool of choice when looking for a recession-busting performance boost. This is a classic case of a new technology maturing to the point where it becomes indispensable. Improvements in content management and distribution technology, as well as reductions in hardware costs make the case for digital signage more compelling daily. Yes, there are complexities and capital requirements in deploying a digital signage network but the upsides are many. Let’s have a look at a few that are most salient in these times:

Increasing basket and maximising average transaction size: In many retail environments where customers are less likely to engage a sales person, in-store digital media provides a dynamic way to promote product pairings and product accessories. Retailers, now more than ever, are seeking ways to up-sell and cross-sell using targeted messaging in-store. It works; customers like it and respond to it. In a Nielsen survey of 1000 people, of those who had seen in-store media 75% found it useful and 42% said they would rather shop at a store with video displays. Furthermore 68% of respondents said in-store messages would sway their purchasing decisions and 77% said it was a useful way to learn about products. Another report by Arbitron Research found that of those shoppers who have seen in-store TV, almost 30% made an unplanned purchase as a result. The latest aggregated retail industry data indicates an average sales uplift of 10% on promoted products with a resulting 2.4% increase in revenue. Major deployments have recorded average sales increases as high as 25% across advertised products. More efficient POS at reduced cost: Digital media provides real-time control of in-store marketing on a site-by-site or even an hour-by-hour basis if required. It allows retailers to react to market conditions, changing campaigns at a moment’s notice without waiting for printed material to be produced and delivered or worrying about store compliance. It makes localised offers, information and pricing easy. The potential for cost savings and increases in efficiency over traditional point-of-sale marketing materi-

als is clear. Additionally, digital allows the savvy retailer to leverage better off their investment in broadcast TV campaigns by adapting elements already produced for above-the-line ads, rescreening them in-store as reminder/sales-closing spots.

Increased engagement, loyalty and frequency of visit: In-store digital media provides a dynamic platform for retailers to strengthen their engagement with customers by promoting community involvement, localised content, or messages scheduled to coincide with the store visits of a particular demographic – the business crowd during the week, families at the weekend etc. Such engagement has been quantified. Eric Peterson, CEO and Principal Consultant, Web Analytics for Demystified Inc worked with a major multi-channel retailer and found that moderately engaged visitors spent about $20 more per order than poorly engaged visitors. Also, highly engaged visitors had a conversion rate of about 5% compared to 0.2% for poorly engaged visitors – a 2500% difference! Of course, it’s also a great way to communicate the benefit of loyalty programs right where it counts – where the shoppers are. Communicating value propositions: With customers looking to save money without sacrificing quality, many retailers have a compelling story to tell. They’re communicating the attributes of private label products or reinforcing value messaging and are seeking to measure the effectiveness of their in-store messaging in real time to ensure the message is resonating with the right customers.

Revenue from third-party ads, cross promotions: Retailers should certainly not be turning their store into billboards for external advertisers but if you can offer a powerful new promotional tool to your supplier brands, why not do so and why not charge them for it? Case studies from Walmart to Tesco bear out the value of those brands supporting digital media. As Nick Widdowson, Merchandising Manager of Unilever UK said, “Brands ignore the importance of in-store advertising at their peril”. Improved staff training and internal communications at reduced cost: Aussie retailers spend millions of dollars every year on training expenses. Once a network is in place it’s simple to add a very cost-effective digital training channel. JC Penny utilies digital signage at 1100 locations as a means of providing communications, interactive distance learning, and training for its 150,000 employees. The JC Penny digital signage initiative helped to eliminate massive costs associated with training a massive audience on a large scale. Integration with your increasingly digital marketing spend: In-store digital can be integrated with other initiatives in all sorts of ways: website submissions could be displayed live on screens, interactive screens can collect customer data and preferences which is applied to targeted EDM, mobile messages can be displayed in screens, mobile numbers can be collected for mobile marketing… to name just a few.

Now is the time for retailers to act. Deployment costs are tumbling and compelling leasing options make monthly expenses affordable against incremental revenue generated, guaranteeing a measurable ROI. For as little as a couple of hundred dollars per store per month, retailers can deploy instore digital media to more effectively engage with customers at the point of decision and take decisive action to combat the challenges of decreasing footfall and more frugal consumers. Smart retailers look under every stone to find opportunity in adversity. Ó Mark Schroeder is CEO of Emstream – a digital signage provider with hundreds of commercial sites nationwide. You can reach mark at mark@emstream.com.au

Retail:

Microsoft puts its cards on the table.

Story: Chris Seymour

In the previous issue of DigitalSignage I urged you to create a killer retail experience for your customers.

This issue, I’m delving into more detail about one technology that can actually help you achieve this: Microsoft Surface, the big table-shaped touch computer. Surface was released internationally in 2008 but only locally in 2010, so you may not have seen it around as yet.

I spend a lot of time speaking to people about innovation in retail and have run dozens of client workshops on Surface. The question I’m most frequently asked is whether it’s just like a big iPad. That’s certainly not a bad way to start thinking about it but if you consider the iPad as the premium personal touch device then Surface is the premium social touch device – and this has some positive implications for public usage. Okay, so it does all that ‘iPaddy’ stuff that you’d expect – touch, video, rich graphics and sound – but what’s special about Surface? Firstly, there’s the form factor – it really is a big table and your customers can sit around it comfortably; this makes it perfect for assisted sales scenarios. Consider an experience where your salesperson sits across the Surface from the client and they’re able to have a conversation about your rich product videos and information that is scattered on the table before them. The critical part of this experience is that while it’s deeply immersive it’s also very natural; the salesperson is facing the customer and is able to use their existing sales skills to read body language and maintain eye contact in a way that is not possible using a traditional monitor or even a tablet device. I’ve found that the businesses most excited about using Surface in this way are those with complex, highvalue products (think real-estate, travel, finance).

If you don’t need a salesperson to explain your product, consider Surface as an independent (but connected) sales and information point for your customers. It’s far from fragile and can happily withstand spillages, scratching and being stood upon (they’re in bars in Las Vegas, which seems the ideal place to test all of these claims!). TAG Heuer deployed an unattended and unbranded Surface into Heathrow Terminal 5 earlier this year, allowing bored travelers to explore their high-end watches. The rich digital experience resulted in over 15% of users entering their details to receive more product information via email. Are there any locations on your premises or other friendly locations where there is a captive audience that could be learning about your products? Design your experience properly and you can attract a good crosssection of the population; it works well with people who might otherwise be intimidated by technology. I worked with ANZ Bank to put a couple of Surface devices at the Australian Open earlier this year and we saw large numbers of people across all age brackets and backgrounds, deeply engaged in the digital content provided.

This leads to another important point – many people can interact with Surface at the same time. It can track over 50 individual touches at once, which makes it perfect for highly social situations – a group of 10 people can crowd around a single device and all contribute to the same experience. Surface can recognise much more than other touch devices as it has a bunch of cameras hidden inside it and it ‘sees’ anything that comes into contact with, or close to, its surface.

Digital Place-Based Media & Technology

These cameras allow Surface to actually recognise objects placed upon it and to read special barcodes printed onto paper, stickers or larger objects. A customer can place a leaflet onto the Surface table and the table would burst into life, displaying content that is relevant to the leaflet they have chosen. This allows for some pretty magical experiences. Having trouble converting customers researching online into customers shopping in store? Give them a voucher to print out at home, bring into your store and put on the Surface. They’ll be delighted they can instantly see their online research in your store and you’ll gain an understanding of what offer motivated the customer to visit and how long it took them to convert.

The use of real-world objects to interact with Surface is one of its unique selling points and makes for a very immersive customer experience – bridging the physical and the virtual worlds. I spent some time with Microsoft’s Surface team in the US earlier this year and their research is showing an overwhelming user preference for real-world objects to augment a virtual touch experience. So is Surface good for everything? Not at all. Some are put off by the $20+ price tag while others will sacrifice functionality for a slimmer, wall-mounted touch device such as HP’s 4200tm.

My advice is to do your homework. Determine whether you can spare the floor space, what the device can do for you and whether the ROI makes sense. Most people I speak to think that $20k is either very expensive, or very, very cheap. Rumour has it that a next-gen Surface is imminent. And at (reportedly) less than half the price will be a far more enticing prospect than the first – Ed. Ó

Chris is the Innovation Director at Gist Communication. Gist is dedicated to finding the right medium for your message. Go: www.gistcommunication. com.au or Twitter: SeymourV

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BIG SCREENS ON CAMPUS The University of Sydney has its sights set on thousands of networked screens. Story: Graeme Hague

hen we first heard that the University of Sydney had developed its very own digital signage system you can’t blame us for jumping to the obvious conclusion: that a bunch of geeky students – who will one day, no doubt, all be president of the United States or CEO of Microsoft, but right now just have really bad acne and no girlfriends – got together in some weird science-room project and knocked up a DOOH network for a hoot. Not only that, but the system would soon be available on the market and competing with the likes of Sony’s Ziris for digital signage business. Those crazy kids were hoping to make a quick buck…

INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY

So, let’s get things straight: there are practically no students involved in this story. The Information & Communications Technology (ICT) department’s Audiovisual Services office at the university is a part of the support infrastructure for the campus and the university has had a commercial arm for years called Sydnovate, which handles the management and licensing of intellectual property and any other clever gizmos developed that are worth putting in the shop window. Sydnovate also offers research, consulting and testing services to clients to be carried out on campus. Glad we got that straight.

Plainly, the university is chockers with clever people. Still, it was a puzzle to us why it felt a need to create its own digital signage network when there is such a wealth of products around. With so many DS products out there, why couldn’t the UoS find something suitable? THOUSANDS OF SCREENS

The problem lies in the large amount of separate departments and sections the ICT envisaged would be accessing the system and distributing content to varying numbers of screens. At the moment it’s early days with about a dozen different locations up and running, but original estimates had a concept for up to 400 screens throughout the campus. That’s already been adjusted to perhaps as many as three thousand in the coming years. That equates to the number of contributors also being in the hundreds, if not the thousands, and ICT couldn’t find a simple,

Digital Place-Based Media & Technology

centralised DS server system that would network them all and reliably control such an enormous flow of disparate material. A key word here is ‘simple’, because the circumstances dictate that just as many people will need to be trained in preparing and uploading content to their particular displays. A lot of DS software today requires constant use to keep the operator’s skills sharpened, but the ICT is aware that many of the faculty staff will only update their digital signage periodically over long cycles, often monthly or weekly at best, and that’s enough time to forget everything you remembered last time the signage was changed. IT support could potentially become a nightmare as users regularly lost those skills. JUST BROWSING

The solution was to design a DS system that was web or browser-based, meaning. Users work inside the browser of choice such as Explorer or Firefox and the process of adding content to any display is as easy as uploading material to a website. Clients navigate to a specific site address where a straightforward window allows a drag-and-drop method of placing content on a screen. Theoretically, you can have as many screens as there are IP addresses available. Again, because of the web-based design, there are few restrictions on the file size, type and format that users can work with. Just like the internet, Windows, Linux, Mac computers are okay and even portable devices such as iPads can be used to log onto the system. A vast range of media files are recognised. OFF THE PEG

A possible flaw in the whole idea is that making the signage network so accessible and easy to use for everyone comes at the cost of security and content control. Precise scheduling also takes a hit when users are informed by the GUI that another department (for example) is already accessing your displays and you’re going to have to share. Audiovisual Services presently monitors all the material broadcast – no big chore while the system is in its infancy. Later as the network spreads it may become a bigger issue although the system is ultimately an enclosed network and protected from the outside world with the usual firewalls and protection.

Aside from some kind of media player unit or a screen with one in-built, no proprietary hardware or software is needed. The digital signage is indeed a geek-free zone. No promises on the acne though. Ó

â&#x20AC;&#x153;the GUI would be an environment that everybody was familiar with thanks to their internet experienceâ&#x20AC;?

FEED ME

How targeted messages and news feeds have made a material difference. Case Study 1: BWS & The Pharmacy Guild of Australia

Case Study 2: Banking & Insurance Organisations

Torch Media explains how it tackled two challenging digital signage networks.

Fujitsu Digital Media adds value to retail banking and services environments:

The Challenge: Digital out-of-home (OOH) can be incredibly powerful if the copy and the creative are engaging. Our challenge was to develop a network with the right mix of relevant and interesting content. After completing extensive field and secondary source research into overseas successes and failures we launched one of Australiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s largest digital OOH network positioned around two key retail channels, liquor (BWS) and pharmacy (The Pharmacy Guild of Australia).

Target market: The BWS Shopper is male skewed,18 to 34 years

old â&#x20AC;&#x201C; predominately â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;young parentsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;, â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;mid-lifeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; or â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;young singlesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;. The aim of the BWS digital network is to influence shoppers during the â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;moment of truthâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; to drive brand switching, consideration and to assist uneducated wine buyers. The typical pharmacy shopper is female 35+ skewed. The digital solution for the member pharmacies of The Pharmacy Guild of Australia aimed to influence customersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; incremental purchases while they waited for prescriptions.

The Solution: One key challenge with the retail environment is

dwell time. The typical dwell time for each channel differs considerably and therefore the mix of content had to be specifically tailored to each channel. Liquor: 3 to 5 minutes Pharmacy: 14 minutes

The BWS Network: The screens are positioned in the highest trafficked areas of the stores ensuring they are seen by the maximum number of shoppers. As BWS is a convenience-orientated liquor store, shoppers tend to make short visits, quick decisions and only dwell within the store if they are making a wine selection. Therefore we chose a mixture of news content including top stories, business and sports as well as weather to appeal to the male skew. This headline mix provides shoppers with short snippets of interesting and relevant information alongside amongst advertising content. The Pharmacy Guild of Australia: For the pharmacy shopper,

the screens are positioned in the dispensary making them clearly visible to shoppers while they wait for scripts to be filled. The digital network was built to provide shoppers with information around ailments, relevant advertising messaging and news content including the latest headlines, sport updates and weather forecasts. The network provides entertainment whilst shoppers wait and provides the ideal platform for pharmaceutical manufacturers to influence incremental purchases.

The technology behind the delivery of content: News Digital

Mediaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s content is sourced via full text and image feeds. The content is updated regularly throughout the day via ADSL.

The Results: The News Digital Mediaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s broad ranging content is an integral part of TorchMediaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s digital retail networks. It provides shoppers with relevant and engaging information to help drive interest and awareness from the screens. After all, research from international digital networks has shown content is king and key to the success of a digital advertising network.

Digital Place-Based Media & Technology

The Challenge: Fujitsu works closely with a number of Australiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s leading retail banking and insurance organisations to provide digital signage solutions that will maximise customer take-up and awareness of new banking products and services. Fujitsuâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s TELentice Enterprise Suite empowers organisations with the ability to better communicate their corporate messages through a digital communications network.

To complement Fujitsu Digital Mediaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s TELentice world leading technology and to provide their clients with a complete digital signage solution, Fujitsu sought out a strong content partner. By partnering with digital publisher News Digital Media whose brands include national news website, news.com.au, The Australian, The Daily Telegraph and Herald Sun, Fujitsu was able to offer clients the ability to incorporate bespoke news and business coverage (text and images) into financial institutions scheduled messaging to increase customer attention while in-store. The Solution (Using Fujitsuâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s TELentice Technology)

R5 /$#.-/5 , . 5-* #Ĺ&#x20AC; 5 )(. (.54)( -5. #&), 5.)5." 5*,)0# 5 infotainment by target audience R5 #." ,5*),., #.5 ( 5& ( - * 5- , (-5/- 5.)5 #-*& 35- " /& 5 video and dynamic product and services messages R5 ( ),*), .#)(5) 5 #&35( 1-5 )0 , ! 5 ,)'5.,/-. 5( 1-5 , ( 65 news.com.au, added credibility to customer targeted messaging R5 *5.)5 . 5( 1-5 )0 , ! 65*,)0# 5 5 )-.5 Äż .#0 51 35 ),5#(7 store content to remain fresh and of interest to customers R5 1-5 ( 5 /-#( --5 )0 , ! 5. #&), 5 ),5 , ( "]-5&) .#)(5 ( 5 demographics R5 -- ! -5, '). &35 ( 5 (., &&35 )(.,)&& 5 ),5 )(-#-. ( 35 ( 5 ease of management The Results

R5 '*,)0 5 /-.)' ,5- ,0# 5 ( 5#( , - 5- & -5 Äż .#0 ( --:5 staff are freed up to focus on service and selling opportunities R5 (" ( 5 /-.)' ,5 2* ,# ( R5 '*,)0 5-")1 - 5) 5*,) / .-5 ( 5- ,0# -5 R5 '*,)0 5 )'* .#.#0 ( --5.",)/!"5#( , - 5-* 7.)7' ,% .5 of retail and service offers R5 )-.5- 0#(!-5 35 &#'#( .#(!5*,#(. 5' . ,# &-

â&#x20AC;&#x153;News Digital Media is Fujitsuâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s trusted content partner. Drawing on content from the best known news brands in Australia, they offer a great choice for news, sport, entertainment and business as well as tailored options to suit the diverse needs of our clients. Working with News Digital Media has enabled us to offer clients a complete digital signage solution incorporating our world leading technology platform TELentice and with compelling news content.â&#x20AC;? Franca Surace General Manager Digital Media Solutions Fujitsu Australia Limited

These case studies have been provided by News Digital Media.

“This headline mix provides shoppers with short snippets of interesting and relevant information alongside advertising content”

Cold Case: The aim of the BWS digital network (right) is to influence shoppers during the ‘moment of truth’ to drive brand switching, consideration and to assist uneducated wine buyers. Good Chemistry: The pharmacy network (below) provides entertainment while shoppers wait, and provides the ideal platform for pharmaceutical manufacturers to influence incremental purchases.

Digital Place-Based Media & Technology

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Headline Act: By partnering with News Digital Media, Fujitsu was able to offer clients the ability to incorporate bespoke news and business coverage.

Attention Grabbing Headlines Add Value

The ability to get your message directly in front of new and existing customers has always been appealing. For many businesses, digital signage networks are a cost-effective way of having a powerful influence on your customers’ buying decisions. But not all digital signage networks are created equal. Relevant, compelling and trustworthy content is crucial if you want to attract and hold an audience, says Carl Poplett, business development manager for News Digital Media, the digital arm of News Limited, the publisher of some of Australia’s best known print, online and mobile brands including, news.com.au, The Australian, The Daily Telegraph and Herald Sun. News Digital Media has been supplying bespoke digital signage content services for a broad range of clients for more than two years. The publisher has partnered with manufacturer Fujitsu and retail media agency TorchMedia to offer digital signage solutions for businesses looking to complement their corporate messaging or advertising with relevant and

timely news, business, sport, and entertainment text and image feeds . Offering access to headlines, articles and images from more than 25 websites, News Digital Media has the quality and the depth to tailor solutions for a broad range of audiences. For example, the latest business headlines can be fed into a banking environment and breaking sports news or entertainment updates set up to attract the attention of a younger audience within a fashion retail store. Poplett says promoting your brand alongside wellknown and trusted brands has a positive benefit. “News Digital Media has conducted extensive research in the online space which has found that associating your brand with well-known and credible brands strengthens your own marketing message.” Indeed recent research into the effectiveness of online advertising by Pollinate found that online premium content environments delivered more than a 20 percent boost to consumer perceptions of their brands and their products than the same ads appearing on non-premium content environments.*

Poplett believes that this research is equally applicable to the out-of-home/digital signage arena. And News Digital Media’s brands are some of the best known and trusted news brands in Australia according to research by well established advertising agency GPY +R. Their 2010 Brand Asset Valuator study found that The Australian was the most powerful printed news brand in Australia.** Another benefit for businesses looking to partner with News in the digital signage space is that the media publisher has a vested interest in fostering relationships with its clients in this area. “The benefit to us is that it extends our news brands beyond the page, computer or mobile screen,” says Poplett. So while not all digital signage networks are created equal, there are distinct ways to give your brand’s network a competitive advantage. Eye-catching headlines from the nation’s leading news brands top the list. Ó News Digital Media: www.newsdigitalmedia.com.au *Source: Pollinate Research Dec 2009-Feb 2010 **Source: GPY+R 2010 Brand Asset Valuator results

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THINK BIG BIG W has a big digital signage network with big help from DAT Media. Text: Christopher Holder

IG W sells the iPad. I’m not entirely sure why that surprised me, but it did. And in the cheek-byjowl discount retail market, having one of the hottest products on the planet provides a real competitive advantage: it screams, ‘we have the big brands’.

And that’s the thing with BIG W, it promises ‘Lowest Price Everyday’, but I doubt if customers march into any one of the scores of outlets around the country waving a Chickenfeed catalogue ‘demanding satisfaction’. No, the BIG W customer is far more likely to be as brand conscious as much as they are budget conscious. UP WITH THE TIMES

BIG W has a longstanding relationship with DAT Media to provide in-store digital signage. What started as in-store radio has since grown into various cuttingedge digital signage applications. Fittingly, it’s a big network, with close on 1000 media players deployed, servicing various departments and media options within the national network of stores.

It’s a network that didn’t arrive off the peg, fully-formed – there was inevitably some trial and error. And for a store which is a black belt in retail, where store layout, staffing and the catalogues stuffed into our letterboxes are all managed, designed and planned to the letter, it took a certain amount of humility to discover how digital signage could best work for them. Putting in place the cash register/POS digital signage was a nobrainer, but working through the rollout from that point was more a case of ‘suck it and see’. In-store Promotions Manager, Melissa Lonsdale picks up the story: “The first use of plasma screens was in our Macquarie store, Sydney. We placed a plasma screen at the front of the store in a position that our customers could read from the outside as they’re coming in. They were able to see our latest offers, see we had the best brands…We then trialled two plasmas at the back of the checkout, which didn’t work for the business – the positioning wasn’t right. They were removed and we’ve now moved towards having a screen that’s positioned for the people in the queue for checkout (most stores now have a common queue for all the checkout lanes). That screen tells people which checkout they should go to but also keeps their minds busy while they’re waiting to be served – it’s proven to be much more effective.”

Digital Place-Based Media & Technology

“Our customers are constantly moving, they won’t stand, wait and watch. They get a glimpse and that might be a enough for them to go away and think ‘Wow, I didn’t know BIG W did that!”

Video Wall: The 3 x 3 42-inch Plasma Wall in the Home Entertainment Department is part of the current format for all new and refurbished stores. This format is now featured in over 100 BIG W stores nationally. The Plasma Wall is a critical element of an overall digital signage placement strategy that incorporates multiple touch points for BIG W customers throughout the stores. It is positioned at the rear of the store, directly visible from store entry and store approach. The intention is to create a dynamic visual to attract attention and draw people further into the store.

Digital Place-Based Media & Technology

THINKING BIG Digital signage has proliferated in most BIG W stores but it’s the home entertainment department that leads the way. Always at the back of the store, the electronics section with its TVs, computer games and DVDs, sports a 3 x 3 42-inch Plasma Wall that helps draw customers through the store like moths to a technicolour flame. This format is now featured in over 100 BIG W stores nationally. The Plasma Wall is a critical piece in the overall digital signage puzzle where signs are placed at multiple touch points. Featured content is a mix of BIG W corporate, plus other supplier marketing communications and is used very effectively to promote upcoming events, new products and special offers. The content is managed through DAT Media’s content management system and is scheduled to cycle regularly, with high levels of frequency. DAT schedules both weekly and monthly campaigns on the Plasma Wall, but there’s plenty of inherent flexibility where campaigns can have individual start/finish dates. Employing DAT’s CMS functionality allows content to be simply updated at either a single store, a group of stores or all stores, providing a significant marketing competitive edge for the retailer and its suppliers. Many suppliers use the Plasma Wall as part of a Run Of Store (ROS) in-store media package, which incorporates all available digital in-store media, both audio and visual. FAST-PACED CHANGE

The BIG W digital signage network has proven to be a powerful and targeted marketing weapon. The DAT Media partnership is critical to the success of the network. Having one point of contact for everything from the supply and installation of the digital signage gear, to creative design and scheduling has taken the headache out of venture. It has given BIG W the freedom to react and respond quickly when it’s needed. Melissa Lonsdale again: “The digital signage network can move so quickly. It’s great for change and we can communicate that change at very short notice.” And if the message is not a total bullseye?

“Well, you pull it. We had that with a recent execution for ladies’ underwear. We didn’t think it was too confronting but it proved a little racy for some customers! So it’s about communicating the right message. It’s about grabbing the customer’s attention; appealing to the customer, and doing it in a manner that they don’t have to stand and wait for the message – they can get it as they’re on the move. Our customers are constantly moving, they won’t stand, wait and watch. They get a glimpse and that might be a enough for them to go away and think ‘Wow, I didn’t know BIG W did that!’.” Ó

The digital photo lab, the price check stations and the POS screens all play a part in the bigger picture of BIG W‘s digital signage solution.

Digital Place-Based Media & Technology

ABOUT DAT MEDIA DAT’s full-service offering includes the following services that can be utilised in totality or individually as required by the client: · digital media consultancy · equipment supply / install · in-house creative design · in-house media sales · proprietary CMS (content management system) · in-house technical support DAT Media recently won the tender to supply digital media services to ABC Retail stores. DAT Media’s proprietary CMS (content management system) allows both BIG W and ABC Retail stores to update content instantly and react to competitor activity and also includes advanced monitoring diagnostics that allow remote management of deployed equipment, thus a reduction in the requirement for site-based service efforts. DAT Media: (07) 5575 7798 or www.datmedia.com.au

Digital Place-Based Media & Technology

NOW SHOWING Val Morgan steps out of the movie theatre and into the foyer with its digilites network. Story: Christopher Holder

BULLET PROOF

The digilites network only does its job when reliably displaying its clients’ advertising – downtime is a loss of revenue. So the network has to be ‘bulletproof’. Val Morgan turned to Command Digital Signage to take care of the development and installation of the network. No corners were cut, with the best in cabling used, while an Optus Evolve private network was used to guarantee bandwidth within the network. The digilites network employs Wincomm media players – an industrial PC with great reliability. All the Val Morgan screens display the same content, so only one Wincomm media player is required per site. The video is transmitted via VGA cable or Beacon Cat-5 VGA extenders to the Panasonic 50-inch plasma screens. Each individual screen is controlled through either a serial cable or the extenders connected to the media players. Plasma displays traditionally weren’t selected for digital signage because of burn-in concerns. Digilites advertising is animated, so burn-in isn’t so much of a concern, but the server runs a test pattern every morning, comprised of flickering colours and squares, which helps prevent burn-in. Command Digital Signage: 1300 780 204 or www.digitalsignage.com.au

Digital Place-Based Media & Technology

he advantages are as clear as Keira Knightley’s complexion, as easy to spot as a Farrelly Brothers’ joke, and as subtle as an army of orcs – digital signage in movie foyers is a no-brainer. It didn’t take long for Val Morgan to see the possibilities. As anyone who’s ever been to the cinema knows, Val Morgan sells advertising space on cinema screens. Traditionally, it also supplemented the on-screen advertising with posters in the foyer. These static posters were swapped out most weeks by teams of ‘poster swapper-outerers’ – all very labourintensive and old-school. In 2008 Val Morgan management had an epiphany: why not upgrade the existing infrastructure, and move from static posterboxes to digital posterboxes? And, like I said, the advantages of such a move are as obvious as Gerard Depardieu’s nose on your face: there’s the ease in which material can be updated remotely, the automatically generated reporting system for advertisers, and a screen management system as well – to ensure everything is functioning as expected.

The digital signage network has been dubbed ‘digilites’; it spans 120 key cinema locations and comprises 340 panels in all. DigitalSignage caught up with two of the key protagonists

within Val Morgan to discover what they’ve learnt from their digilites experiences and precisely how it works. USHERING IN A NEW ERA

Paul Butler, Val Morgan Marketing Director, has helped mastermind the roll out of the digilites network, and over the last couple of years observed the upward trajectory of this new advertising platform. In almost all cases, digilites supplements in-cinema advertising, helping to reinforce a message or providing a more local, targeted adjunct to the main message. I kicked off by asking Paul where the screens are positioned and what mix of advertising is scheduled on them.

Paul Butler: The Digilite screens have been installed in the

major metropolitan multiplexes. The larger cinemas with bigger foyers and greater audiences have more panels than the smaller sites. It’s important that they stand out from an advertising perspective so we position them in key traffic points. The material on the screens is a mix of advertising and movie-related content – ads for upcoming movies. DS: Why not simply have rotating ads?

PB: It was to provide a better experience for the moviegoer. Obviously there’s already a lot of movie promotion going on in the cinema foyer, so we felt that having the ads interspersed with movie-related content – whether that be specific info on new movie titles or info on the cinema group itself – was a

good way of keeping the ads sympathetic to the movie going experience.

DS: Although, there’s enough movie-related advertising and trailers in a foyer already, surely?

PB: You’re right, there’s plenty of movie-related collateral in the foyer, but digilites really provides an opportunity for individual titles to stand out and cut through with well-conceived highly creative digital poster content. It’s a great fit; a great way to promote movies and lift the profile, especially over and above the static posters.

DS: Are the digital posterbox ads normally used in conjunction with the on-screen movie theatre advertisements? PB: Normally, yes. They’ll run in conjunction with on-screen advertising. It’s a good way of supplementing the on-screen advertising with more directional or more tactical signage – for example, you can use digilites to tailor the on-screen advertising to the local area. We can also update the message very quickly – and relatively inexpensively. It’s a great way to give a campaign an edge – they go into the cinema, see the advertising on the screen, they come out and they’re reminded of the message.

KEEPING IT SIMPLE

DS: digilites has been conceived as a digital drop-in replacement for traditional posterbox advertising, but you must have been tempted to turn the screens in a landscape orientation?

PB: We thought long and hard and decided to go with the portrait format and we very deliberately decided to not run sound. There’s lots of stuff going on in a cinema foyer and for digilites to cut through we determined that we need a very clean-looking visual approach, with simple animation. It helps capture people’s attention. In a similar vein, all the screens run the same message, so if you have four screens in your line of sight they animate in sync – the whole bank changes. Again, this helps capture attention.

DS: Right, so there’s a real ‘look’ to the digilites advertising. Do

you sometimes assist advertisers to grasp this ‘simple is better’ approach?

PB: We occasionally help deconstruct their existing outdoor artwork and bring that into the animated sense by adding layers gradually – works well. DS: What’s the typical duration of an ad?

PB: Normally 15 seconds. And typically the ad ‘assembles’ itself over the 15 seconds – there’s normally not any static periods without animation. We have an allocation of six or seven advertisements that run in a sequence. We then intersperse those advertisements with the movie-related material. DS: Right, so it’s quite a generous rotation then?

Digital Place-Based Media & Technology

HIGHLIGHTS PACKAGE

s %XECUTIONS ARE SECONDS LONG s DIGILITES ADS ARE KEPT ELEGANT AND SIMPLE s ! LIMITED INVENTORY OF ADVERTISING X SECOND ADS

run in a playlist, interspersed with movie-related content. s !LL DIGITAL POSTERBOXES ON EACH SITE RUN THE SAME synchronised content. s +EEPING THE TRADITIONAL PORTRAIT FORMAT FOR THE NEW DIGItal posterboxes helps the advertising to be noticed. s 6AL -ORGAN DIDN T SKIMP ON THE TECHNOLOGY INFRASTRUCture of the network, ensuring screen downtime is kept to a minimum.

Digital Place-Based Media & Technology

PB: We’re really very fortunate with the cinema environment, there are good dwell times in the foyer. A lot of people do arrive early, they don’t just run through the foyer and land in their seats as the opening credits roll – they like to see what else is coming through. With typical dwell time it means people will see our ad rotation several times, but won’t be repeated to the point where it becomes tedious.

ON SCHEDULE

Adam Wrightson is Executive Director & CTO of Hoyts Cinema Technology Group – a unit that oversees the roll out and maintenance of Hoyts and Val Morgan technology. I asked Adam about the software that controls the digilites network. Adam Wrightson: We worked with Command to provide the

original software to run the network and the install maintence services for the network. We already have an in-house scheduling and programming system called CinVendo. It schedules and tracks every advertising campaign that comes through the company. CinVendo now includes our digilites campaign schedule. So those campaign schedules go into our system, which drive billing and feedback to the advertisers as to where their advertising is booked.

From there it outputs an xml feed that gets pulled into our digital signage system. So effectively all of our sites are automatically scheduled. We don’t have any operators sitting there doing a drag and drop or creating playlists – it’s all automatic from our own in-house scheduling system. In addition, we’ve developed services that run on the on-site media players, like a ‘sentinel’ program that regularly checks in with the plasma screens. The program will not only check if each screen is on or off, but will determine if the screen is on the right input and so on. Not too many digital signage networks have that level of monitoring, and it means that if someone was able to take off the frame and change the input of a screen, the sentinel program would detect that and change it back. That’s how we ensure the advertising messages remain on screen and the uptime is as high as it can be.

DS: And minimising costly on-site service calls as well, I assume?

AW: That’s right. And from a Val Morgan perspective, we don’t

own, control or manage any of the complexes – it’s our equipment in someone else’s premises. So we need the network to be dependable because getting hold of staff to troubleshoot a display isn’t easy – in their world, if the screen isn’t working all by itself, then it’s a nuisance.

DS: Right, so you can’t ring the box office and ask the lady there to power cycle ‘that screen in the foyer’!? AW: No. In fact, at sites where reliability or power is an issue

we’ve installed Aviosys IP power switches. If a PC hangs, we can log into the IP power switch and power down the PC that way. That player might be in the roof cavity, or somewhere equally inaccessible – so it’s better to have the IP power switch turn the power remotely – you can reboot the computer, rather than send an engineer to site. All up, 99% of sites have been bulletproof.

DS: Is the writing on the wall for traditional posterboxes?

AW: I think so. A digital poster sets it apart. Having that little

bit of movement in the animated posters is just enough to grab the eye and stop people when they’d otherwise walk by.

We’re building a new cinema complex in New Zealand and it’ll only have digital posterboxes. So when every message is digital will it have the same currency? I’m not sure. As it stands today, it’s fairly compelling. And the results speak for themselves both for the advertisers and for movie content – this platform works. Ó

Digital Place-Based Media & Technology

LG RIDES INTO PERU

SCALA SETS SAIL

LG Electronics has installed digital signage at the Jockey Plaza Shopping Centre, one of the largest and most popular shopping malls in Lima, Peru. As you can imagine, LG is saying it is an exciting new technology for Peru and they didn’t hold back. 48 x LCD monitors are tiled together placed one next to each other around a 50m circular perimeter creating a 360° media illusion. There are actually three groups driven by one OneLan Net-Top-Box player each. Two groups are sections of 20 monitors and are in a 5x4 video wall mode on the north and south sides linked by the third group of two small 4x1 video walls east and west. The 5x4 video walls are not placed as ‘regular squared’ video wall. The second column is placed beside the first column, the third one beside the second column and so on. The project was delivered successfully in time for key advertising during the football World Cup 2010. Shoppers must have loved watching Peru’s team get flogged across 48 screens.

This should deserve an on-the-spot investigative report from yours truly, but I don’t like my chances. P&O Cruises has installed a new integrated digital signage network on board the Azura, the latest ship in the company’s luxury fleet. Beaver Solutions got to design, implement and manage the network, which is built on the Scala 5 software platform, with inputs and distribution across dozens of displays throughout the 19 decks of the 300m-long ship. Every display promotes the services and activities available on board, plus displaying information that is relevant to the location of each screen. Passengers can also get the ship’s exact location, local weather and important news announcements (iceberg ahoy?) from live satellite feeds. Some screens enable interactive multimedia gaming such as Nintendo Wii Sports and movies. A challenge for Beaver Solutions was the system had to operate seamlessly while at sea without a reliable internet connection, which is only available while the ship is docked. Otherwise it is impossible for Scala, which now support the entire system, to provide services while the Azura is at sea. Reliability and ease-of-use by the crew was important. I guess this means R.I.P. for deck shuffleboard.

LG: (02) 8805 4395 or www.lgsolutions.com OneLan: www.onelan.com

Techmedia Digital Systems: (02) 9526 7880 or www.connectedsignage.com.au

2008 CheckoutTV Recall Study: 70 percent of consumers reported it influenced MITSUBISHI SIMPLY ELECTRIC: The VS-L46XM70U 46-inch LCD display from Mitsubishi is a commercial panel designed specifically for multi-screen display wall installations. It features a 46-inch diagonal WXGA (1366x768 pixel) screen with a viewing angle of 178º. The VS-L46XM70U has a total mullion width of 7.3mm, and Colour Space Control that can tweak the colour and brightness of each display automatically so they are identical. A total of six source windows can be shown on each display.

NEWS:

Mitsubishi Electric Australia: (02) 9684 7777 or www.mitsubishielectric.com.au

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BRIGHTSIGN BRIGHT IDEA: BrightSign has released two new solid-state media controllers with builtin wi-fi (802.11a/b/g/n) capabilities. The HD210w and the HD1010w are designed to make setup quicker and easier. BrightSign’s HD210w looping sign controller and HD1010w interactive sign controller can be connected to a wireless network without having to install cabling or an adaptor. The media players are complete, ready-to-use hidef signage solutions. Image Design Technology (IDT): 1300 666 099 or sales@idt.com.au SANYO HD INSTALL: Sanyo has announced the launch of its first full

HD professional installation projector, the PLC-ZM5000L. Hi-res WUXGA panels in the PLC-ZM5000L enables projection of 16:10 aspect ratio WUXGA images and allows users to go beyond full HD with an expanded screen and larger information to be displayed. The PLC-ZM5000L features a new optical engine with inorganic panels providing a brightness of 5000 lumens and contrast ratio of 2000:1. Sanyo: 1300 360 230 or info@sanyo.com.au INSTANT GRATIFICATION: Fusion is Spinetix’s new digital signage software application – designed to dramatically simplify the implementation of

GOING LONG

KELLOGGS ADOPTS DS CEREAL PORTS

NEC has an addition to its X Series, the 43-inch X431BT bar-type display. This professional-grade LCD was designed for those customers who want to capitalise on digital signage but don’t have an environment that allows for standard-sized screens – in retail, fast food outlets or transport hubs, for example. The bar-type display opens up some different content options, including menuboards, scrolling text and advertising of new promotions. Or, if you want to mix things up a bit, you can mount it in a portrait orientation. Customers who want to maximise the benefits of installing an X431BT can employ the display’s Picture in Picture (PIP), Picture on Picture (POP) and sideby-side modes to show information in different ways. Two inputs can be displayed simultaneously in any of these modes by either maintaining one aspect ratio or evenly stretching both images to fill each half of the screen. Finally, the X431BT expands the messaging options with its DisplayPort, HDMI and DVI-D connectivity.

With so many companies adopting digital signage to get their message over to the public, it’s a change to see someone using DS primarily to inform its employees. In the United States, as a pilot program, 20 BrightSign HD210 solid-state controllers were installed at Kellogg offices in employee break rooms, as well as lobbies and other public areas. Kellogg soon decided the initial digital signage solution met all of their requirements and ordered an additional 43 network-enabled HD210 units that will ultimately connect the company’s more than 50 distribution centres located throughout the US. Kellogg’s previous employee communications system (based on PowerPoint presentations) was largely ignored by employees and frequently just did not work. Now digital signage delivers full HD corporate-wide communications as well as stock prices, local weather, or even site-specific information such as recognition of an employee’s birthday. Kellogg is also testing an implementation that includes an interactive touchscreen paired with a BrightSign HD1010 player for an “even more engaging employee experience”. Maybe if they touch the right screen they’ll get a little plastic toy in their pay-packet?

NEC Australia: 131 632 or displays@nec.com.au

Image Design Technology (IDT) 1300 666 099 or sales@idt.com.au

their intent to buy the product in the future. small-scale signage projects. Now installed within every Spinetix HMP Hyper Media Player, Fusion allows content to be managed via a web browser interface and can therefore be accessed either locally or remotely using a PC, Mac, Linux or iPad platform. Once connection to the Player has been achieved, content can be uploaded, edited and published with minimal technical skill and in record time. Explaining the thinking behind Fusion, Serge Konter, Marketing Manager, Spinetix, says: “Our objective with Fusion was to embed a digital signage application that works instantly and allows system setup

to be completed by the installer or the end user, regardless of their technical expertise or skill level. We estimate that in most situations, it will take less than 30 minutes for an initial setup to be completed under the Fusion application.” Madison Technologies: 1800 66 99 99 or www.madisontech.com.au NEW SPINETIX REP: the company has signed Madison Technologies to be a certified distribution partner for Australia. Madison will implement and increase the presence and use of the Spinetix hardware and software products in

the region. Madison Technologies: 1800 66 99 99 or www.madisontech.com.au C-NARIO PARTNERSHIP: Based in Tel Aviv, C-nario, which provides digital signage software solutions and AOpen, a small form factor (SFF) computer system manufacturer has announced a partnership. AOpen will integrate C-nario’s C-sign digital signage solution with its Digital Engine platform and will market the integrated system to small and medium businesses across the US. C-Sign can be scaled from a standalone display system to networked multiple

displays. AOpen’s Digital Engine is a compact media player comprising various options including TV tuner, Bluetooth, wireless LAN and mounting kits. C-Nario: www.c-nario.com NEC FACES PUBLIC: NEC Australia announced a new accessory for its LCD public displays, the DVB-T Board. The DVB-T Board analogue/digital tuner card allows users to capture streaming HD video content via the built-in expansion slot of NEC’s P and X Series LCD Public Displays while still acting as a standard digital/ analogue tuner. The NEC Tuner is a Digital Place-Based Media & Technology

House of Golf

OH WHAT A FEELING

When it comes to getting some extra length off the tee or switching up to a never-fail putter, there are times when golfers have a very itchy trigger finger on their wallet. If it means taking a couple of shots off the handicap… well then, they’re looking for any excuse to ‘invest’ in new gear. ISTV (In-Store TV) commissioned Aeris Solutions to supply a simple cost-effective touchscreen solution for the House of Golf. The objective was to allow customers to view specials and promotions within the different categories. Aeris Solutions provided the Digital View 10-inch VideoFlyer touch-linked to a Viewstream 300 for synchronised playback. Each LCD plays independently until the touchscreen is pressed. The content is then played-back on both LCDs as a synchronised file. Fore!

Ken Mills Toyota, in Nambour and Maroochydore, decided that technology would be able to enhance the look and feel of the showroom, and worked with local advertising consultants to design the best ‘customer experience’ showroom available. Ken Mills Toyota has used the Omnivex Display 3 Solution as well as DataPipe that allows for real-time data delivery with the layouts. There are screens in the spare parts customer lounge displaying live free-to-air TV for customer news and children’s entertainment. The screens also display promotional information such as reminders on vehicle repair schedules, tips and hints on car care, latest specials in spare parts and real-time RSS news feeds. In the service lounge, web cams display vehicles within the service bay, so customers can check where the car is up to in the maintenance schedule. In the new car showroom a 2x2 46-inch video wall displays the latest vehicles in action. The system is almost self maintaining, designed from the onset with a low maintenance requirement. Customers have commented on how cutting-edge the design is, and that the large video screen really shows the cars at their best. The staff has noticed considerable customer feedback, and even products and specials that are displayed within the screens have received more enquiries than previously.

ISTV: (03) 9699 9549 Aeris Solutions: 1300 339 873 or www.aerissolutions.com.au

Communitech: (07) 3205 6188 or www.communitech.com.au

Nielsen survey: 68% said in-store messages would sway their purchasing simple and cost-effective way of receiving TV signals on a commercial public display. Using the option slot integrated within the displays means the user does not need any additional cables or external devices and can operate the tuner using the display’s remote control. TV Channels can also be changed via LAN through the built-in HTTP server.

NEWS:

NEC Australia 131632 or www.nec.com.au MICROSOFT BUYS 3D SMARTS: Canesta, Inc. announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to have its products, technology, intellectual property, customer contracts, and other resources acquired by the Microsoft Corporation. Canesta is a provider of

Digital Place-Based Media & Technology

Canest: www.canesta.com

commercial display offers several improvements over its predecessor the X461UN. A DisplayPort connection allows full connectivity and the X462UN premieres EdgeComp technology, which improves brightness uniformity for a steadier image across the entire video wall. This correction feature works by decreasing the brightness from the centre of the display while maintaining the level of brightness around the left and right edges. The X462UN still has an ultra-narrow bezel of 2.7mm and can be deployed in matrices of up to 10x10 (using onboard processing) giving a total possible 60sqm video wall.

MORE FROM NEC: The new X462UN

NEC Australia 131632 or www.nec.com.au

3D sensing technology which is critical to making Natural User Interfaces (NUI) possible and it’s the inventor of a single chip 3D sensing technology platform, plus owns a large body of intellectual property. Included is the invention of standard CMOS 3D sensing pixels, fundamental innovations in semiconductor device physics, mixed-signal IC chip design, optics, signal processing algorithms, and computer vision software. No details of the agreement have been disclosed. The acquisition is expected to be completed before the end of this year.

HERMA GOES POP

NEW LOOK FOR NEW LOOK

POP screens are Point of Purchase screens available from LP Morgan and distributed by Herma. Made of 3mm thick acrylic material POP screens are rear-projection screens in the mid-grey formula designed for in-house placement, store windows and other locations where, for example, a plasma or LCD monitor isn’t practical – or maybe just putting a big, shiny television in your window makes your insurance agent nervous. The mid-grey coating is suitable for bright lighting conditions and reproduces heightened contrast. However, Herma point out that subdued and indirect lighting in the space between the screen and the projector light source will always bring even better results. Screens are available in a range of five sizes starting from 49-inch to 120-inch for the 4:3 aspect ratio models and 45-inch to 110-inch in the 16:9 aspect ratio types. Beyond these, Herma is more than happy to create custom-sized screens of any dimensions for clients and even different shapes – they don’t have to be square (the screens, not the clients…). It’s worth noting that for screen widths greater than 1333mm a frame is recommended to ensure a flat surface and, of course, Herma can sell you a frame and suspension kit to suit. That will include the three larger, standard sizes in both aspect ratio models above.

In-store media provider Mood Media Corporation has created visual media content and installed the first Christie MicroTiles wall in a retail environment across the UK and Ireland in fashion retailer New Look, which is opening its flagship store in Dublin this month. Mood Media Corporation’s visual media team has developed animated content to broadcast through MicroTiles to promote New Look’s product range and to entice shoppers to go downstairs, where New Look has one of the largest store areas in the shopping centre. Mood Media has created a customised New Look soundtrack to enhance the label’s on-trend brand, broadcasting it across all stores, and is working with the New Look marketing team to gain clearance on all music tracks used for their recently launched TV campaigns – currently broadcasting New Look’s winter range of boots, knitwear, coats, social and party-wear. Vanessa Walmsley, SVP of Corporate Marketing at Mood Media Corporation, said: “When we got the brief for this store opening, we knew we wanted to introduce something show-stopping and immediately contacted Christie. We work with retail clients and are 100 percent focused on finding the right media solutions to enhance shopper experiences.”

Herma Technologies: (03) 9480 6233 or www.herma.com.au

VRS (Christie): (07) 3844 9514 or info@vrs.com.au

decisions and 77% said it was a useful way to learn about products. GEFEN PROVIDES WHOLE PACKAGE: Gefen Communications in the US is happy to admit its strengths lie in knowing the nuts and bolts of digital signage networks, but when it comes to dazzling content creation Gefen decided to call in the experts – in fact, three of them. With the explosion of interest in digital signage and the ensuing epidemic of screens, large and small, popping up all over the place like plasma mushrooms, it’s no surprise that some companies in the industry like Gefen have already recognised that a bigger emphasis is

going to be put on content. Things weren’t so bad when you had the only video wall on the block. Now you’ll be fortunate to have the only video wall in the same toilet block. Grabbing the exclusive attention of a passing audience when your signage network is surrounded by similar screens all trying to do the same thing has come back to basics – looking better than the rest. The wow and novelty factor of digital display wizardry was more than enough when the competition didn’t exist. Now network integrators have to plan on being one of a crowd and looking more impressive than the screen next door.

Gefen has announced an association with three high-profile digital content creation studios – Jeffery Casper Productions, MossMedia and Studio1080 – allowing Gefen and its resellers to provide a complete digital signage integration service from start to completion that’s quicker and more effective as departments managing ongoing digital signage content have access to graphics from some of the top designers working today. While this is all taking place in The States it’s undoubtedly a (digital, of course) sign of things to come here in Australia. Many system integra-

tors and digital signage providers offer complete packages that have the ability to create your own content. Some involve software that’s fully-featured along the lines of Adobe’s Creative Suite and programs like Sony’s Vegas. Still few, if any, include access to the sort of truly artistic, creative resources you’ll find in the three companies listed above and instead you can expect we’ll also see partnerships forged between similar organisations in Australia. Gefen: www.gefen.com Amber Technology: 1800 251 367 or display@ambertech.com.au Digital Place-Based Media & Technology

WHO’S WHO:

3M AUSTRALIA 136 136 or solutions.3m.com.au When it comes to its digital signage products 3M Australia starts with the 3M Network Edition (NE) Software for scheduling, management and delivery of multimedia content. Other product offerings include 3M projectors and 3M’s Vikuiti rear projection film that transforms a window or almost any transparent surface into a screen for projectors to focus on from safely inside the premises. A new product is 3M’s Visual Attention Service (VAS), a facility for analysing digital images and determining which areas of that image will attract the viewer’s attention within the first three to five seconds. It uses scientific comparisons of colour contrasts and shapes to help content creators fine-tune parts of images that are important or conversely scale back sections not critical to the message. Last, but not least, 3M offers large-format touchscreen solutions including the new M2256PW Multi-Touch Display, a 22-inch (560mm) touch screen that can respond to 20 simultaneous fingers within six milliseconds. That makes it ideal for the whole range of interactive DOOH systems as long as your authoring software can take advantage of the M2256PW’s capabilities.

To be strictly correct Amber Technology doesn’t have any digital signage services of its own to offer. However, it is the distributor of Gefen and SpinitiX products, which are already listed on these pages – to mention just a few. In fact, that’s the point here. Amber Technology is the Australian distributor of such a large range of overseas manufacturers, including the makers of just about every bit of electronic gadgetry you’ll need when it comes to installing a digital signage network, that it would be remiss not to bring Amber Technology to your attention. Another side to digital signage should be pointed out – plenty of companies are coming onto the scene offering to produce for clients broadcastquality content without getting involved in the actual hardware installations. One of Amber Technology’s Professional, Broadcast and Consumer divisions can tap into a wealth of expertise and resources to help find the right studio recording or video editing equipment. As a distributor Amber Technology may have to point you towards an authorised dealer, but don’t hesitate to give them a call.

AMX AUSTRALIA (07) 5531 3103 or www.amxaust.com.au

AERIS SOLUTIONS (03) 9544 6902 or www.aerissolutions.com.au Aeris Solutions saw the digital signage writing on the wall early and is well established in the industry with plenty of DOOH solutions on offer. It has a selection of stand-alone media players that range from entry-level to full-featured, high definition units. For networked installations, Aeris has a good handle on Sony’s DOOH line-up, offering Sony’s Ziris digital signage software in all its various forms from Lite through to Professional. Alternatively, Aeris can provide Signagelive, which is a relatively new take on Software as a Service (SAAS). Simplified, Signagelive clients share a single, common server and all use the same software to subscribe and upload to the Signagelive network via a secure Internet connection. Then through any web browser the user can manage their signage network, be it only one screen through to thousands of screens worldwide. The SAAS concept is relieves clients of the need to purchase and maintain the DOOH back-end server infrastructure themselves. The Signagelive subscription model allows them to expand or reduce their exposure as they see fit. Aeris also has in-store music solutions via Imagesound and VideoFlyer products, the latter being smaller stand-alone or networked media players enclosed within LCD screens designed for point-of-purchase installations.

AMBER TECHNOLOGY (02) 9452 8600 or www.ambertech.com.au

Digital Place-Based Media & Technology

AMX is synonymous with networking and control systems. Not surprisingly AMX has entered the digital signage industry in its own right (after all, AMX supply a huge amount of gear for everyone else’s DOOH) and have on offer two products. Inspired Xpress is for smaller or simpler installations with a ‘tiny’ media player called the Is-Xpress-1000. The integrated software is comprehensive, yet straightforward and intuitive enough to cater to clients to get their screens up and running quickly with a minimum of servicing the message afterwards. Inspired Xpert is – as you might guess – a more serious DOOH product with better options like HD broadcasting that, among many other extras, takes advantage of those system command and control devices that AMX has in other corners of the warehouse to provide fully-blown large networks. Plus with Inspired XPert customers have access to custom content development and content management services from AMX.

CISCO SYSTEMS (02) 8446 5000 or www.cisco.com/go/dms Cisco Systems is generally referred to as plain ‘Cisco’ and everyone knows who you’re talking about unless they get confused with a pair of questionable Mexican outlaws who were seen on ABC telly – oh, about a 100 years ago. Cisco is one of those large, US-based multinational companies that specialises in most aspects of modern business network and it’s surprising to learn the company originated from a husband and wife team who got peeved they couldn’t email each and decided to do something about it (no one explains why they

weren’t talking to each other, but I’ll bet it was his fault). Now they’ve got over 68,000 employees and branches all over the world including Australia. Cisco Digital Signage includes three product lines: The Cisco Digital Media Manager is a web-based media management application that manages, schedules and publishes digital media to digital signage displays. The Cisco Digital Media Player is an IP-based hardware endpoint that handles the display and playback of digital media content including high-definition live broadcasts and ondemand video, Flash animations, text tickers, and more all sourced from, of course, Media Manager. The Scientific Atlanta Encoder is for live broadcasting of standard-definition video to the Media Player. Models with both analogue and digital signage inputs are available.

COMMAND AUSTRALIA (02) 4560 1800 or www.commandaustralia.com.au Command Australia is an importer and distributor of digital signage and interactive products and provides full project management to get your DOOH designs and ambitions out there. Its products include Navori Digital Signage software, GlassVu, TransVu and other On-Glass Projection Films, Touch-Glass, Tap-Glass and interactive products such as Wincomm. If that all sounds a bit much Command can provide a complete Digital Signage Hosting service – just throw your digital signage ball into Command’s court and let it do all the worrying. It is also the authorised reseller of SoThink software, an authoring application that’s available in versions suitable for beginners through to professional programmers. However with 25 years in the IT, graphics and advertising industries Command has an impressive 2000 hours of stock ‘footage’ that can be used as a basis for your advertising designs. For hardware Command is a reseller of several well-recognised brands of projection and display devices such as NEC, Samsung, Mitsubishi and Projectiondesign to name but a few. Basically, Command is a one-stop shop for digital signage and interactive displays.

COMMUNITECH (07) 3205 6188 or www.communitech.com.au Communitech is based in Brisbane, Queensland and has the Australian and New Zealand distributorship of Omnivex Moxie, a digital signage software suite developed by Omnivex Corporation in Ontario, Canada. Omnivex Moxie offers authoring with a Layout Designer, Scheduling, Playlist Builder and more. A separate (but included) application is dedicated to synchronising large displays over grids of multiple screens, while SQLLink 4 and Datapipe are for sorting and sourcing data from all the corners of your databases. A neat application that Omnivex Moxie currently has in Beta development

Digital Place-Based Media & Technology

is the Omnivex GPS Link where digital signage that’s installed on mobile platforms like buses and trains can be linked to an onboard GPS device and the display changed according to the vehicle’s location. For example, tour buses could display information relevant to the scenery outside along with a live tracking map, and potentially public transport could display advertisements that match businesses nearby. Passengers can press their noses to the window and watch the storefront whizz by – hey, no one said the bus would stop. Communitech recently completed a project at the University of Wollongong proving that clients ‘south of the border’ are welcomed. In fact, it has done projects from the Pilbara in WA to Dunedin in NZ.

DAT MEDIA (07) 5575 7798 or www.datmedia.com.au DAT Media was established in 2003 to manage BIG W’s national in-store radio network. With over 15 years experience within the in-store media industry, Managing Director Andrew Becker was quick to notice the emergence of digital signage advertising within the retail sector. He began focusing on creating a visual media solution for current and future clients to harness the power of what was still back then a developing media. The strategy resulted in DAT Media creating a complete digital media network for BIG W that now includes in-store radio, digital signage, register Point Of Sale (POS) and a customer queuing solution that reduces the frustration of being caught in a long – or even wrong – queue. DAT Media expanded rapidly as they claimed some serious scalps for clients – among them Coles, Target and ABC Shops. DAT Media offer a comprehensive Content Management System and can assist new clients in broadcasting material across existing networks such as those mentioned above or will help you create a complete digital signage network from the ground up. They also have a Creative Services department that can take the hassle out of putting everything together.

DYNAMIC VISUAL SOLUTIONS (02) 9431 6070 or www.dynamicvisualsystems.com.au Dynamic Visual Solutions is based in Artarmon, Sydney and approaches the digital signage business in a slightly different, almost refreshing way. Rather than offer you its own range of screens, players and applications (though we should point out strong partnerships here with CoolSign and Nexcom) DVS suggests the very first thing you should consider in your digital signage concepts is exactly what you’d like to do, see and have to work with. From there, DVS will start putting a range of solutions on the table and take them right through to a turnkey completion. A distinction is made by DVS between Digital Signage, Kiosk and Video Wall systems but the tailor-made approach of building a

DOOH network from the ground up based on a client’s initial vision still applies. Creative software is also sourced or supplied from inside DVS, however its parent company Digistor is an option to provide any bigger-than-Ben-Hur video content you’d like. It almost goes without saying that full installation and support are a part of the deal.

EMSTREAM (02) 9280 2135 or www.emstream.com.au Emstream was started in 1999 by a musically minded entrepreneur who envisaged a customisable digital music service catering to the specific needs of the hospitality industry and business in general. Today Emstream operates throughout Australia and beyond with hundreds of commercial sites connected to its services. Emstream has moved beyond just music but the vision is unchanged: to provide top quality digital media entertainment solutions to businesses. In achieving this vision, Emstream has developed enormous content libraries, unique customisation techniques, unrivalled delivery technology and super-reliable hardware.

FUJITSU DIGITAL MEDIA SOLUTIONS (03) 9924 3468 or fujitsu.com.au Fujitsu’s digital signage services are marketed under the all-encompassing mantle of TELentice Enterprise, a concept that brings together three main components, the TELentice Player, the TELentice Monitor and a selection of Fujitsu-dedicated hardware media players and commercial display screens. The TELentice Player is a fullfeatured professional Enterprise software package for creating and managing all your broadcast media while the Monitor is a separate application aimed more towards system maintenance and control. Fujitsu Digital offers a true end-to-end solution, including content management and rights acquisition from global content providers. Thirdparty software and control can also be integrated. Fujitsu Australia and New Zealand have earned a reputation as the single supplier of choice for leading corporate and government organisations.

basic tools of KVM (keyboard, video & mouse) were extended into silent environments. The original market was post-production facilities, but the designs behind its products allowed Gefen to branch out into fields like live stage presentations, broadcast and now digital signage and, of course, there’s a bit more involved than providing a wireless mouse with fresh batteries. In the late ‘90s Gefen turned its attention to digital distribution of video and HDTV signals and another inevitable progression was to build up a large catalogue of splitters, converters, modifiers and cabling. Today Gefen caters for every signal format you can imagine. In fact, if Gefen doesn’t have the plug-converting gadget you need, you’re probably doing it wrong – not Gefen. But it’s all about connectivity for Gefen. Aside from a few media players, Gefen doesn’t provide large hardware solutions like video displays and such.

HARRIS CORPORATION (02) 9975 9700 or www.harris.com Considering that Harris Corporation has been involved in developing the network infrastructure for half the western world’s armies and navies systems, including a recent $135m contract for the Australian Defense Force, you can be confident its DOOH products should be reliable. And if you worry that digital signage will be a ‘small beer’ for Harris as the tech guys solder up the latest aircraft carrier you only need to visit its website to see Harris take DOOH solutions very seriously. From a small display in the office boardroom to large screens surrounding a massive sports arena, Harris does the lot. Its systems are based on Harris’ Infocaster products which include the Infocaster Creator, Infocaster Player and the Infocaster Manager. The names are self-explanatory except to point out that Infocaster Players are a range of hardware components, not software. Manager provides playback functions. A further product called Punctuate is for more targeted media playback and management that includes further automation features and extras like generating invoices. Harris’ website presence is daunting, but persevere, get in touch and someone local with all the answers will drop by – probably in an FA-18.

HERMA TECHNOLOGIES (03) 9480 6233 or www.herma.com.au GEFEN www.gefen.com Distributor: Amber Technology (02) 9452 8600 or gefen@ambertech.com.au When it started up in 1995 Gefen was developing products of its ex-tend-it Professional Series which were primarily solutions to separate the operators of audio/visual editing suites from the noisy computers, servers and peripherals of their trade. The

Herma Technologies – the screen specialists – started business 15 years ago initially selling rear projection systems. The market (obviously) has since evolved significantly and so has Herma, which now distributes a stable of AV brands focused on the audiovisual, cinema and digital signage industries. Herma owns and produces products under the LP Morgan, Grandview and 2C labels.

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HEWLETT-PACKARD 1300 305017 or www.hp.com.au Hewlett-Packard (HP) has a Retail Store Solutions division which among the point-of-sale terminals, networked PCs and touchscreen devices there’s a digital signage range of products. Dig a little deeper and the touchscreen stuff begins to morph into the digital signage department anyway. HP offers two sizes of screens for digital signage, a 42-inch LD4200 LCD model – also available as the LD4200tm being the touch screen ‘interactive’ option – and the LD4700 which is (take a wild guess) a 47-inch version. This isn’t so much a lack of choices, but more that HP has identified what they believe are the optimum screen sizes for in-store displays and loaded all the DS goodies into these two models. Details on the software required to run your signage are a little sketchy other than to state on their website that, “our products are designed to work seamlessly together in any scenario. Together with software solutions provided by our ISV/solutions partners...” which doesn’t tell us much. They also offer to “make your entire IT lifecycle as simple as possible”. Jury’s still out on that one.

control systems, IC will no doubt have a neat trick or two to suggest for impressing your audience.

MIMIO Distributor: Newell Rubbermaid Office Products (03) 8796 7400 or www.newellrubbermaid.com Mimio’s main focus is educational products, specifically a range of equipment that converts a standard classroom environment into something interactive via its Interactive, Pad, Capture and Wireless kits. Mimio was born from a bright idea by Yonald Chery, an MIT teaching assistant who noticed that students were too busy making notes from the teacher’s whiteboard scribbling, so he developed the Mimio Interactive, a device that attached to the whiteboard, connected to a PC and subsequently digitally recorded everything written for the students to later access. As with all good ideas, Mimio was soon gobbled up by Newell Rubbermaid, the company of Sharpie, Papermate and Parker fame (to name a few). While new schools are never short on technology, Mimio should have some solutions for dragging older facilities into the 21st century.

IMAGE DESIGN TECHNOLOGY (IDT) 1300 666 099 or sales@idt.com.au Image Design Technology (IDT) is based in Chatswood, NSW and operates primarily as a wholesale supplier of signal distribution equipment and commercial video displays including, of course, digital signage devices. Among a long list of products IDT is the distributor of Brightsign solid state digital signage devices and Magenta signal distribution solutions. Displays include NEC and Samsung screens. IDT doesn’t have any one particular digital signage service or software application to which they align themselves to – it doesn’t have its ‘own’ complete digital signage solution aside from the Brightsign products – instead, IDT’s specialty is in providing from its catalogue of preferred manufacturers of display and monitor screens, media players, streaming video over IP, matrix and signal distribution boxes – you name it, to get the job done. Have a look at the credits for any major project undertaken in Australia during the last few years and you’ll probably find IDT has been involved somewhere along the line.

INTERACTIVE CONTROLS (02) 9436 3022 or www.interactivecontrols.com.au Interactive Controls (IC) offers a variety of services to customers from consultation to sales, hire and installation of display and control system equipment and software. They also design and develop media and hardware control systems for specific events, installations, film and commercial shoots, exhibitions, museums... okay, you get the picture. Medialon and Dataton hardware and software products get the nod from Interactive Controls and for digital signage in particular IC offers the Medialon show and media control software and embedded controllers along with Dataton Watchout and Medialon MIP HD Interactive Media Player. There is also the Medialon Scheduler application, which allows control of multiple venues and screens from a central server. Given Interactive Controls’ wide experience in installing innovative display systems it can help you choose the best way to deliver your vision and with Medialon’s strong history in show

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NEC AUSTRALIA 131 632 or displays@nec.com.au NEC Australia has a large catalogue of LCD displays, plasma screens and digital projectors from which it can source its own hardware products and package them together into a digital signage ‘total solution’ to suit anyone’s needs. A significant point NEC makes is that you’ll deal with the same brand right throughout the process. The cornerstone of NEC’s Digital Signage Solution is its PanelDirector software application which comes in either standard or professional versions that caters for small or large networks. However, PanelDirector has no authoring component. To have all the nuts and bolts of digital signage at your fingertips NEC can offer you NEC Live, a suite of five software applications including (NEC) Artist, Communicate, Player, Update and Enterprise that respectively deal with content creation, distribution, playback, refreshing schedules and monitoring the system. Both PanelDirector and NEC Live have support for third-party devices such as touch screens. Being NEC Australia the company has all kinds of desktop, laptop and server computers to drive the software and media, but if you need something to stand on its own two modular, plastic feet there is the NEC Digital Signage Media Player.

PANASONIC AUSTRALIA 132 600 or www.panasonic.com.au It shouldn’t come as a surprise that Panasonic, which already has a huge manufacturing base for televisions and monitors, should jump on the digital signage bandwagon. It’s fronted by the Commercial Plasma Display series of products that come in two configurations. One is a selection of Optional Terminal Boards that will convert your Panasonic plasma screen of choice to accept data signals to suit your needs ranging from digital PC inputs to the humble RCA video component. Alternatively there is an Embedded Solution with a small PC installed into the plasma that can operate as a stand-alone

display without a network. Panasonic can provide DOOH authoring and network control software in the form of its digital signage application, NDS 3.1, which can apparently feed both analogue and digital screens in a variety of formats suggesting that your digital signage network doesn’t necessarily need to be confined to Panasonic’s plasma range. As long as it’s a Panasonic display of some kind, I’m sure they’ll figure out a way to hook it up to your DOOH display.

PRIME DIGITAL MEDIA (02) 9660 9400 or www.primedigitalmedia.com Prime Digital Media is one of the bigger kids on the block boasting partnerships with Telstra, Yahoo!7 and EnQii. PMD is all about broadcasting your digital signage on one (or more) of its existing three networks. The Lifestyle network focuses on displays installed in Boost Juice stores around Australia, the Home Electronics network is primarily placed in Retravision outlets and the Well Being network is seen in Amcal, Blooms and Guardian pharmacy stores… are you starting to get the picture? Otherwise you can discuss with PMD the potential to have one of its Managed Networks installed in your very own chain of retail shops and PMD will source and filter the content you want including in-house material like staff training and safety or community messages. In all PMD has over 6000 LCD and Plasma screens at prominent and point-of-sale positions around the country. A wholly-owned subsidiary called Fireback Digital is responsible for creating all the content and distribution, control and scheduling of all DOOH signage is done via Acuity software.

SALIENT INFORMATION SYSTEMS (02) 93135111 or www.salient.com.au It’s worth remembering that not all digital signage needs to be – or even should be –some kind of high resolution picture like you’re sitting at home watching television. Salient Information Systems specialize in LED digital displays ranging from announcing your burger and chips are waiting at the bar to the kind of large and complex data information displays such as you see at the stock exchange, airports and other passenger terminals. Salient’s main claim to fame is providing custom-built LED signs along with computer systems and software designed for Flight Information Display Systems (FIDS) and Passenger Information Display Systems (PIDS), but also have a full range of alternative displays like plasma, LCD and video monitors that can be the primary source of viewing or linked as repeaters of the main displays. Salient even still offer a range of ‘split flap’ installations, those motorized signs where the numbers and letters flip over. While the data delivery is very much digital and modernized, the split flap designed is often preferred in harsh environments.

SAMSUNG 1300 362603 or www.samsunglfd.com Samsung’s digital signage is centred on its Large Format Display (LFD) range, a screen with chameleon characteristics in its role as the basis for all Samsung’s DOOH products. There is a straightfor-

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ward model that can be used either stand-alone in portrait or landscape mode or as a part of a limited multi-screen display. A slightly different UD model can be linked with up to 250 units for a wall of vision. There is a Touchscreen version including an outdoor type with features to withstand the elements and a specialised uVending model for installing in the front of vending machines. MagicInfo is Samsung’s proprietary software for content control and creations. Samsung’s PROM system is already taking DOOH solutions along the fast-developing path of providing audience statistics to tailor the signage content. A wide dynamic range (WDR) camera embedded discreetly somewhere in the installation captures and recognises faces to determine who is actually watching the screen. PROM can either just collate the information for market analysis or actively change the display according to who is viewing it. It’s both clever and almost scary ‘big brother’ stuff. We’re assured these systems are completely anonymous. Still, maybe keep one hand on your wallet.

SHARP AUSTRALIA 1300 13 55 30 or www.sharp.net.au Sharp Australia has boosted its Professional range of information display panels. King of the Sharp hill is the LB1085, a whopping 108-inch stand-alone LCD monitor. At a paltry RRP of $185,900 we’ll be putting one in the corner of the office to keep an eye on the footy scores. After that Sharp offers a PN series of displays that allow for networking and remote control of digital signage content. Ranging from 60-inch down to 32-inch and with a choice of resolutions, it’s worth pointing out that these PN models are screens aimed at the DOOH market with slim, near frameless designs and the ability to display in portrait mode – they’re not just high-end televisions that have migrated over into digital signage. A dedicated application for controlling content called Sharp Digital Signage Software comes in three versions, a fully featured PNSS02 for networked systems, the PNSS01 for stand-alone displays and PNSV01 is only a viewer to monitor what’s coming from your server. A semi-professional range of displays is also available – think indoors like classrooms and office suites.

a CompactFlash memory card for data which will playback in a programmable slide-show style. But again, remember Sony’s DOOH product line is being revamped and all the above could be just a sign of things to come.

SPINETIX www.spinetix.com Distributor: Madison Technologies 1800 66 99 99 or www.madisontech.com.au From its developers in Switzerland, SpinetiX offers products to professionally schedule, combine, stream, update, animate and display in real-time video, audio, graphics and text on any digital video display. The hardware heart of its system is the HMP 100, a stand-alone Hyper Media Player that acts as an interface for converting any standard video unit into a digital signage display. Its Hyper Media Director is a software application that provides for data distribution across any network and also has an authoring component as well. Both the HMP and HMD are available as separate purchases with the latter offered for download with a 30-day trial.

For the moment, Sony is focusing its digital signage products on what it does best, a wide range of high-definition displays, then offers the VSPNS7 Media Player, the BKM-FW50 Digital Signage adapter and the VSPA-D7 Management Software to cater for them all. However, blink while you’re checking its website and things might suddenly change as its Ziris software takes over. Meanwhile, its Public Display series of LCD screens offers sizes from the 65-inch ‘Ruggedized’ GXD-L65H1 model down to a 32-inch KLH-W32 All-In-One unit (for which the English language isn’t asked to sacrifice anything at all). Some screens are capable of portrait orientation or can have added connectivity – suffice to say that all combined, the various models allow system designers enough choice to get the desired result along with a selection of accessories. The VSP-NS7 Media Player is a separate unit with a 120GB HDD for content and it must have the VSPA-D7 Management Software to work. The BKM-FW50 Digital Signage adapter lets you use

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Techtel is an independent broadcast technology systems specialist, providing dedicated hardware and software to the Australian, New Zealand and SE Asian broadcast industries. Incorporated in 1985, Techtel’s expertise includes straightforward consulting through to systems integration and the supply, installation and support of a wide range of film, video and broadcast equipment from Techtel’s catalogue. Its digital signage services focus on two products. X2O Media is a Canadian-based company that provides its Xpresenter Platform software for networks and larger installations or the Xpresenter Xe which is for single channel, smaller applications. There is also the Xpresenter vClips, software designed for touchscreen devices. X2O tell us that Xpresenter is based on Microsoft’s PowerPoint software, which is comfortingly familiar territory for some, then X2O Media added a large shot of steroids. Alternatively, Techtel can offer Playbox, a kind of closed-circuit ‘TV in a box’ setup. Given Techtel’s large base of broadcast product and the content creation services these can tap into, coupled with the X2O and Playbox services, Techtel has a lot of DOOH solutions to offer.

SUMO VISUAL SOLUTIONS (03) 9429 4552 or info@sumovisual.com.au Sumo Visual Solutions’ roots are in high-quality printing of signage on a wide range of products ranging from ceramics to canvas. However, since 2002 it has seen the digital signage light and now also offers DOOH networks – which they prefer to call ‘content on demand’. Sumo Vision supplies and manages hardware and software that is designed to suit the individual’s content requirements. Distribution is through a secure web-enabled system which allows either one central or multiple sites to manage content.

TECHMEDIA DIGITAL SYSTEMS (SCALA) (02) 9526 7880 or www.connectedsignage.com.au SONY AUSTRALIA 1800 017669 or www.sony.com.au

TECHTEL (02) 9906 1488 or www.techtel.tv

Just to be clear, Techmedia isn’t only a digital signage company. It’s the Australian distributor of several specialist multimedia products for creating and distributing digital media over anything from simple DVDs to broadcast TV. However, its DOOH services offer Scala, one of the first and now largest digital signage companies to appear on the world scene. Based in Philadelphia, Scala boasts an impressive list of clientele and is responsible for over 200,000 screens worldwide. Scala’s experience shows in its product; the comprehensive content creation and distribution software goes one step further with Scala Ad Manager, an accounting add-on that handles the financial side of your DOOH business such as generating invoices. In the hardware department, Scala has its own Scala Player for linking with the Content Manager software. From there Techmedia will source display screens and networks best suited to the job. Along with APN Outdoor and Barco, Techmedia created the 37m-high sign across from Melbourne’s Flinders Street Station atop the historic Young & Jackson Hotel. Don’t worry, if you want digital signage a little smaller, Techmedia is happy to talk to you.

TELSTRA 1300 835 782 or www.telstraenterprise.com/ productsservices/enterprisecommunications/ unifiedcommunications/Pages/TelstraDigitalSignageSolutions Check the website address above and you’ll agree that Telstra’s – yes, Telstra – new Digital Signage Division is well buried. That isn’t to say it isn’t serious about providing digital signage services, quite the opposite. There’s a bit of ‘scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours’ here with Telstra mentioning its partnership with Prime Media Digital, otherwise the information provided is a little shy on specifics as to who exactly is providing what, except to say onpremise equipment is from Cisco and everything else comes from “partnerships with acknowledged leaders”. Telstra can probably afford to play its cards close to the chest given its first-in-line access to the nation’s next generation networks will be an appreciable marketing edge on its own. At this point Telstra is offering three digital signage packages; the Core Solution for clients who can create and manage their own content or there are the Extras Packages A & B that respectively provide increasing levels of support and features. Details are scarce here too, it’s like Telstra has announced the opening of its digital signage office, but they haven’t even put a nameplate on the door yet. One wonders if the phone is connected…

If you spot any errors or omissions, don’t get angry, get in touch. Contact Chris Holder on chris@dsmag.com.au

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Digital signage can be a real heart starter.

Story: Mug Punter

Aside from someone addicted to episodes of Scrubs or ER House County General MD, what’s the chances of a passing Hungarian pedestrian actually knowing how to safely operate a defibrillator? It’s not a myth, I’ve seen them myself. In some parts of northern Queensland on the sunny ocean’s edge, among the endless games of cricket played by suntanned chaps who all drawl ‘strine like Paul Hogan, they have emergency bottles of vinegar for applying to jellyfish stings. I’m serious. The applied vinegar relieves the pain of the venom and potentially saves a life because – a little known fact here – deaths caused by jelly fish stings are not from the venom itself, but through deep shocked caused by the intense pain. A lot of victims dive into or swim through the trailing tentacles and suffer strings of stings across their face and upper body – nasty stuff. Quickly reducing the level of pain is paramount for increasing the victim’s chances of surviving. I don’t know if these Vinegar Life Saving Stations still exist in our nihilistic world of brain-dead vandalism, but it wouldn’t surprise me if they’re gone. Mind you, I often wondered if they’re ever located near a decent fish and chip shop – which would be unwise, especially if Queensland also instigated a Free Salt campaign to reduce the epidemic of muscle cramp brought on by all those games of beach cricket in the sun... Anyway, the vinegar stations are now probably prime targets for trashing, ‘tagging’, pointlessly emptying or even drinking, since the contents have more than a passing resemblance to XXXX beer. It’s a shame that everywhere, community aids like these are fast disappearing thanks to morons. Not so in Hungary, where someone dies of a heart attack every 20 seconds. Obviously, they really need to ease back on the goulash – the national dish of meat stew that makes a Big Mac look as healthy as a celery stick. Apparently your average bowl of goulash contains more harmful fats than the grease-trap behind the Pitt Street branch of KFC. To combat the rather alarming death rate the Hungarian authorities have sanctioned – I’d contend irresponsibly – an interesting device. It’s a digital sign, of course – hey, you’re not reading Ralph here. Inside the display is a defibrillator for public use. Yes, a defibrillator! They rip the pajamas away, place the paddles on your chest, zap a trillion Volts across your nipples making your body leap off the bed and hit the ceiling and then the doctor yells “Clear!” as a kind of OH&S thing for any nearby nurses.

Or is it the other way around? They yell “Clear!” first… [Clearly, we’re in the safe hands of Dr. Mug Punter – Ed.]

See? That’s the type of irresponsible risk I’m talking about. Aside from someone addicted to episodes of Scrubs or ER House County General MD what’s the chances of a passing Hungarian pedestrian (who encounters a goulash-stricken victim in the throes of a heart-attack within paddle-cable distance of a digital sign) actually knowing how to safely operate a defibrillator? The odds are stacking up here. What? the digital sign is going to talk me through the process? Really?! Is that really wise? Apparently years of communist oppression eradicated every last shred of common sense in Hungary. The national game is probably ‘Poke Each Other In The Eye With A Sharp Pencil And See Who Blinks First’. What happens if you’re just having a snooze in the park? You’re one of those deep sleepers who hardly stirs? The last thing you’ll ever know is someone tearing at your clothes, the sensation of two cold table-tennis bats slapped on your chest, before you’re über-tasered into the Next World (as you walk towards The Light you might hear distance voice yell “Tisztas!”, which according to Google is one of a dozen possible translations of “Clear!” in Hungarian – odd language). The real trouble is the Americans will get hold of this idea and they don’t know when to stop. It won’t be just digital signage defibrillators on every street corner, there’ll be dentist drills for broken teeth, x-ray machines in case someone swallows a chicken bone, maybe even those shiny, circular saws for slicing open craniums if somebody’s suffering a particularly bad migraine. The next step, since digital signage excels at given customers interactive choices, will be a touchscreen display for accessing your desired emergency medical machine. You’ll have to select from a menu first: is your victim, a) frothing at the mouth, b) writhing on the ground, c) not moving at all or, d) none of the above. After making your selection the appropriate device will clunk noisily down the chute – maybe with a can of coke.

“The sign has just told me to administer the brown cola drink orally. Clear!”

DigitalSignage magazine wants to know what you’re up to. Share your plans and opinions with Chris Holder on chris@dsmag.com.au

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