What’s in a sign?

Digital signage is what! What? I hear you cry..

Digital Signage may seem a new term to some but it’s roots have been grounded for some time now in various guises; those cooking demos at deli counters in supermarkets, the music screens at the gym while you’re pounding away, and more recently on the tills at your corner shop and big displays about products at your local IKEA.

It’s a growing industry and one which is expected to grow by 33% in the coming year, not to be sniffed at in today’s volatile climate! Advances in technology and hardware are making packages more accessible to smaller businesses, such as your local Doctors or Dentists, and can increase revenue (from advertising at least) for companies by pushing latest offers and products.

Digital signage is a way for companies to target their users in a self service kind of way, campaigns can be pushed at certain times of the day or when shops are busiest. The supported formats for content, and the increasing spec of the hardware, mean there’s virtually no limits to the style and pace of the content served. In March this year POPAI (The Point of Purchase Advertising Institute) released the first of three digital signage standards to promote “interoperability between different providers”.

“Screen-Media Formats specifies the file formats that digital signage systems should support. The objective of this and future standards documents from POPAI is to establish a foundation of performance and behavior that all digital signage systems can follow.”

So what companies are leading the pack? According to a survey by PRO AV magazine published in June 2009, the top brands for digital-signage systems were Scala, Westinghouse, Harris, Visix, Dynasign, Omnivex and X20.

For content keep an eye on Interclub Digital and Gym Screen Media.

Want to read more about Digital signage? There are some pretty good resources about, here’s a small handful:

• Special Publication: Digital Signage that Enhances the Retail Shopping Experience
  http://www.selfservice.org/specialpub.php?i=136
• Omnivex’s “four keys to digital signage success” ranked no. 1 article in 2008 by Digital Signage Expo
  http://catalogs.infocommiq.com/avcat/ctl1642/index.cfm?pin_id=1642&mlc_id=1503&prid=2837
• Digital signage software
  http://www.omnivex.com/
  http://www.ryarc.com/
  

I’ve recently been working on an interactive flash application for a Digital signage contract, I think it could be big so stay tuned for more soon!