It is estimated that in Europe alone, the digital signage market will be worth $1 billion by 2011, this is nothing compared to the USA market who are streets ahead.
America leads the way in digital advertising, providing many businesses with company signs to even video walls that span the sides of buildings.
When you were last at a bus terminal or airport, did you see an LCD TV that was being used to give passenger information. The answer is a definite Yes!
Digital signage will be like the Gold rush era, this is the boom industry. As the technology advances, the software that controls the advertisements becomes more complex and sometimes confusing.
More and more businesses are using standard LCD TVs, but the problem is how would you protect them from vandalism, theft and the weather (if the unit is going outdoors)?
There are several solutions out there, from companies who manufacturer signage solftware to companies who manufacture units that are weatherproof and vandal proof, these are normally installed in tube stations and soccer pitches. The LCD enclosures allow anyone to install a LCD in any hostile environment.
Now imagine, if you were the Marketing Manager for a major retailer and you wanted to get a video out to your 200 stores all over the USA to promote a new product, how would you do it? How long would it take to plan and implement?
Would you like to know how to do it in less than 2 hours? That it is delivered to each store!
A specialist digital signage software company partnered up with a manufacture of LCD enclosures and developed a piece of software that enables anyone to create professional media content for their promotions.
Once the user has created their own media content, the user can either send the information over the internet so that the advertisements go live immediately, or alternatively schedule the adverts to start on a particular date at a particular time, ensuring that the Marketing department can monitor the sales for the actual product.
Once the information is sent via the internet, it is received by the computer that is housed in the LCD enclosure along with the LCD TV and is then uploaded to the LCD display, the display can be in either portrait or landscape position, the information can be sent to a group of displays with a total number of 1,000 displays.
The cost savings are huge:
1. No burning media content CDs
2. No posting CDs to multiple store outlets for public release
3. Hugely reduced man hours to create professional media content
This can all be done in a mater of minutes, this will save businesses hours and sometimes days in getting the actual media to the store for public release.
This demonstrates how powerful digital advertising is and how it can help almost any business increase sales, no longer is digital advertising systems restricted to the Blue Chip Corporations, if a business can afford $2,000 they can now compete with the large multi-national corporations on a level playing field.
