Local advertising remains a critical ROI component for digital signage networks. Whilst national brand campaigns maybe where the 'big money' is - most platforms take time to scale and get on the radar of the big advertisers. There are a good number of networks growing fast by focusing purely on local advertising.. (read more)

Muzak was the Ketchup of the 'piped' music business - ie its name became synonymous with its product - and has hundreds and thousands of customers. It is well placed to lead a step-up to video - and with other companies developing aggressively in the space, it is now moving to protect its market position.. (read more)

Focus Media is the champion that the digital industry needs. The only sour note in their results came from a comment relating to their in-store division, where revenues were down by 17% to $6.5M. Focus blamed this fall on competition, mainly from a rival firm CGEN - a company that they conveniently acquired in January 2008! .. (read more)

In the future more products will be tagged to deliver information through bluetooth or RFID, adding to the block of content required at each site. Imagine the amount of data required to put a video file by every product across 500 different stores. Multicasting is likely to be the only time and cost effective method.. (read more)

Without us knowing it, most of retailers have trained us to work within their format - no one told us how to queue at Starbucks and we somehow figured out the IKEA 'flat pack' retail experience. Whether it is being 'trained' how to bank in a coffee shop, or what the purpose of a gym membership is - digital signage has a huge role to play.. (read more)

Although the main market focus in on connected and remotely managed networks - the 'sneaker net' world of un-networked digital signage remains a significant section of the global market. 'Sneaker-Net' is the term commonly used to describe networks of displays where media is updated by teams of people using memory sticks.. (read more)

This deal comes hot on the heels of last year's agreement by the three largest US cinema chains to outfit their 14,500 theatres with digital. It is important for the digital signage industry, as digital cinema enables not only the distirbution of networked movies, pre-show entertainment and live content - but also that of advertising.. (read more)

Moving from simple playback to interaction involves the application of brain cells. This research clearly shows, that by enticing people with some reward for interacting with a brand - ie for applying their mind to the brand proposition - there is a very significant benefit in response levels. A lesson that out-of-home is learning fast.. (read more)

It has previously fallen on the brands themselves to provide the digital merchandising solutions for their semi-permanent retail displays. However because the end caps tend to be sold to the highest bidder for specific short term promotions, brands have not previously been able to support these fast turnaround campaigns with digital merchandising technology.. (read more)

Getting rid of cables is now a reality, wireless formats are enabling the transmission of data through all the different stages of a digital signage installation - from central hub to store (satellite, wi-max, 3G), from in-store PC to local media player (wi-fi), from local media player to display (ultra-wideband), from screen to user (bluetooth) and from user to screen (RFID and Motion Sensing) .. (read more)