Just when you thought it was safe to go back to the NASDAQ...China’s Focus Media is in the news once more this week, thanks to another attack by short-seller Muddy Waters Research on the firm’s claims for its networks.
But there’s a curious twist to the latest instalment. By my reckoning, Muddy Waters’ criticisms this time round are, if not nearly as sweeping, certainly a lot more persuasive than they were when the pair first tussled back in November. Yet Focus’s stock has regained nearly all the value that it lost in a calamitous fall after the original Muddy Waters report. Is this a case of investors simply getting bored of what is increasingly resembling a to-and-fro of besuited bitch-slapping?
Otherwise, it’s been a week of good news for the DOOH business. Also in China, there are signs that China New Media is getting serious about digital, with big new outdoor screens going up as well as promising revenue from its City Navigator kiosks.
In India, meanwhile, LiveMedia continues to develop its network – most recently with a game that cleverly combines advertiser branding with entertainment – while back in Britain, there’s encouraging response to hospital digital signage, and the first names on the speaker line-up for Screenmedia Expo Europe.
Looped advertising in reception gets little more than a cursory glance these days, but add a live element that is relevant to the viewers, and you’ve got them hooked. People have become accustomed to the live help and live chats that are available online. Their expectation of digital signage is no different.
Advertisers can easily meet this challenge today. Staff in a doctor’s office can tweet a welcome message to those in reception, and update them on the wait time with a live feed from the appointment system. In a restaurant, a hostess can promote specials of the day and flag dishes that are off. A financial adviser can provide up-to-date market information. A trade show could even welcome me personally (“Good morning, Mr. Hastings, you are our 357th visitor today”) and suggest exhibitors to visit based on what they know about me.
In the past, digital signage content development packages primarily focused on adding tools to the visual-based interface that made it very easy for anyone to create eye-catching presentations. Now, we’re expanding the capabilities to integrate digital signage with both public and private live data systems. We’re giving users the tools they need to create and update automated displays that are relevant, targeted, dynamic and up-to-date. The ability to connect to public and private live data sources now enables businesses to incorporate relevant, real-time data within their signage.
Display screens and solid-state players are more affordable than ever before; and, when the players come network-enabled, integration time and the associated costs are dramatically reduced. Wizard-driven software allows the addition of live message content, and as a result even small businesses can deploy digital signage with engaging, interesting content that is personal and relevant to visitors.
Incorporating this element of “live” will not only win you additional sales, but also improve customers’ perception of your service.
The folks at Esprit Digital will be rightly pleased to have picked up a well-deserved award for their ambitious project of screen installations at the Westfield Stratford City mall in London.
But this is much more than just a tale of one digital signage supplier doing a good job. It’s further evidence that Westfield is setting the pace for digital media in British malls, and it’s testimony to the range of screen types that a large modern shopping centre requires.
At Stratford, Esprit built a dozen thin, double-sided pod-style displays; ten 55-inch digital posters, both inside and outside the building; ten 12-screen bulkhead displays; a 5x5 video wall in the cinema foyer; and three much bigger video walls outside the anchor stores.
To truly make the most of a space’s potential for communicating with its visitors, and to match the medium to the message – whether up close and personal in the case of the pods, or massive, striking and speaking to all, in the case of the video walls – the operators not only of malls but also of other large venues like airports and stadia are now long past the days of sticking up a network of 40-inch LCDs and hoping people look at them.
They are recognising that this kind of heterogenous mix is the only way to deliver different kinds of messages to different groups at different stages in their journey through the venue. And suppliers like Esprit that can deliver such a wide range of screen types will enjoy a significant advantage over the competition – for orders, as well as industry gongs.