Britain's Co-op opens one-stop marketing shop
The UK's Co-op retail chain, which claims to be the world's largest co-operative society, is encouraging brands to use its multiple marketing channels – including in-store digital signage – with the establishment of a single, centralised Co-operative Media Centre.
Agency ABC Media has developed a Website for brand managers whose products are stocked by the Co-op to plan and price campaigns across screen media, in-store radio, POS, direct mail 
Tokyo railway station tests digital posters
The East Japan Railway Company and East Japan Marketing & Communications are testing 65-inch digital posters in Tokyo's main railway station, according to local reports, following the latter company's deployment of similar digital signage at Shibuya and Shinjuku stations in 2007.
The displays are fixed to five columns in the area between the entrance to the station (pictured) and the platforms. On each column, two screens are positioned
Neo Advertising hits the autostrada
Just two months after establishing its Italian office, Neo Advertising is rolling out digital signage at 20 Autogrill roadside outlets in the Milan area.
When installation is complete in October, the network – called InfoFlash – will provide some 400,000 Autogrill visitors each week with information on weather and traffic conditions, entertainment, regional cultural news, and advertising.
The network's 40 LCD displays will run all day and night,
U.S. billboard controversy still simmering
Electronic billboards erected by smaller local advertising companies and real-estate developers are continuing to spring up across the U.S., slowly yet steadily adding to the digital out-of-home inventory.
But the interest they are attracting from residents and local governments is not all positive.
In Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, local firm Kegerreis Outdoor Advertising's 225-square-foot digital sign at an intersection has drawn mixed responses from the community, according to a local
Digital signage “leading Chinese ad growth”
Digital signage is taking a leading role in the growth of China's advertising market, according to a new briefing from Northern Sky Research (NSR).
And the country's biggest digital out-of-home firms have already deployed more than a third of the world's digital-signage assets – fertile ground for growing revenue.
Citing Group M figures that suggest China will take 24 percent of global new advertising spend this year –
PDM offers carbon-free campaigns
As brands compete to show off their green credentials, Australia's Prime Digital Media (PDM) is offering its advertisers the opportunity to carbon-offset their campaigns on its digital-signage network.
Carbon-reduction specialist Carbon Planet has created a tool for PDM which calculates the estimated carbon emissions caused by each use of the company's digital-signage displays, based on an audit of greenhouse-gas emissions attributable to PDM's activities in calendar 2007.
When
Vue deploying digital signage in all its cinemas
UK cinema chain Vue is installing digital signage throughout its estate to increase the update frequency and targeting of its messaging.
A total of 287 displays are being deployed across all Vue's multiplexes in the UK and Ireland, centrally operated by three servers from Vue’s London offices.
With the ability to transmit messaging across the entire network or to individual cinemas or zones, Vue hopes to improve the
Kmart chooses Reactrix for Batman promotion
In an unusual project linking a retailer, a movie company and an out-of-home advertising network, U.S. department store Kmart is to use Reactrix's STEPscape digital floor displays to promote its own promotion of the new Batman movie.
Kmart, one of the world's largest discount chains, will use the Reactrix displays situated in malls and cinemas to showcase its role as “official Batman headquarters” when the movie (pictured) is released
Titan sees digital providing half of its railway revenue
Britain's Titan Outdoor is to strengthen its digital presence at major London railway stations with the installation of more than 100 new advertising screens.
The £2m ($4m) rollout, scheduled to be completed by mid-October, will add 65-inch-high units supplied by Iblink to Titan's existing network of large Transvision LED screens at stations, which first appeared six years ago.
News of these installations at stations on the overground rail
Ad groups settle on proof-of-performance standards
The American Association of Advertising Agencies (AAAA) and Outdoor Advertising Association of America (OAAA) have issued new guidelines covering proof-of-performance reports for digital signage.
Generated automatically by networks based on what ads have been played out when and where, the reports should eliminate any need for photographic evidence, the associations say.
For each campaign, networks will be required to provide the totals of both daily and weekly spots
Russian screen campaign aimed at runaway kids
News Outdoor is using its digital-signage network in Russia for a national campaign to trace orphans who have run away from the country's children's homes.
The charity campaign is running on News Outdoor's national network of digital-signage systems across Russia and building on a newspaper campaign that started last month.
Barbarian Penzova, director of the Find Our Children charity, said that the problem of orphans running away from
Cisco finds digital-signage market in schools, colleges
Networking supplier Cisco says schools and higher-education institutions have emerged as among the earliest users of its recently-upgraded Digital Media System in the U.S. and abroad.
Among the applications adopted by educational users are live broadcasts streamed into classrooms and dormitories, and on-campus digital signage displaying schedules, news and emergency messaging.
“Recent advancements in video are changing the way school administrators, faculty and students work together to create
Chinese airport-screen operator buys poster sites
Chinese airport-advertising specialist AirMedia is acquiring two companies which place conventional posters in the bridges connecting airport gates to planes – and bucking the trend toward digitisation set by counterparts such as JCDecaux.
AirMedia will buy 100 percent of Excel Lead International and 80 percent of Flying Dragon Media Advertising, owned by Business Media China, giving it the rights to gate-bridge advertising at ten mainland Chinese airports, including Beijing
National screens deal for Bombay bourse
Digital Signage Network (DSN) India is to display real-time stock-price information on its network of screens in 22 cities, following a deal with the Bombay Stock Exchange – and if the experiment pays off, the network could provide more “utility-based” content in future.
Gaurang Shah, founder and CEO of DSN India, told SCREENS.tv: “We will be flashing the latest updates on Sensex [the exchange's main index] across our all
Future stores get gesture recognition
India's Future Media has tied up with camera-enabled gesture-recognition technology company GestureTek to put interactive displays in shop windows.
The displays, with a camera capturing movement and the on-screen image adjusting accordingly, have so far gone into three Future Group-owned retail formats – eight Pantaloon stores plus one each of Food Bazaar and Central.
Sites include malls in Mumbai, Pune, Lucknow, Delhi, Kolkata, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Chennai, all
