Township tavern channel targets affluent black market
South Africa's Provantage Media is launching a new narrowcast TV channel aimed at “the young, fashionable black population in township taverns and bars”.
Kagiso Mokoka, heading the operation, said: “We are now able to expose brands to the top end of the black township market. This medium is ideal for all lifestyle brands and not [just] for liquor brands. It presents an opportunity for brands to interact with this 
Hughes sees Indian retail moving to managed networks
Hughes Communications has launched its managed digital-signage service in India, focusing on retailers rather than screen-media companies and believing that eventually even smaller retail firms will want to have their own networks.
K.Krishna, chief technology officer of Hughes, told SCREENS.tv: “The digital-signage service-providers, while they have understood the ROI [return on investment], want to do everything themselves and do not see much value in a managed service. However the
Walgreens sign to be brighter than sun (okay, not quite)
Sign professionals call them “spectaculars”, but one looks set to be more spectacular than others – the titanic LED screen that U.S. pharmacy chain Walgreens will unveil in New York's Times Square later this year, dwarfing (not to mention outshining) the rest of the square's already world-famous signage.
Walgreens is commissioning a 341-foot-tall sign to occupy three sides of the 1 Times Square building, where it is opening a
SMS “is missing ingredient of digital signage”
Interactive digital signage is one of the most potent ways for brands to establish direct contact with consumers, and could even replace market research in the future, according to a New York firm which has raised more than $1m for nonprofits in the last year using digital signage and SMS.
Sophist Productions says funds raised by its patent-pending Text-to-Pledge mobile fund-raising system last week topped the $1m mark. Organisations
Screen Expo Europe moves to April
London's Screen Expo Europe is to move back to an April date to avoid being too close to other events such as Digital Signage Expo in the U.S.
2009's event will be held 7-8 April, again at London's Olympia exhibition centre. However, the Retail Business Show which in previous years has run alongside Screen Expo near the beginning of the year will not move to April, remaining in a
Bank uses digital signage to reach young car buyers
In another indication of the willingness of India's financial institutions to advertise on the country's new screen-media networks, State Bank of India (SBI), one of the largest public-sector banks in the subcontinent, recently used Digital Signage Network (DSN) for a below-the-line promotional campaign for its car-loan business in Mumbai.
In the run-up to a promotional car rally between Mumbai and Lonavala, the Mumbai office of SBI (pictured) chose DSN's
Screens across China spread earthquake information
Giant outdoor LEDs and indoor LCDs are being used in six Chinese cities to provide public information on the 12 May earthquake which is estimated to have killed up to 50,000 people and left millions homeless.
Network CN is making available daily spots for government information on the Sichuan earthquake and details of how to donate to organisations assisting its victims. Content providers include government TV network CCTV, China's
Day 1: Installation. Day 2: Sales. Day 3: Ads running...
Digital is changing the face of airport advertising, according to screen operator Eye, which points to a “very last-minute tactical booking” made this week by MasterCard for displays at Manchester Airport in the UK.
“Airports have always been seen as a long-term booking for advertisers,” marketing manager Catherine Cooper told SCREENS.tv. But in this case, some of the displays had only been installed for a single day when MasterCard
Clear Channel to put screens in 1000 UK pubs
Clear Channel Outdoor and Inspired Gaming Group are partnering in the UK to install 1000 advertising screens in pubs and bars this year. Clear Channel brings advertising expertise and sales resources to the deal, while Inspired – a major operator of gaming terminals – brings existing relationships with major pub chains as well as the technology for transmitting content to the venues.
The network, called Clear Channel Socialite, will
Mall network wows Nairobi shoppers
Digital signage is proving a hit among shoppers at Kenya's third-largest mall, the Prestige Plaza, where Scala and its Nairobi-based partner Ideas Un Limited have installed an advertising and promotional network.
The luxury mall (pictured), located in Ngong Road in downtown Nairobi, has 36 retail outlets, a hypermarket, two cinemas and three banks. According to Scala, the centre has monthly footfall of around 550,000 people, rising to 850,000 during
Researcher predicts steady growth worldwide
International market-research firm NSR predicts that out-of-home advertising via digital signage will be worth $2.7bn by 2013 – and that countries such as China, India and Australia will come to rival North America and Europe in the scale of their digital-signage sectors.
Prashant Butani, an NSR analyst and author of the report “Global Market for Digital Signage”, said the study pulled in data from around 200 companies.
“We
Touchscreens will be ubiquitous, says Microsoft
Microsoft is building on its Surface multitouch technology, launched just a month ago, to create large interactive screens.
At the company's CEO Summit held this week, chairman Bill Gates (pictured on a YouTube video of his presentation) demonstrated the Touch Wall, a 6x4ft interactive display which detects hand or stylus movements across it. Multitouch technology means that it can recognise more than one touch simultaneously.
“Our view is
Shinoda plans 125-inch curved plasma
Japan's Shinoda Plasma will this autumn begin mass production of a 125-inch curved plasma display that is just 1mm deep, aimed at digital-signage applications.
The display, which will be previewed at InfoComm in Las Vegas next month, measures 3x1m overall. It is built out of three 1x1m modules using Shinoda's plasma tube array (PTA) technology.
With a 960x360 resolution, it is likely to be adopted for screen-media applications
Multiplexes “provide perfect audience for digital signage”
Cinema owner Fame India is making digital signage an integral part of its expansion plans, putting screens in 12 new properties this year and contending that multiplexes offer advertisers an affluent, receptive audience.
Pankaj Mehra, head of advertising sales, told SCREENS.tv that the company currently has 60 digital-signage screens across its 15 existing multiplex cinemas. This year it aims to open a further dozen cinemas, each with four digital-signage
Stratacache: Indian market is now beyond the trial stage
U.S. content-distribution specialist Stratacache is the latest firm in the screen-media sector to move into the rapidly-growing Indian market, opening an office in Mumbai to support digital-signage and digital-cinema projects in the subcontinent and other areas of the Asia Pacific region.
According to Filip Vandenbussche, executive VP of international business development at the company, digital-signage initiatives in the region have now evolved from trials into concrete projects.
“However,
