International DS Days

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International Digital Signage Days ‘08, organised by Popai, was a two day digital signage conference that took place in Hamburg on the 15 and 16th October 2008 under the heading of ‘A New Medium Revolutionises Communication’. The event saw top speakers such as BestBuy’s James Damian and Scala’s Jeff Porter discussing the ins and outs of digital signage.
 
BestBuy’s evolutionary strategy in the roll out of digital signage throughout their store network served as a good example of the stages ‘real world’ DS needs to go through to evolve and mature. Having started out in the age of laser discs, they have now moved on to regularly distributing DVDs to their stores. To ensure content is consistent with brand identity, content modules (pictures, copy, messages, clips, etc) are purpose-designed and created for use by the stores. Collaborative online databases allow local store managers to create their own content for use on flash players, without clashing with nationwide campaigns which use the same content modules to reinforce message and recall. Industry leading recall scores amongst US consumers show the concept works. Interactive kiosks let customers engage with the retailer.
 
Jeff Porter highlighted how Scala’s content creation and management suite, based on a open platform architecture, can deliver almost unlimited variations of DS-ready content without any need for costly movie shots. Its new advertising module allows for network-wide orchestrated campaigns. Benjamin Herrmanns of Sales TV showed how the combination of DS and interactive kiosks makes the most of each of them.
 
GIM discussed its global DS study, the most comprehensive proof and analysis of the worldwide trend towards DS, which is now available in hard copy. Also on the research side of things, Guy Vaugham presented Popai’s efforts to develop a measurement matrix for all POS advertising: MARI. This will also allow for a more precise evaluation of DS within the concert of other POS media.
 
Further presentations included legal aspects of DS roll outs and their potential conflict with general broadcast and radio regulators, financing concepts for DS, and the launch of Popai’s DS Awards, which will be held on 5th May 2009 at the DIGITAL SIGNAGE EXPO 2009 in Essen, Germany.