Interview: Where the Latest Display Technologies Will Take Digital Signage

Printer-friendly version

Neil O'Sullivan spoke with Kobi Elbaz and Paul Farrow, Hewlett Packard
 
DS Europe: What are the challenges facing customers in the digital signage market today?
 
Kobi Elbaz: We have been investigating the opportunity to enter this market for some time, and have done a great deal of research with our partners to identify major challenges faced by customers.
 
Firstly, the market is very fragmented. If you are a customer and need a DS solution, you need to buy it from many different suppliers. You need someone for the players, someone for the screen, someone for the software etc. This leads to a lot of issues to do with maintenance and support and so on. If a setup doesn’t work, the customer doesn’t know if the screen is at fault, or the player, or the software, etc. And for each piece of equipment customers have to turn to a different support service.
 
Secondly, for some reason, when people talk about digital signage, all they want to talk about is ads ads ads. And of course, digital signage is a platform for advertising. But customers want more than this. They want technology to drive business. Every business has a different objective, and DS may be a solution to upsale needs, interaction needs and self-service as well as simply advertising needs. Digital signage providers need to recognise this.
 
Paul Farrow: Also, many providers are too concerned with producing bigger and bigger screens. We can fill the room with many kinds of screen, but for us the size of the screen is not important when it comes to digital signage. We have all kinds of technology, from small screens to big screens to walls of screens, but it all depends on what is going to suit the customer’s needs.
 
When looking at digital signage, it is important to consider it from the solution side, from the customer’s perspective. For instance, what if smaller chains with only one or two stores want to install digital signage? These companies don’t have complex IT or art departments. We have talked with these companies, and they have said they do want digital signage but don’t know how to do it, because they need to talk to so many people that they become lost.
 
DS: What is HP offering for the digital signage market?
 
KE: We have thought about the current problems with the marketplace and we are now bringing to market the HP SignagePlayer MP8000r. If you are an SMB, you can buy one product from us, and you get the screen, you get the player, and you get the software. Connect it to the power and in less than five minutes you can have working digital signage.
 
DS: How is this solution different to what is already on the marketplace?
 
KE: We believe HP is in a unique position because we are an IT vendor and an equipment manufacturer. We can therefore make solutions integrated and scalable. We also have a global presence, and well established service and support systems.
 
Furthermore, we are aiming to deliver standardised solutions which will make digital signage easier to implement, cheaper to support and maintain, and more adaptable and flexible, able to expand into other environments and be used for other purposes. To my knowledge, no-one else in the market is trying to introduce standards in this way.
 
DS: What drove you to develop your new digital signage offering?
 
PF: Eight or nine months ago we started to examine the ecosystems in the market. We conceived it in terms of a pyramid. The top half is made up of project-based, large advertising market opportunities. These are big companies and long term projects.
 
Then middle and bottom space comprises of enterprises and corporate business. These are the emerging markets for digital signage. Indeed, digital signage is itself an emerging market. It is not matured by any stretch of the imagination.
 
It was clear from our research that customers were getting confused by the present state of the marketplace. So we approached Scala, who we knew were developing a small enterprise solution called Quickstart. This has been designed around an API, but basically makes the front end a lot easier for first time users to use because it strips away a lot of the technical aspects and makes it relevant for people who want immediate use of templates filled with images and text. We developed a media player based on Scala’s software.
 
DS: So what exactly will a customer buying your product get?
 
KE: The package is sold as a bundle: screen, player and software. When the customer gets the bundle and switches the equipment on, the player will configure, which takes about five minutes. Once it is configured, you will need to register online using the web portal developed by Scala. At the same time, you pay for the licence, which is monthly and non-contractual.
 
After that, setup is done. The customer then has full usability of the system, backed up with online training videos, a single HP support number, and templates which can be used straight away.
 
DS: What sort of people do you think will be interested in this solution?
 
KE: We are targeting SMBs but not solely SMBs. Take for example a primary school. They might want one display in reception, one in the lobby, and one in the canteen. But they aren’t going to have an IT department to install the equipment and aren’t going out to a marketing company to design graphics for the displays. The system has been designed to allow them to be able to use their current imagery, and not having to invest in an IT department. We are confident that there are thousands of organisations in this position, who have not yet ventured into digital signage, but might be persuaded to, if offered the right platform.
 

 
DS: Are you planning to integrate your digital signage platform with other applications?
 
PF: This is the first of many solutions we hope to bring to the market. For instance, we are developing 42” touchscreen technology, which is starting to become very popular with the emersive market, for applications such as wayfinding. Even though our touchscreens are primarily aimed at the consumer market, they can also be converted to an elegant kiosk solution for retailers who don’t want a system which is contained in a big box. Our touchscreen products are already appearing in a lot of kiosk applications. This demonstrates how, once we have the technology, we can use our extensive portfolio to find new applications and new and diverse markets for it, and take it in directions other companies can’t.
 
DS: What about the possibility of integrating digitalsignage into traditional printed sign advertising?
 
PF: I recently visited FESPA with our image print group. A lot of visitors and exhibitors were saying that the print industry is very interested in using digital signage as a complementary medium to traditional print. So at FESPA we latexed a wall with a snow scene, as if it had been installed in a winter sports shop. We embedded three screens in the wall, one of them touch, all driven by a HP workstation. The idea was that from a distance you thought it is a poster, since on the screens we had simulated the bit that we had taken out of the poster. But when you walked up to it, proximity made the screen change, and you could browse the products in the store on the screens using touch technology. You could then print out your orders and take them to the till and buy them.
 
This got a lot of people thinking about different ways to use screens in signage in inventive ways.
 
If you see two adverts displayed in a shopping centre, and one of them contains moving images, I would put money on it that you would be attracted to the one that’s got movement. The digital poster can also target advertising: focusing, for instance, on mothers and kids in the morning, and returning workers in the evening.
 
This way you are integrating your signage with your targeted messaging into a wall. That only works if you have the right technology partner with you.
 
At the moment these ideas are purely proof of concept, but if customers demand it, we will look at ways of supporting this technology on a wider scale.
 
DS: What will you be telling us in twelve months time?
 
PF: Hopefully in twelve months time we’ll be able to give you a good report card in terms of the business we’ve been able to achieve but I think we’ll also be telling you where this business is going to be going. There are umpteen potential different directions it could go. We have to consider which ones are the right ones, and which cards we want to place bets on. I think in twelve months time we’ll be able to tell you which the cards we’ll be betting on for the twelve months after that.
 
KE: We don’t look at this business in terms of manufacturing screens and equipment; we look at it in terms of providing a solution to our customers and our retailers and looking at the end way, rather than just shipping screens. In a way I think the whole market looks at digital signage the wrong way. There are dozens of different formats and different solutions which can be explored.There is more to digital signage than simply a 42” screen and a box.