As a new contributor to this site, I thought it might be helpful to devote this first article to my foundational beliefs, prejudices, thoughts and hopes around what we in the business refer to as "the Digital Signage Industry." In this way, I feel I can position this contribution for you, the reader, as well as establish my pedigree, so to speak, on why you might spend any of your valuable time reading what I have to say. This could be a dangerous strategy for a first column, but I feel compelled to give you "fair warning."
The digital signage business is still very new, as everyone will tell you. But it’s been around at least 10 years; just ask John Kirkpatrick. His fledgling company, FRED Systems, may have been the first digital signage company. I met John (now at 3M) when I was starting ActiveLight back in 1998.
The concept behind ActiveLight was to build a value-added distributor of advanced display products (plasma displays and large-format LCDs) that specialized in applications like digital signage. We even used the words "digital signage" in our original business plan.
Jeff Porter and Scala will tell you this concept has been around much longer. I believe Scala just celebrated its 20th anniversary at Digital Signage Expo, in fact. Be that as it may, I would say that digital signage has only taken on the status of an "industry" over the last few years – since around 2003.
That year, several things happened that kick-started this business. ActiveLight published the first Dynamic Digital Signage Resource Directory — the veritable "Yellow Pages" of the industry. It listed every company who considered themselves to be involved in digital signage at that time — around 300 companies I think. Also that year, NSCA created the Digital Signage Pavilion at the NSCA Expo, followed shortly thereafter by ExpoNation and the inaugural Digital Retailing Expo (both events sponsored by ActiveLight).
Thirdly, POPAI agreed to be the administrative body for the first Digital Signage Industry Association. This Association came about due to the efforts of a group of digital signage industry veterans, including Jeff Porter and John Kirkpatrick, as well as such Sean Moran of PRN, Jeff Dowell of Clarity (now of 3M), Brian Dusho (now at Broadsign), Dan Slott (Convergent/Technicolor), Manny Almagro (MarketForward) and several others who came together for a series of meetings around 2001 which I organized and dubbed as the "Digital Signage Superfriends."
So what does that make me? I am clearly a party to the revolution; a believer and evangelist for digital signage; a "hardware-guy-turned-marketing-man" for the future of this fledgling industry. While I no longer run ActiveLight (sold it to Electrograph in 2006) and have no direct responsibility for digital signage in my new position as vice president of business development for Planar Systems Inc., I remain a fervent believer and evangelist for digital signage, which is why I am writing this column.
OK, interesting history lesson, but where does that leave us in 2007? I would say that the digital signage industry has clearly evolved into a more complex and capable being than ever before. Examples of this can be seen in the headlines of stories circulating throughout the industry:
- Wal-Mart and PRN announce expansion of the Wal-mart TV network
- 3M acquires Mercury Online
- Thomson acquires PRN and Convergent
- Cisco acquires Tivela
- Planar acquires Clarity Visual Systems
- Target, Bank of America, Chevron (insert major brand name here) launch digital signage networks
- Both Arbitron and Neilsen have active measurement programs to gauge the effectiveness of digital signage
- IBM and Google host Keynote Presentations at 2007 Digital Signage Expo
These are clearly signs that the "industry" is coming of age: when blue-chip companies make significant investments through deployments and acquisitions. But even this is not the big news, in my opinion. These companies, along with the major display manufacturers — all of whom have launched digital signage products or initiatives — are reacting to the current "buzz-factor" around digital signage. The more interesting news to me is the way the new and smaller companies are re-writing the rules about digital signage into business models that the companies above (with the possible exception of Google) haven’t even thought of yet. For example:
- SeeSaw Networks emerges as central clearinghouse for digital signage advertising on non-homogenous networks
- Wireless Ronin goes public and establishes $90 million market cap (on less than $3 million sales)
- Ripple lands a full page article in USA Today for its Coffeeshop Network
- No less than three companies are competing for the gas-station-pump-top digital signage market
- DS-IQ provides analytics middleware to dynamically measure and improve the effectiveness of digital signage networks and content
There are also cautionary tales and warning signs that we must heed if we are counting on this industry for our long-term success. Along with every success above, we could find an equally spectacular failure. I haven’t done the analysis, but I am willing to bet that a large percentage of the companies who were listed in the inaugural Digital Signage Resource Directory in 2003 either don’t exist or have morphed themselves into something else in order to survive. Are we paying attention, and what can we learn from these false-starts?
As I walked the floor of the Digital Signage Expo in Chicago, I was struck by the professional presence of the large companies and brands as listed above, and also by the sheer number of interesting and creative smaller companies, many of which I’d never heard of, who were staking a claim to a piece of the digital signage industry pie. My goal has always been to focus on growing the pie, and thereby benefit as my piece of that pie also grows.
Clearly, there are an awful lot of people and companies who feel the same way, and are devoting themselves and their companies to transitioning digital signage into the kind of industry we can all be proud to be a part of "at the beginning." I hope to highlight many of these companies, and what makes them interesting and noteworthy, in my coming articles. Please help me by dropping me a note or a question on what you are surprised by, interested in or curious about concerning the digital signage market and industry.
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