One Step At A Time

InfoComm is this week in SoCal. Strategy Institute's Brand Conference in NYC. Since the Digital Expo in Chicago I have been searching for other opportunities to learn about this strange new land.

I have met some creative and forward-thinking execs who all express frustration at the fragmented environment. The frustration belies a clear excitement about the future though. While we all seem to be fumbling around in the dark, searching for new and workable revenue models, there seems to be a commitment to stretch this new delivery system towards TARGETED ENTERTAINMENT. The cries for content that is not traffic feeds and weather updates and headline news is getting louder and louder.

We seek answers. I have to constantly remind my team to live the question. We will eventually live our way into the answer. Right now, we just keep plonking away, building relationships, seeking and creating opportunities, believing that we are all walking in the right direction.

Content does NOT mean advertising

Was on the phone today with a great guy and potential partner and we were discussing INFOcomm next week and the fragmented environment that is Digital Signage at the moment.

And he happened to say something like, 'Yes, XYZ are good at creating content for their screens."

Now, he was not talking about ENTERTAINMENT. He was talking ADVERTISEMENTS.

Compelling content to MOST digital signage networks still means Ads that are cool or sticky or move product or whatever...

I am so excited to move the ball on this point. CONTENT in closed network environments has to become TARGETED AND RELEVANT ENTERTAINMENT. Otherwise, we lose this great opportunity to create a revenue model that works for big brands.

Stick to your knitting

Easy to get hooked by the fast pace of the market. Seems every day I am reading about the "next big innovation" in Digital Signage. I am trying to stay focused to what I know: programming development and television production. And the landscape I see up ahead: these closed network environments are soon going to be clamoring for compelling, relevant, targeted ENTERTAINMENT.

We have a companion vision: we think that the technology has become so user-friendly that we can go in and teach "network environments" to program their own content. We will be there to offer content packages but a fare amount of their content will be self-generated. It has become so easy.

In the American Indian communities this translates to community members taping their own Tribal Council meetings or documenting their own languages or high school basketball games.

In Home Depot, it might mean Team Members being taped giving a tutorial on fixing the garbage disposal.

This kind of TARGETED ENTERTAINMENT is the future of Digital Signage. It has to be. How many commercials do people need to see before those screens all over the store become like the grandfather clock ding-donging every fifteen minutes in the corner. No one is listening to that either.

In order to reach the audience, you must create content that creates connection.

So.... we are trying to stay above the fray of the delivery systems and the new delivery systems and the new, new, new widgets and 'stick to our knitting': innovative ways to create content that connects.

We all know that the big ad money will follow.....

In the land of the blind, a one-eyed man is king.

The more I read and surf and talk to people in the DIGITAL SIGNAGE industry, the more convinced I am that no one knows anything. People seem to think that advertising is the name of the game. It can't be! In 1949, my mentor Bob Banner started in TV. This was before TV was in homes. TV's were in stores! People couldn't afford them so they would gather at stores to watch important events. TV Entertainment was invented in order to fill the time between commercials. Advertisers STARTED television. Advertisements still PAY for television. Why can't closed networks or digital signage become the new frontier? Why can't closed networks start providing ad-supported entertainment? It will be TARGETED in a way TV could never manage to do in the early days. Not until CABLE came and provided all the niche markets, which again are ad supported. Advertisers are thrilled to buy time on HGTV because they KNOW WHO WATCHES IT!

Digital Signage will become the next iteration of this. Otherwise people will simply stop paying attention.

Targeted Entertainment for Closed Networks

Attended the Digital Signage Expo last month as a television producer on a recon mission. What was all this "digital signage" hubbub? A month later, I have started gathering resources and partnerships towards plugging up the vacuum that the fragmented environment is spinning around in.

It is a world dominated by hardware wonks and software wonks and advertising wonks and retailers and merchandisers. What seems to be missing is the CONTENT piece. No one is going to tolerate ads as content. And one can only watch so much CNN and weather before crying uncle (or more likely, turn that thing off!).

Will targeted entertainment be enough to keep eyeballs? I don't know but I aim to find out. Stay tuned...