Multimedia
Blogs
Forum
Affordable HD
Whitepapers
Newsletters
Events
Advertisers
Blogcast
MillimeterPro AV channel may miss out on signage opportunities
Dec 9, 2004 11:27 AM
Digital signage sounds like it should be the cure for the AV systems integrator’s low-priced-commodity projector blues. It combines steadily increasing awareness, rapidly improving technology, and a demand for exactly the kind of value-added design and other services that most integrators rely on to set them apart.
But taking this cure may be harder than many expect. One reason is that digital signage needs are increasingly being served by players from outside the traditional pro AV channel, using new technology tools that spring from another non-traditional pro AV application, digital cinema.
Nick Dager, editor of Digital Cinema Report, says that even though the long-awaited digital cinema business is finally beginning to take off, some of the earliest benefits of the new technology will actually be felt in fields other than feature film display - fields like rental and staging, corporate events, museums, theme parks...and digital signage.
“In truth, the progress that has already been made has created tremendous opportunities,” he says, pointing to advances in server technology, display devices, content acquisition, editing, and other niches.
For systems integrators, though, these tantalizing opportunities may pass by unrealized. “There’s no business model yet that puts systems integrators in the loop,” Dager says. “They’re going to get business, but they won’t be driving that business.” Instead, clients will turn to others for help with their networked signage needs, including their IT providers, equipment manufacturers, architects, and such traditional advertising players as outdoor, transit, and airport display providers.
Dager’s advice for integrators? “You’d better make friends with every architect and designer you know. The smart integrators will figure out how to get into this loop.”
Paul Martin, whose TFC Info has recently launched a new Dynamic Signage Consortium, also fears that pro AV players are at risk of being left out of a boom.
Of systems integrators, he says, “They’re very much behind the eight-ball. I really believe this is the next hot thing, but in many respects we’re shooting ourselves in the foot.”
One symptom of the difficulty, Martin says, is that “we don’t even know what to call ourselves.” Different people use captive area networks, narrowcasting, digital signage, dynamic signage, and other terms to identify what is basically the same thing: a system of digital displays controlled by, and receiving variable content from, a network.
The fledgling Consortium recently surveyed its members about which market areas were highest priorities in allocating research efforts, only to find an extraordinary range of interests. More than a dozen different application areas were mentioned by at least half of all survey respondents, ranging from convenience stores to casinos to restaurants.
TFC Info estimates the dynamic signage market in the U.S. alone is worth about $335 million in 2004, and Martin notes that more than a third of that value is in services rather than hardware. Some European nations, he adds, are well ahead of the U.S. in adopting dynamic signage. Hardware costs, network costs, and even the cost of content creation have come down dramatically, he says.
What’s the key for integrators who want to assure themselves a place in this parade? Martin suggests an under-served market segment: Small business. “One of the biggest markets is the grass roots,” he says. “Mom and Pop businesses like real estate offices, for example. For every Best Buy, you’re going to have 10,000 of these smaller guys. They ‘get it’ instantly, but nobody is talking to them.”
Continue the discussion on Crosstalk the Millimeter Forum.