Sixteen:Nine - All Digital Signage, Some Snark

Remi Del Mar, Epson

For a bunch of years, projection seemed like one of these digital signage technologies that had seen its day.

But that's changed in the last two or three years, and if you follow the industry and go to trade shows, you're seeing more projection product and applications.

The big reason is lasers, which last way, way longer than the lamps that were used for many years in projectors.

The big projection guys like Christie, Barco and NEC have a range of suitcase-sized products that get used for big budget events, but another company more historically known for office products has made a strong and interesting expansion into digital signage and visual experiences.

Epson has a variety of projectors that can be applied to signage jobs, but the one that has got most of the attention lately is the LightScene. It looks entirely different from boxy projectors - instead looking very much like the spotlights you see hanging from track systems in shops and galleries. It changes the whole idea of projection in key markets like retail and museums.

I spoke with Remi Del Mar, the LA-based product manager who runs Epson's LightScene team.

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Sean Wargo, AVIXA

AVIXA, the trade association for the pro AV industry, has started doing a weekly impact survey with members in North America and internationally - as a way of understanding how hard the pandemic is hitting business, and the collective point of view on what is happening, and will happen.

As you might imagine, things don't look so hot. Sales are down, and revenues with them. Jobs are being furloughed or ended. And even businesses that would, in theory, be rocking - like video conferencing - are struggling with supply chain issues.

But it's not all doom and gloom, and even in rough times, good things can happen.

Sean Wargo, AVIXA's Senior Director of Market Intelligence, runs the impact surveys. He was kind enough to take some time the other day to walk through what he is hearing, and also what AVIXA is doing with and for its members.

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Chris Riegel, STRATACACHE (2020)

These are some of the oddest, craziest, scariest moments many of us have ever experienced.

If you're sick, you'll hopefully recover quickly.

But the global economy is now very much under the weather, so to speak, and it is not at all clear when it will get better. Businesses are shuttered and many won't open again, or if they do, they'll probably come back in a different way.

The digital signage and digital out of home sectors are hit just like everything else, and this virus is going to take out companies the way it is indiscriminately taking out 100s and 1,000s of people.

I wanted to spend some of  the next few episodes talking to smart industry people about what they're hearing and seeing, as well as what they're doing.

First up is Chris Riegel, who runs what is now the STRATACACHE Group of Companies. We've spoken in the past, but I wanted to speak with Chris because he's very smart, well-travelled and connected, and always has an ear to the ground.

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Mark McDermott, ScreenCloud

ScreenCloud has been around for five years now - a pure software startup that aimed to bring web technology fully into digital signage.

Now the London-based company has roughly 100 staffers in the UK, US and Thailand, and is evolving from having an SMB focus into servicing enterprise business.

I've spoken to co-founder Mark McDermott in the past for this podcast, but I wanted to catch up for a couple of reasons.

First, I wanted to know why such a relatively young platform was completely re-architected recently.

But I also wanted to dig into some thoughts from Mark I saw online about workplace communications and digital signage more generally, in a time when a pandemic has left on-premises screens unseen, and many to most workers doing their jobs at home.

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Stefan Thorarinson, Pristine Screen

At the best of times, using an interactive screen can be a slightly dodgy experience because of the presence of dirt, grime, bacterial build-up and other stuff you really don't even want to think about.

But in this new age we're living in - hopefully temporary, but who knows - touching an interactive surface that's already been used by dozens or scores of others that day could put you in a hospital bed, or coffin.

One of the counter-measures to the risk of transmission of contagions like COVID-19 is the regular cleaning of that screen, not to mention hand-washing or sanitizing after an interactive session.

Given everything that's been going on - and having walked to the self-serve checkout at my local grocery and thought, "Hmmm, how do I do this safely ... " - it's useful to get some insight from a business that's all about clean screens.

Toronto-based Stefan Thorarinson runs North American Ops and Sales for Pristine-Screen, a UK-based company that's specifically in the business of cleaning and protecting digital signage and digital out of home screens.

We chatted about how a global pandemic has raised awareness and attention for keeping screens clean, and what operators should be doing, and not doing.

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Tina Williams, Greater Toronto Airports Authority

Airports are very different places from when I started my working life, and technology has done a lot to not only change travel experiences, but also help monetize what are, often, very busy public places.

The Greater Toronto Airports Authority runs that city's Pearson Airport. It is the busiest airport in Canada, with some 50 million passengers going through the two terminals each year.

Tina Williams runs the media and partnerships programs at Pearson, which is increasingly using technology for everything from fixed, standardized ad positions to very customized, elaborate brand activations that mix mediums. In one case, an automaker's brand messaging starts with projection mapping and video walls in the parking garage and extends all the way to a micro showroom across from the airport's busiest gate.

I've known Tina for a bunch of years, extending back to when she did similar work at Canada's busiest shopping mall. We spoke last week at an airport that, at times, has felt like a second home for me.

We grabbed a room at an Air Canada lounge, which is why it's got a bit of an echo.

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Jim Wickenhiser, SiliconCore

Trying to develop and maintain an understanding of the direct view LED industry is a challenge even for industry veterans.

There's a lot of different tech, a lot of jargon, and a lot of liberal interpretations of what something really is. One company's miniLED may be the next company's microLED.

One of the most well-established manufacturers in LED displays is Silicon Valley-based SiliconCore, which is known for very high quality, fine pixel pitch displays.

Jim Wickenhiser, the company's Senior VP of Strategic Initiatives, kindly agreed to walk me through the different types of LED out there, as well as go into some detail about what makes his company's displays different. 

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Bob O'Brien, Display Supply Chain Consultants

There is very little that's simple about the display industry - whether it's on the consumer or commercial side.

At first glance, it would seem to be all about the electronics, but a flat panel display, in particular, involves a lot of specialty glass and chemical compounds. What gets pulled together for a digital signage display may originate in multiple factories from multiple companies in multiple countries.

A consulting firm called Display Supply Chain Consultants (or DSCC) is in the business of making sense of it all, and relaying that expertise to the manufacturing ecosystem. DSCC does consulting, produces reports and stages business conferences.

I spoke with DSCC Co-Founder and President Bob O'Brien about emerging technology, as well as the impacts being seen by the COVID-19 outbreak. Time will tell, but for now, O'Brien says the impact on commercial display production and availability looks pretty negligible.

It gets a little technical at times, but listen and learn.

 

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George Clopp, RMG Networks

RMG Networks has been doing workplace communications and employee engagement since the days the Dallas company was known as Symon Communications.

There have been some interesting twists and turns in the story of RMG - like a curious spell as a digital out of home media company that ALSO did the legacy Symon stuff. But the management team is now squarely focused on the high opportunity workplace vertical.

I had a great chat with George Clopp, the Chief Technology Officer for RMG, about where the company is at, the evolution of its Korbyt CMS, and how what it does differs in the marketplace.

Among the particularly interesting things - content decisions that are determined and automated, using machine learning, or AI. Have a listen.

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Taylor Hunter, Impactrum

I love the notion of transparent LED displays - the idea of taking a big surface and making it active, without also creating a big, solid wall that blocks the view in and out.

There are "transparent" LED display products - tech that has matured to a level that they look great from the front, but still tends to look terrible from the back side that's not illuminated.

There is LED on transparent film. LG's looks great, but the pitch is so wide it has limited application. I've seen much finer pitch LED on film from Chinese companies, but like the companies using metal grids, this looks like crap from in behind.

So I was really intrigued when I was made aware of a new company called Impactrum, which is starting to market a truly transparent film on LED that can have as fine a pitch as 6mm, but looks great front and back. And can be used on the OUTSIDE of buildings.

The company is actually a spinout from a decade-old Korean LED maker. I spoke with Impactrum's US-based President, Taylor Hunter.

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David Nussbaum, PORTL

David Nussbaum has years invested in the whole idea of creating what are called holograms - but aren't - for high profile concerts and other events.

If you remember seeing video of the Coachella festival a few years ago, and rapper Tupac “coming back to life” to perform, that was done, and many similar events that followed, using a very old visual trick called Pepper’s Ghost.

Nussbaum was part of the company that bought the patents right after the Tupac event, and he had a hand in nearly all the holograms that came after it for the next few years. Nussbaum then went on his own, creating a company that does that same sort of thing, but in a very different way, and a very different business model and proposition.

He took transparent LCD display technology most commonly used for grocery fridge marketing, and tweaked the hell out of it to create more, better light and visuals.

The result is a company called PORTL and product he calls Holoportl, which does what he calls single passenger holoportation.

That sounds way too Star Trek-y for me, but in simple terms, his company has developed a process to capture people on camera and show them in lifelike size on one of his closet-like display display units.

The idea is that someone - let's say a politician - could make a personal appearance, talk and field questions, without going there.

There are a bunch of potential applications for this sort of thing, and while this is not pure digital signage, one of these units could absolutely find a home in a flagship store.

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Vernon Freedlander, Bannister Lake

Dynamic data has grown into a buzz phrase in the digital signage industry, with lots of talk about how the ability to automate and visualize data results in relevant, always updated and fresh content on screens.

It's relatively new to many companies in this industry, but for a few, it's old hat.

A little company in the Canadian tech hotbed of Kitchener-Waterloo has been doing dynamic data for a quarter-century. Bannister Lake's roots are in dynamic graphics for broadcasters, and that's still a big business. But the company also does dynamic data for digital signage, and is growing that side of the business.

If you watched any of the big matches at the US Open tennis tournament last fall in New York, you saw an amazing set of LED displays at the venue showing graphics and stats. That was Bannister Lake under the content hood.

I spoke with industry veteran Vern Freedlander, who's now a part of the Bannister Lake team.

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Jim Stoklosa, Adobe

Some very big technology companies have come into the digital signage business through the years, and with the exception of the display guys, most have either exited or their efforts kinda petered out.

Every so often I stumble across something that suggests Cisco is still in signage, but I don't see it.

It would be reasonable to have read news that Adobe had debuted a digital signage CMS, and thought, "Well, I've seen this movie already …" But it hasn't played out that way, and Adobe has for the last 4-5 years been steadily building out Screens - a content management system that grows out of its mature, widely used Adobe Experience Manager platform.

The initial target has been creatives and content managers at companies and agencies that already widely use Adobe products. If they were already developing and pushing content to web and mobile screens, why not also enable in-venue screens?

Now Adobe is kinda sorta coming out of stealth mode and thinking about a broader opportunity, providing an omni-channel CMS for mid-sized to large companies, and their creatives.

I spoke with digital signage industry veteran Jim Stoklosa, who is in charge of AEM Screens.

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Daniel Fleischer, Blip

Getting agencies and media planners out of the process was always going to be critical to enabling small to medium businesses to do marketing campaigns on digital billboards across the country.

The idea of online media marketplaces is not new - and there are certainly lots of ad exchanges and programmatic digital OOH companies already out there.

But a relatively new company - Blip - is going at things differently, and seemingly getting some traction.

The Salt Lake City start-up has a platform that enables small, hyperlocal businesses to do media buys on billboards near them - and only buy as much time and exposure as their budget allows.

It means a local mortgage broker who only has $1,000 for advertising can buy time on a big board or boards, and for the media owner, it opens up new revenue from ad clients that they wouldn't normally chase - because the time needed to open and service these small accounts isn't worth it. This works because Blip is largely filling up unbooked, or what is sometimes called remnant inventory.

Daniel Fleischer has been involved in the digital out of home sector for more than a decade, but he amicably left Ayuda in the wake of its acquisition by Broadsign. Now he runs Blip for Canada.

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David Title, Bravo Media

Experiential is a huge buzzword these days in the digital signage world, and it tends to get pretty loosely applied to all kinds of things.

I've seen projects and read PR pieces describing the work as being experiential, and thought, "Ok, in what way?"

A creative company down in the Chelsea district has been doing experiential media for years, and from the moment the elevator opens up into the offices of Bravo Media, you're into experience. There are projections all over the walls and off-the-wall gadgets like vintage slot machines retrofitted to shoot selfies.

I was in New York last week and had a great chat with David Title, the Chief Engagement Officer at Bravo, about what the company does, and how he defines engagement and experience.

This is the last podcast until the new year, as people should have better things to do around the holidays. There are some 180 back episodes to listen to, if you did need something to pass time or fall asleep. 

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Lee Horgan, Uniguest

More and more companies involved on the sell and service side of digital signage seem to be picking out business verticals and getting very focused on them.

It's a tactic that can work very well if that company already has a big history and footprint in a vertical, and that's certainly the case with Uniguest.

The company built up its business by putting in and managing business centers in hotels - those dedicated rooms or stations where guests can do things like print off a boarding pass or presentation deck. The technology company started getting asked by major clients about whether it also offered digital signage solutions, and like any cagey tech vendor, it said "Of Course!"

But the software Uniguest initially developed in-house wasn't all that good, and the management team decided the smarter and easier path was to acquire a company that already had a solid platform, long history and great people.

Uniguest bought the UK company Onelan, and then followed it up by acquiring a second UK software company Tripleplay. I didn't even know, until I had a tour last week of Uniguest's Center of Excellence in Nashville, that they'd also acquired a Pittsburgh company, TouchTown.

I had a great chat with Lee Horgan, the Chief Revenue Officer, about how Uniguest is building up a vertical solution that starts in hotel lobbies and extends all the way into guest rooms.

We also get into how Uniguest sees a big future providing very similar solutions in the senior living industry, where higher-end residences are looking and feeling more and more like very nice extended-stay hotels. 

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Hadrien Laporte, Smartpixel

If you have ever gone through the process of looking for a condo or house in a development that's still just a hole in the ground or an empty field, you've probably spent time in a presentation center looking over drawings, plans and maybe even miniature models of the development.

Those places start to tell the story, but it requires a serious leap of faith to buy a property worth hundreds of thousands of dollars based on some nice drawings, maps and pamphlets.

There are touchscreen displays that digitize that material, and arguably make it better. But if you really want to sell and close, making people feel like they're virtually immersed in the specific property they're looking at is several leaps forward.

I spoke with Hadrien Laporte, a graphic designer who a decade ago started Smartpixel in Montreal, offering software tools and creative services to help truly visualize things like commercial, industrial and residential real estate.

The company does virtual reality, without the embarrassing, isolating goggles, and does it very well. Smartpixel is thriving, has 60 people and 15 more planned for 2020, and is also planning to expand its product. It also does basic digital signage, when asked, but when you can do 3D visualizations of entire real estate developments, putting videos on screens is a bit of a shrug.

I had a great chat with Laporte about the company's roots, how it does things, and where Smartpixel is going.

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Ravi Bail, PiSignage

The Raspberry Pi micro PC has been on the market for several years now, and is in its 4th generation.

A handful of companies have developed CMS software applications for the Pi - some I'd say more successfully than others.

One that's now been around for five-plus years, and built up both a mature platform and big user base, is PiSignage, an Indian company based in the tech mecca of Bangalore.

I spoke with founder Ravi Bail about why his software consulting firm got into the signage marketplace, and why it went with Raspberry Pi.

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We get into a lot of things, including how PiSignage makes money with a managed CMS that costs subscribers less than $3 a month.

Stephen Gottlich, Gable

I have heard some people in this industry starting to describe what they do as visual solutions, as opposed to digital signage. I'm not sure that really fits in all cases, but it certainly does for Gable, a Baltimore-area company that's been doing analog signs of all kinds for four decades. About 10 years ago, Gable added digital display solutions.

They work with all kinds of end-users - heavily with retail, but also in other verticals - on visual solutions that cover the full spectrum of options. That might mean a contract that involves a big direct view LED display for a venue, but also the meat and potatoes printed and crafted material that just helps visitors find their way around a venue.

I spoke with Stephen Gottlich, Gable's Senior Vice President of Innovation and Strategy, about what the company is up to, and what the marketplace is looking for and doing.

We also get into what he sees happening more broadly in the marketplace, and what he's seen in numerous technology trips to China.

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Daniel Black, Glass-Media

Projection on window film is one of those things that I thought had come and gone from digital signage, with too many technical challenges to make the idea really workable.

But projection is having a comeback, and arguably the company doing the most with it for retail and campaign-based marketing is a scrappy little startup in Dallas, called Glass-Media.

I chatted with Daniel Black, who co-founded the company roughly five years ago and is its CEO. The big differences between the first wave of projection in signage, and now, are better technology and smarter vendors.

The film is better. The projectors are brighter. Specialty lenses mean the set-up takes less space. And the big one - laser projectors are supplanting older-style projectors that steadily needed expensive bulbs replaced, and weren't engineered for commercial applications.

The other factor is guys like Black selling this as a solution, with measurables for retailers and brands, as opposed to a technical thing with short term Wow Factor.

If you've been curious about the state of projection in signage, this is a worthwhile listen.

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