Digital Signage Forum, Digital Signage, Digital Signage Network, Digital Signage Product Reviews

This article is one of a five part series highlighting the Content Strategies & Awards Summit hosted by the Strategy Institute.

The Out of Home Digital Signage Networks Content Strategies and Awards Summit delivered compelling educational information about Dynamic Digital Signage Networks regarding content, context and making it relevant to every creative effort regarding Digital Signage media and advertising. This phenomenal event was elegantly hosted by The Strategy Institute and took place in sunny Las Vegas, Nevada at Caesars Palace on February 21^st and 22^nd, 2007.

Day One: Morning of Strategy Institute Out-of-home
Content Strategies at Caesars Palace

Hirmani Dureja of Strategy Institute welcomes the Digital Signage Forum

I was so excited that I actually showed up an hour early for the conference. People that know me understand that this is an unprecedented industry first in Digital Signage Forum history! The first cheerful face I see is Hirmani Dureja who is the conference coordinator for Strategy Institute. She graciously allows me a sneak peek of who will be in attendance so I can plan my media coverage for the day.  Breakfast started at 7:30am and consisted of outstanding French toast, danishes, muffins, fruit and coffee.  It was great to see some old familiar industry friends and colleagues and exciting to meet all the new companies who attended. If you are ever on the fence about attending a Strategy Institute conference …don’t be. Attend! Strategy Institute conferences are a high class, educational experience with all the comforts of home you could ever ask for. The work and time dedicated to the attendees’ needs is phenomenal. Great job Strategy Institute, thank you!

Lyle Bunn Chairperson Day One:

Opening remarks from the Chairperson and Strategy Architect Lyle Bunn of Alchemy, a division of Pi Media, fired up the crowd with his empowering opening remarks about where we have been as an industry, how far we have come and where we are today. He ultimately set the positive and very exciting tone of the day with his fantastic “this is a one billion dollar a year industry” speech.

Strategy Institute hit the bull’s-eye with Lyle Bunn as the day one chair person because his enthusiasm is contagious!

Mark Lansberg Opening Address Day One:

Opening Address was nicely delivered by Mark Lansberg, President of ARC WORLDWIDE

Mark explained how to create value exchanges across all marketing channels and delivered a strong message about ensuring that content was engaging by putting it into the context of consumer’s lives. He clearly elaborated on “totally transparent marketing” and what that means to digital signage success.

What we particularly enjoyed was his knowledge and beliefs of building content around consumer’s passions and interests. After all, we are forum built around a specific interest … which means Mark would totally understand us here at the Digital Signage Forum…we like it and we totally agree that building Digital Signage content around consumer’s specific interests and passions would rock!

Speakers of Day One:

Speaker: Mark Zwicker, Vice President of Alchemy, a division of Pi Media

The only sound you could hear was jaws dropping when Mark Zwicker explained the difference of objectives between merchants and marketers and what each party is looking for in digital signage content concerns and objectives. The light came on and we were all home when he stated “Marketers in store are concerned with entertaining, atmosphere, ambiance, up-sell and cross-sell vs. that merchants are looking for specific product, cross selling, product knowledge and information being broadcast and how we need to look at it from a “retailer’s perspective”.

Ok….I confess and the secret is out….Mark Zwicker is a Digital Signage Forum favorite speaker because anyone who can clear up the confusion on something as critical as this gets an A++ in our book. Great job Mark!

Break Time Day One:

10:15 - The mid-morning break.

The mid-morning break allowed for companies to network. This was a great experience and I expect to see some phenomenal news and digital signage agreements coming from this networking time. The exciting part was while we were walking around we overheard potential partnerships in the making.

We even uncovered a few top secret stories for future use! Remember, you will hear it here first!

More Speakers…

Speaker: Bill Gerba, President and CEO of Wirespring Technologies

He spoke about what is keeping user generated content out of OOH. Some of the reasons he slated are manageability, accountability, responsibility and trust. We agree with Bill that user generated content is probably very viable and extremely interesting for OOH content but I think it will be questionable to see who pays who for the actual content and how it will effect Digital Signage content agencies and software companies. The concept of having Google and other search engine providers having that much control is a little scary to me.

Overall we are a big fan of user generated content and who knows, it just might even make some entrepreneurs and millionaires out of quality internet users and content creators. This would help give a nice shot in the arm to global economy now wouldn’t it?

Christopher Hume, who is the Vice President of Production Services for MGM Mirage Advertising, Inc.

Delivered a phenomenal presentation about how to create impact content without blowing the budget. He also detailed the pros and cons of in-house production vs. outsourcing, how and when to find the right balance, the right talent and how to avoid staff burnout.

I was personally impressed with his thought process about who “conceptual thinkers” are and how important they are in his team. I was also fascinated when he explained about how the benefit of being geographically located in Las Vegas makes finding content reasonably priced and easy to find.  This was my all time favorite presentation of the day and all I know is if the Digital Signage Forum fires me, I am calling Christopher Hume at MGM for the conceptual thinker position.

Interesting Observations:

Tomorrow’s article will be about the rest of Day One speakers including:

• Virginia Cargill, President and CEO of SignStorey
• Rebecca Walt, VP of Professional Services, Reflect Systems, Inc.

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