Who Can Go The Distance? We'll Find Out In The Long Run.

10/23/2005

If you were at the AT-RETAIL show in NYC at the Hilton in New York on September 29th and 30th 2005, listen to the tune “In the Long Run” and you will remember that this show was packed with powerful classes and motivating speakers plus sophisticated attendees that were not so much concerned with the hardware pieces but about consumer perceptions with brand awareness. Even if you were not there listen to the song and read on..

The AT-RETAIL show was like an onion (those deep fried yummy big ones) and everyone who attended, exhibited, lectured and motivated helped peel away the outer layers to reveal the sweet strong flavor of Digital Signage to really prove that it is not just about deploying screens and adding software anymore, but about the measurement of time, ad space and effective solutions that will make sense to the ad agencies that will adopt the medium with advertising dollars when we can provide statistics to them in a way that makes sense for selling opportunities at the point of purchase.


The behind the scenes theme of the show was about measurement, ROI, CPM, RDS, RFID and content at POP and the inaugural AT –RETAIL (ARM) provided an awesome floor for conversation between suppliers, ad agencies and attendees.

But what does it all mean?

ROI stands for Return On Investment. The discounted present value of the sum of all future net, after-tax profits, divided by the sum of investment outlays required to generate the income stream. But what the new ROI really means is a newer measurement that companies contemplating deployment are using to determine how much to invest in their Digital Signage effort for what effect it will have on future revenue.

RDS stands for Retail Digital Signage and is usually discussed as a complete system when the research has been done to support it as a well thought out advertising machine with measurement, statistics and research having been completed.

CPM stands for Cost per Thousand Viewers and is the cost of advertising per thousand potential customers reached by a given screen, network or outdoor deployment.

POP Point of Purchase in Digital Signage means strategically placed screens usually in high profile areas based on theories and studies that approximately 70 percent of all brand purchase decisions are made in-store by using POP.

One very important and critical advantage that we walked away with from the AT-RETAIL (ARM) EXPO show is that if you do not enjoy measurements and they give you a headache with the statistics and all the acronyms that go with it- you will want to partner with people who do and can measure effectively for successful deployments. Not that you might want to….you might have to in order to make your Signage solution work-- no matter what kind of Signage solution you seek, deploy or market.

With all the Digital Signage business partnering going on, the boundaries on manufacturing, retailing and distribution are going to get blurred and we can't rely any longer on the traditional assumption that they’re a distributor, he's a retailer, we won't retail, he won't manufacture etc. We'll have to accommodate one another to tap into whom does what aspect of a project best to successfully roll out projects that will yield the highest ad revenues. This is what is being asked of us as an industry and the AT-RETAIL (ARM) EXPO allowed us to prove we are working on finding creative ways to deliver. "People talking about us- they got nothing else to do…when it all goes down we -will still come through-- in the looonng run…I know we can make it!"

Good luck and Virtual Success!