Strategy Institute Media Summit follow-up
A meeting in New York kept me from attending the second day of this event, but I had notes kicking around from Day One that I thought were still worth posting.
Graeme Spicer leads the digital signage practise at DW+ Partners in Toronto. He used his mike time to shake things up a bit — pouring a little cold water on what was mostly a warm group hug session about the great state of the industry. “Digital signage,” he told the crowd, “has not lived up to the hype.”
He pointed out Tesco TV has been somewhat less than a home run hit for ad sales. He suggested PRN’s Wal-Mart TV offers no real value to consumers, or advertisers – noting there are lots of quiet conversations going on among vendors who feel olbliged to be on there, “but given the choice they probably would not advertise.”
He also booted around Kroger for suggesting its in-store network, dubbed The Perfect Media, is a media company that gives advertisers great reach and frequency. “Kroger is not a media company. It is a grocery store chain.”
He chided network operators for crappy content. “This is not about taking a product shot from a flyer and making it spin on the screen.”
And he said too many operators are using a simplistic model that involves hammering people relentlessly with the same short loop of spots. “The idea that repetition is the answer is wrong.”
Spicer said the real keys are content, engagement and receptivity.
On the positive side, Spicer said business models are evolving and growing more sophisticated, suggesting the industry is moving into what he calls Digital Signage 2.0. Particularly encouraging, is that the interest from companies is no longer just coming from the marketing and IT departments of major companies. The C-level guys are finally getting it, and THAT’s an important advance.”
I was supposed to fill in at the last minute for an AWOL speaker on a panel right after Graeme, but the organizers read the crowd and realized there was way more interest in the day’s end cocktail party than another panel. Before that tanked, I had been pulling together my own thoughts for my mike time, and realizing a lot of what Graeme was saying was stuff I would have also said.
He’s right. We’re not really there yet. There are few truly good examples of networks, private or ad-driven, that really nail the model and deliver on the promise.
When I spoke in Montreal a couple of weeks ago, I used the line “If content is king, he rules a banana republic.” Now technically, kings don’t rule republics, but you get the idea. Way way way too much of what we all see on screens is just repurposed TV, or predictable, template-driven motion graphic spots that are not particularly massive advances beyond those dreaded animated PowerPoint slides we’ve all endured in meetings.
Like Graeme, I think PRN’s content and display model (and granted, they are changing it) works only because it is in Wal-Mart. Sprinkling a few screens around a store with no real context or value is a bit of a wasted effort. And I think many of us who have built and operated networks, or are helping others start them, have lingering concerns about the repeating loop model, particularly if the content is not fine-tuned.
One thing I found really interesting among speakers at the event was how none of them, when citing examples of stuff that excited them, mentioned anything that I would describe as conventional digital signage – screens hung around stores or public places. I can’t rattle off a whole bunch either, though good ones do indeed exist (like Bell’s network in Montreal’s Trudeau Airport).
On the other hand, there are many, many positive things happening in this space and we’re all getting far smarter about how we’re approaching the business. It reminds me a lot of 1996, when I was running new media at a big daily newspaper and everybody was jumping into the Web business. It was chaotic. Some of the business models weren’t much beyond cocktail napkin ideas. And new companies kept popping up every day.
Back then, from chaos came order. The people with real business models hung in there and prospered. And an awful lot of high-flyers that were way more hype than substance ran out of VC money and disappeared.
It looks like we’re going to see that movie again.
