The Digital Signage ExpertThis year’s ISE has proven what we discussed during seminars last year; the digital signage industry is rapidly maturing. Gone are the days of Double-Glazing like salesmen pounding the beat. Gone are the days of clueless IT vendors not seeing the potential. The heat is on. With ISE booking record numbers of visitors we can easily see that not only is systems integration top of the list but also digital signage.
Monitor makers have rallied to the cause and produced a fine array of sophisticated displays to satisfy almost every situation. This area lone has provided monthly surprises. The demand has allowed economies of scale with ROI improving quarterly. With affordable screens we are now seeing the light at the end of the tunnel in wide-screen 3D.
Acceptance among the marketing types who brood over getting your attention is increasing. Yet I feel there is still plenty of room for more once we reach a tipping point. I argue that we have not yet reached it, despite many analysts feeling it has arrived. The buzz revolves more and more around measurement of eyeballs. Cameras and software can now discover the direction of your gaze, from now on we will know if you are watching the screen or not. This makes for more reliable statistics that marketers can ponder over. Make no mistake, they need these figures otherwise they will be unable to predict, with reasonable accuracy, the outcome of their battle plans. This is imperative for well funded campaigns. Major careers pivot on this.
This year we’ve seen the entry of Microsoft and Intel joining the sandbox, no doubt Apple is lurking out there and discussions are the iPAD has a digital signage niche. This is bolstered by the fact that 60% of digital signage is still targeted towards retail, it used to be nearly 100% a few years back. This figure again supports the maturity of the market. The recent trend to expand into other industries leaves plenty of business on the table up for grabs.
Market Research magicians are tossing up fantastic numbers recently;
Av revenue $1.4 billion by 2013
Digital Signage advertising to reach $4 billion by 2014
Even if we achieve 50% of these targets we’d all be pleased indeed. This market and the money it attracts has spurned two industries. The first was and growing fast is network management or better known as the Saas industry. Following immediately behind is another massive industry of content and design. With the newspaper and magazine industry dwindling there are plenty of organisations out there that will be adding these disciplines to their portfolio.
James van Etten, Executive Editor, The London Morning Paper and CLIPPINGs
Agreed that the industry seems poised to take off. Can you share with us which research houses predicted markets of 1.4b and 4b in ad revenue, and when they made the predictions? Any predictions are useful, within context.
Yes 1.4 billion was a forecast in my newsletter of 2 Feb by Heather Clancy – Search IT Channel.com, The 4 billion came from the same article.