Digital Signage Insider Blog

Is Digital Signage an Industry? Yes. Is Everyone an Expert? No.

Bill Gerba

A few weeks ago, Paul Flanigan posed the question of whether the digital signage industry is really an industry at all. He put up a short survey on his blog, got back a good handful of responses, and ultimately decided that no, we're not an industry. Paul has devoted two articles to the cause, and Ken Goldberg proffered his own opinion as well. Since this is one of those rare opportunities for us digital signage folks to share a meme that doesn't involve corporate name calling, I'd like to offer my opinion on why there is a real industry around digital signage, why that's important, and why all those dolts going around calling themselves digital signage experts are going to cause problems for us down the road (if they aren't already).

An industry by any other name...

Paul's main arguments against calling digital signage an "industry" are that (a) most of the parts that go into our projects are off-the-shelf commodities, (b) our clients have trouble figuring out a return on their investment (and look to other industries to figure out how to do it), and (c) ad agencies and media planners still don't like us. I agree with all of those points. But I don't think they have any bearing on whether we're an industry or not (and we are).

Image credit: Paolo Massa

A really basic definition of an industry is simply a group of companies that sell similar products and services and have similar business activities. Well, whether you look at the hardware, software or integration aspects of our business, there are lots and lots of companies out there selling products and services that are frequently indistinguishable from one another. Well-diversified companies like Sony and Cisco have put effort into developing industry-specific products to supplement wares offered to dozens of other industries. They're joined by literally hundreds of smaller companies that sell specialized hardware, software and services, and exist solely to help enable visual communication on digital screens. These companies, in turn, are supported by thousands of integrators, dealers and resellers that provide supporting products and services -- frequently to many other industries as well. Well over a billion dollars was spent last year enabling new networks and managing old ones. And that billion almost certainly spawned several billion more in ancillary economic benefit.

Our rag-tag group of misfit companies (if you don't want to call it an industry) also supports two bona fide trade shows, four non-profit organizations, a couple dozen conferences, two magazines (plus plenty of column-inches in others), and innumerable blogs, websites and online newsletters. Yes, we generate a lot of hype, and spew a lot of garbage into the press channels and onto the Internet. But we also attract minds and money from industries as varied as education, government, retail, advertising, health and hospitality, just to name a few.

Why should we even care about being an industry?

What's the big deal, you ask? If companies are already involved with digital signage, why worry about the semantics of calling them part of an industry? Well, there are a few reasons. First of all, the aforementioned trade publications and outlets do actually draw more people into the industry. While a newcomer might be overwhelmed, he's certainly not going to be at a loss for places to find information. Websites and magazines spread the word to people who've not yet heard of digital signage -- and yes, there are still quite a lot of them. Trade shows give potentially interested parties a way to kick the tires before deciding whether to get involved. And conferences help draw in fresh minds from big companies who like to attend those things for ongoing education purposes (and frequently, for the free drinks).

Second, being an industry -- and actually behaving like one -- means that we can solve common problems without having to reinvent the wheel each time. This might take the form of one company pointing to another company's "Digital Signage 101" presentation -- as published on an industry blog -- to help educate a new customer. Or it might take the form of emerging industry standards that make it easier to know which types of content are supported by multiple digital signage vendors. Heck, it has already kinda-sorta started with the general acceptance and use of terms like "digital signage" to mean the screens, players and mere ability to send messages, and "DOOH" to mean the advertising-focused application of digital signage.

Despite a few nagging concerns about ROI, our chief obstacle as an industry is actually our own inefficiency. Too many companies doing the same thing -- and too many "experts" giving out bad advice -- wastes money and manpower that might otherwise go toward successfully completing projects and trying out new ideas. As lone companies, it's impossible for any one of us (no matter how cranky) to do much about this. But as an industry, we can act together, either through a formal association or just an adherence to de-facto best practices, to not only avoid this for ourselves, but hopefully make others less likely to suffer the same pitfalls.

A brief word on expertise

Adding a few letters after your name on your business card does not make you an expert. Attending a one-day class does not make you an expert. Even hanging a few screens out in the world doesn't make you an expert -- though it's a good start. An expert is someone widely recognized as being highly skilled in his or her art. And because of the broad range of industries that digital signage touches, there are plenty of digital signage industry experts, digital signage technology experts, digital signage advertising experts and even digital signage project experts. But I can count on one hand the number of people who I would genuinely consider to be across-the-board digital signage experts. At present, "expertise" is far too easy to come by, it's not specific enough to tell potential customer what a vendor is actually good at, and there's no recognized way of validating it. As an industry we do a poor job of shining light on these problems, so they're left to create more confusion, add more hype and cause more wasteful spending. I'd certainly be interested in hearing suggestions for how to go about fixing them.

Are we an industry, or are we not? Do you call yourself an expert, or do you use a more low-key approach when describing your skills? Leave a comment below and let us know!

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What's WireSpring's Blog All About? WireSpring provides hardware, software and services for digital signage and kiosk projects. But our blog is a labor of love. Our posts cover everything from case studies to creative briefs, and are authored by some of the industry's most well-respected leaders.

When Gimmicks Start Looking Good: Unusual DOOH Business Models

Bill Gerba

Hang screens. Connect screens to Internet. Sell screen time to interested parties. It all sounds so easy, right? Yet while we've all heard a thousand variations on this theme, time and the free market have rendered 99% of them dead and gone. Now if we were in a normal industry, that kind of failure rate might make us step back and re-examine the overall feasibility of the screen time model. But instead, it seems as if the number of people trying out new (and often wacky) sales and business models has been accelerating, fueled by the remnants of failed digital signage companies. From time to time, I think I'm getting caught up in the movement too. Whereas at one point I'd pick out many of these freakishly outlandish sales pitches and dismiss them out-of-hand, these days I find myself thinking "Gee, I haven't heard that one before. Maybe that means it could work..."

♪♫ Nobody knows... the trouble I've seen... ♫♪

I'm not so far gone as to immediately think of those off-the-wall ideas as surefire hits. After all, the digital signage game -- fundamentally at least -- isn't different than any other line of business. Thus, we should expect all of the standard business rules to apply. So, for example, we can expect that less than half of new businesses will last five years. (30 years of US Census data tells us that story with pretty good accuracy.) Of the remaining half, a good number will be liquidated (which doesn't technically count as failure according to the government), and still others will shift directions entirely without closing down the business. (For example, changing from a digital signage company to a bed and breakfast.... Don't laugh. You know it has happened.)

Image credit: Joe Abbruscato

But in addition to all the typical new business caveats, I definitely get the feeling that there's another layer of trouble heaped on top of DOOH firms. For example, lots of companies that try some variant of the screen time model literally can't prove their worth. With no solid ROI numbers to stand on and still no accepted means of measurement, everyone looks at them skeptically. Additionally, many companies think that just because it's easy to scale the technology, it will be equally straightforward to scale their business -- something they'll need to master in order to achieve profitability. Meanwhile, back in the real world, front-loaded costs, perpetually changing financing options and spotty deal flow combine with logistical issues, install-time difficulties and other mundane but important challenges to make scaling organically harder than almost everyone realizes.

Different doesn't always mean better, but sometimes, better must be different

An anonymous commenter left an incredible comment describing the rise and fall of Reactrix on a recent blog article about how to sell your digital signage company. Reactrix had a very different model, different technology, different... well, pretty much everything. In addition to building out their own technology platform, developing their own physical infrastructure for each venue and designing brand-new, totally custom content for each advertiser wanting to try the system, they also had to convince prospects of the feasibility and desirability of all that new stuff.

Many less ambitious DOOH companies have run into trouble, too. In fact, "I'll put your ad on this screen if you pay me X" is such a tough sell for so many that we've seen and heard about hundreds of variant models that try to make it easier to pry the money out of prospective advertisers' tight grips. Some have involved co-marketing funds. Others relied on government programs to make the purchase a tax write-off (or close to it). And still others used barter arrangements, in-kind transactions and other non-cash incentives to make screen time buys seem as manageable as possible to potential buyers.

There are a couple of problems with these techniques, though. First, there's no guarantee they're going to work. The difficulty of explaining your compensation model might be enough to drive prospective buyers away before they have a chance to make an informed decision. Or, your model might be so far outside of what the client is used to doing from a business and accounting point of view that they'd just as soon not be bothered. This is especially true for networks that plan on securing national or regional advertising through media planning agencies. And second, unless you're already very familiar with the ins and outs of your model, there's a very good chance that your too-good-to-be-true, guaranteed sales generating business approach will promise too much, ultimately not leaving you enough to actually run your business on.

Using the unusual to your advantage

In order to close digital signage deals, it's important to be creative -- and essential to be flexible. A while back, I might have discouraged new networks from starting out with nonstandard business terms. But these days, I honestly believe that the oddball deals are doing more good than harm, gaining wins and concessions that probably would not have happened under traditional terms. One thing that worries me, though, is that I still haven't seen a surefire execution strategy. We've seen multiple incarnations of even the strangest business models, and just like anything else, sometimes they succeed and sometimes they fail. I suppose that can be chalked up to all the usual business execution challenges and market forces. But it'd sure be nice to know that there was some plan -- when properly executed -- that produced consistent results.

Have you heard about any bizarre sales strategies? Can these unusual approaches succeed in the long run? Leave a comment below and let us know what you think.

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What's WireSpring's Blog All About? WireSpring provides hardware, software and services for digital signage and kiosk projects. But our blog is a labor of love. Our posts cover everything from case studies to creative briefs, and are authored by some of the industry's most well-respected leaders.

Selling Digital Signage Players: The Magician and the Technician

Bill Gerba

For the most part, I've noticed that when we're selling kit to a client who's going to install and operate their own digital signage network, they don't really give the media player hardware a second thought. As long as the price is right, it's small enough, and it has a good warranty (and really, just as long as the price is right), it's good enough for them. Then there are the channel partners. Whether they call themselves distributors, resellers or VARs, they all seem to fall into one of two distinct categories: "Magicians" and "Technicians".

The Magician

Once upon a time, computer skills were a rare commodity. The big, beige cases they came in were like mysterious obelisks, and those who could command them to do things were no less than magicians in the eyes of many. Fast forward to today, when my two year-old is already starting to hunt-and-peck and my tween neighbor's iPhone has a hundred times more CPU power than NASA used to put men on the moon, and it's clear that the technically capable have lost much of their mystique. But for all that, there are still a group of tech professionals -- the Magicians -- who rely on mystique to make a sale. When these folks come to us, they want to know what we can offer that's unique, unusual and decidedly different than what their own competitors are selling. Often, they'll focus on physical characteristics like size, or even demand a player that uses a RISC processor instead of an Intel or AMD, just so they have something that can still conjure a little bit of mystery when they show it off to their clients. The fact that it's much more difficult for a customer to get price comparisons for a unique product probably doesn't hurt either.

Image credit: Lucy Boynton

The Technician

  The sworn enemy of the Magician is the Technician. These folks are hell-bent on ROI, and are only interested in the things that will get them the most bang for their buck. In the digital signage media player world, that usually translates to fairly stock PC-like devices running off-the-shelf hardware. Technicians can still be swayed by a fancy form factor or tiny case, but only if it will let them shave a few minutes off an install because the smaller hardware is easier to mount behind a screen. Technicians also seem to really like having some optional components available (for example: more storage, better graphics, adapters for tuning TV signals, etc.), because they can add extra margin to otherwise thin deals.

  Technicians rely on good deal flow to make ends meet. Because they're usually selling a bunch of commodity parts tied together to form a system, their margins tend to be lower than those of Magicians. However, because their products are typically easier to explain and thus more straightforward to sell, they make up it by being able to complete more deals in the same amount of time (in theory).

One size rarely fits all

  Over the years, we've wracked our brains trying to come up with a product that would appeal to both Technicians and Magicians. At this point, I'm pretty sure it's impossible. We've had good luck selling embedded media players hand-built specifically for us. And we've had good luck selling "media players" with names like HP and Dell stamped into them. We just haven't been able to sell them to the same people. Today, a number of vendors make small form factor PCs specifically for the digital signage market. These systems look like anything but a standard computer, yet still have the right innards to run most off-the-shelf software. While some have found reasonable success in the field, most of those vendors are stuck in the low-volume world. Unfortunately, this causes problems for the Magicians and Technicians alike. The Magicians, often tempted by form factor and the allure of the "black box" that can't be shopped around online, tend to be fickle once they've realized that they're just buying regular (albeit small) PCs. They themselves turn into shoppers, going from vendor to vendor in search of the newest, coolest little box. The Technicians, on the other hand, have a hard time justifying to their clients why a small box from an unknown vendor should command a 30% price premium over an only-slightly-larger box from a big name PC company.

There's still room in the digital signage ecosystem for both the Magician and the Technician, just as there's room for both Macs and PCs in the desktop world. Price erosion driven by intense competition and relatively tepid demand definitely makes it harder to sell a tiny $1,500 media player whose main benefit is that it can do everything a $500 machine can do in 1/3 the space. But there are still clients who -- for whatever reason -- find that pitch appealing. Likewise, Technicians have to move a lot of inventory to make money when the price of systems gets pushed lower and lower. But falling prices bring new opportunities, since mass acceptance of once-esoteric digital signage means they can spend less time explaining, and more time selling. When it comes down to refining your own sales pitch, I suppose it comes down to a simple question: does your ability to close deals more often hinge on having a unique or unusual proposition, or simply a good proposition at a good cost? If it's the former, put on your top hat and tails: you're a Magician. If it's the latter, lace up your work boots, because yours is the Technician's lot.

Will the market be more kind to Technicians or Magicians in the near future? Is there still room for the hardware guys who specialize in low-volume, custom-built systems? Leave a comment and let us know what you think!

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What's WireSpring's Blog All About? WireSpring provides hardware, software and services for digital signage and kiosk projects. But our blog is a labor of love. Our posts cover everything from case studies to creative briefs, and are authored by some of the industry's most well-respected leaders.

Why Are We So Enamored with Ad-Driven Digital Signage Networks?

Bill Gerba

Earlier this week I participated in a conference call with a writer who is fairly new to our industry. He posed a simple question: "why is the digital signage industry so enamored with advertising?" My immediate answer was, "beats the hell out of me." But that was somewhat unsatisfactory, so I made a little list of potential reasons why everybody from one-man startups to Fortune 500 companies feel they simply must get into the digital signage advertising business, one way or another. After writing down just a few items, it suddenly became abundantly clear why there's so much hype in our industry, especially compared to the amount of actual business being done.

Advertising is where the money is (or could be, at least)

  This one's the low-hanging fruit. A number of national advertisers have ad budgets that exceed the GDPs some small countries. And for each of the past five years (even including the last two really ugly ones), the total ad spend inside the United States has been over a quarter trillion dollars. Stop and think about that for a second, and you can start to understand the allure of going after advertising dollars.

Image credit: Marcin Wichary

Of course, when you get down to the nitty-gritty, only a tiny fraction of ad dollars are being put into any kind of digital out-of-home right now, and advertisers, brand marketers and media planners don't seem to be in too much of a hurry to change that. Oh, and you have to be able to actually sell ad time to reap any of the rewards. So, all of those AV VARs out there who are hocking "free" products that promise a lifetime of easy (and perpetually recurring) ad revenue are going to be sorely disappointed.

Advertising entices people with the lure of the unknown

This argument starts out with clichéd axiom #1: The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. And for many people who have spent their careers working in technology or sales, digital signage seems to be exactly on the other side of the fence that they've found themselves up against. It's reasonably familiar, yet just slightly different and more exotic than what they're used to. That exoticness, I posit, gives many of these people enough imaginary license to ignore harsh realities like "I've been terrible at selling everything in the past, so why would this be any different?" Instead, they just presume that everything will work itself out later.

Needless to say, it doesn't usually turn out that way. So we end up with clichéd axiom #2: hindsight is always 20/20.

Advertising drives new leads and new projects

  As I made my way down the list (I have another half dozen or so reasons in addition to the two biggest ones above), I decided to put my vendor hat back on and figure out why so many digital signage hardware and software companies contribute to the fantasy of an advertising-driven paradise. The answer there is simple: a lot of leads come in already believing that it's within reach. As vendors, we either try to educate them (which turns many of them away), or we humor them and take their money. And as long as the products that each of us sell actually deliver on the features and functionality that the customer is looking for, it's hard to fault the vendor if the customer's half-baked advertising sales plan goes awry.

While I'd love to say that every digital signage vendor always operates with the best interests of their potential customers in mind, from the amount of noise in the industry press channel it's quite clear which approach most companies take. For example, there are innumerable examples of vendors issuing press releases "on behalf of their clients". In the typical scenario, the vendor is announcing the deployment of a 500-location advertising network when only the first few sites are in place (if that), and the rest of the deployment is contingent upon hitting performance goals -- a rather important detail that you'll rarely see mentioned in a press release. This type of boasting does nothing for the client, but it does make it look like there are many more big, successful networks in operation than there really are. Which is why every Friday (it seems), I get four or five calls from venture capitalists in various stages of due diligence, asking why my curmudgeonly blog posts go against everything they've read on every other site on the Internet (with the usual exceptions of Adrian's, Dave's and Ken's blogs).

What role will advertising play in the future of our industry?

Ultimately, while people like Steve Gurley have come out with reports suggesting that digital signage advertising will likely never take off in a truly spectacular fashion, I believe that ad-driven networks will continue to play an important role in the industry's growth. I do think it's a little disingenuous to cite advertising as being the key to the industry's long-term success, though. And I would like vendors to stop spreading half-truths about how easy it is to monetize screen time just to score a few easy wins. That kind of misinformation leads a lot of people down the wrong path, causing a lot of waste and inefficiency in the process.

Of course, if you have a solid sales model and a means of actually closing deals with potential advertisers -- and you're not dependent on impossibly unrealistic goals like securing ten national advertisers during your 30-day pilot project -- running a successful advertising-driven digital signage network is not out of the question. But for the vast majority of people who undertake the task, it is a lot harder than they originally expected.

Who's to blame for all the hype surrounding advertising networks? Is this even really a problem? Leave a comment and let us know what you think.

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What's WireSpring's Blog All About? WireSpring provides hardware, software and services for digital signage and kiosk projects. But our blog is a labor of love. Our posts cover everything from case studies to creative briefs, and are authored by some of the industry's most well-respected leaders.

M&A Advice: How to Sell Your Digital Signage Company

Bill Gerba

Building out a digital signage network takes a lot of capital -- there's no doubt about that. And for many companies, the challenge of raising enough money to get a network started is matched in difficulty only by the subsequent tasks of raising follow-on money for expansion, and making a successful exit via merger or acquisition. (I'd normally add "or IPO," but I'm hard pressed to find an example of a publicly-traded digital signage company that I'd be willing to call successful.) That's where Kevin Covert comes in. You may not know him by name, but Kevin and his firm were the force behind Reactrix's $45 million capital raise, as well as SignStorey's $71 million sale to CBS. Since he's going to be speaking at Strategy Institute's Digital Signage Investor Conference in October, I gave him a call to see what he thinks about the market, the interesting deals he sees on the horizon, and perhaps most importantly, what it takes to be successful with mergers and acquisitions in the digital signage space.

Does raising more money upfront = success?

I've written about the do's and don'ts of digital signage a number of times in the past. And as any regular reader will tell you, a surefire recipe for digital signage failure is expecting to be ad-revenue supported without any prior experience selling ads. That's by far the best way to crash and burn (or, more typically, sputter and die) in our market. But a close second is not leaving enough working capital in the bank to cover the longer-than-expected road to break-even/next milestone/profitability. And Kevin echoed that same sentiment. But is raising a lot of cash early on a guarantee of future success? Not always, and one of Kevin's own deals -- Reactrix -- is a good illustration of that. The firm raised $45 million very early on in their life, with little more than a tech demo and a dream. Their buildout was fast and furious after that. Unfortunately, so was their burnout.

Image credit: Shayne Kaye

Admittedly, Reactrix worked themselves into a tight spot. Not only were they faced with the massive expense of building out their own network of interactive displays, but they were also designing their own technology in-house. And if that wasn't enough, their medium of gesture-aware projections on floors, walls and ceilings was unlike anything that advertisers had ever worked with before, so they also had the extremely tough (and ultimately fatal) challenge of convincing advertisers that the totally custom content developed for their brand-new medium was going to pay off in a big way.

Is anyone actually buying and selling companies these days?

Pop quiz: if there's a frost in California and the state's orange crop freezes, are OJ prices likely to go up or down? When I first heard this question, I thought "up, of course, since the supply of oranges decreases." But in fact the opposite is true, since those oranges are probably still fine for juicing even if they're no longer pretty enough to be sold as whole fruit. This is analogous to what's happening today with companies facing growth and exit challenges. The finance markets are still tight, and many private equity firms are having trouble raising new funds. Worse, the money they have in existing funds is often required to go to existing client companies. This makes raising new money expensive -- if you can get it at all. To make matters worse, the IPO market is only just beginning to recover after nearly two years of neglect by investors. For many cash-strapped and growth-constrained companies, the best options left are mergers and acquisitions.

While big companies still prefer to do big deals, Kevin indicates that the market for smaller deals is also thriving. This is probably due in part to acquirers being more conservative with their resources and more averse to risk. Simply put, when cash is king it's easier to get board approval for smaller, tuck-in acquisitions than for game-changing mega-mergers.

So, what's your company worth?

I know that dealmakers are often hesitant to give shoot-from-the-hip estimates about hypothetical companies and deals, so I'm grateful that Kevin was willing to give me some perspective on the going rate for "typical" companies these days. So if you're planning your exit or penning your business plan, what can you expect to come out with? Well, if you make it to profitability, somewhere between 5 and 8 times annual earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) is the norm. You'll find yourself on the lower end of that scale if you're stuck in high single or low double-digit growth. Although most of our discussion focused on DOOH network owners, Kevin also shared a few very rough estimates for the folks who provide the software that powers these networks. In particular, licensed software guys can expect somewhere around 2x annual revenues. SaaS guys do a bit better, provided they aren't hemorrhaging customers. For SaaS providers, a rough estimate might be around 3-5x annual revenues, with the upper end of that scale reserved for companies with a 30% or higher growth rate.

If you're growing but not profitable... well, you're in for a tougher sell. Kevin suggests that potential acquirers will look at not only your assets, but the amount of money you've already raised, the milestones you've reached on that cash, and any peculiar provisions that past investors may have inserted into their contracts.

A word about scale

One more thing: remember the digital signage M&A article I wrote a few weeks ago, where I noted that some companies were employing the "roll-up" strategy to bundle together lots of smaller networks? Apparently that's a good thing. As mentioned above, bigger companies still prefer bigger deals. But more importantly, Kevin suggests that in our industry -- and particularly on the network side -- there is real value in scale. I can only imagine that this value will be multiplied if and when somebody can finally present a rigorous analysis of just how profitable digital signage networks can be, and how powerful advertising at the point-of-decision really is. While our industry has made a lot of progress in a variety of areas, our medium still isn't in the mainstream. That means it's more risky. And even if that higher risk is commensurate with a greater potential reward, when it comes to selling your company, a bigger risk almost always means a lower valuation.

Don't believe me? Ask Kevin Covert yourself

As I said, I reached out to Kevin because I noticed he'll be speaking at the Digital Signage Investor Conference this October in NYC. If you're shopping for a digital signage company, or if you are a digital signage company trying to raise money or get acquired, this conference is a great place to meet people who can actually make deals happen. Wall Street analysts, private equity guys and M&A guys like Kevin will be speaking on a broad range of topics and will be available for questions afterward. So instead of stalking them via phone and email, you can simply corner them in the room!

Nonsense FTC disclaimer: edicts from an obscure branch of the federal government apparently trump the free speech clause in the Bill of Rights, so I'm required to say that I don't work for Strategy Institute and they're not paying me for this post, but I will be attending the Digital Signage Investor Conference at the Strategy Institute's invitation.

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What's WireSpring's Blog All About? WireSpring provides hardware, software and services for digital signage and kiosk projects. But our blog is a labor of love. Our posts cover everything from case studies to creative briefs, and are authored by some of the industry's most well-respected leaders.

The Ethos, Pathos and Logos of Making Persuasive Digital Signage

Bill Gerba

Whether they're placed in retail stores, libraries, waiting rooms or corporate lobbies, digital signs generally have to accomplish one of two things: inform the audience, or persuade the audience to take action. In the past, we've spent a lot of time looking at how to make digital signage content that informs, studying things like making the content as comprehensible and memorable as possible, and creating minimalist messages that get the point across in the first few seconds before a viewer's attention starts to fade. And when it comes to purely informational content, those are the most important things. However, when the goal of the content is not merely to inform but also to persuade, that brief message not only has to inform, but must also make an appeal to the viewer. Despite a good, solid century of effort by the advertising industry, we've yet to find an effective path to persuasion that doesn't stem from one of the three modes that Aristotle denoted some 2,300 years ago: ethos, pathos and logos.

Ethos: What Would Oprah Do?

According to Wikipedia, "Ethos is an appeal to the authority or honesty of the speaker. It is how well the speaker convinces the audience that he or she is qualified to speak on the particular subject." Simply put, we tend to believe people that we respect, which is why the ideas of many so-called "experts" persist even after they've been debunked. Ethos almost certainly fueled Activia's choice of Jamie Lee Curtis as spokesperson: she's recognizable and generally well-regarded, and has made graceful aging her "brand" for the past several years. It's also the reason why Donald Trump was a good choice for the boss in The Apprentice. The show's producers were no doubt attracted by the TV-worthiness of his insane rants and lamentable hairstyle. But besides the pure entertainment value, viewers and contestants are likely to view the Trump "brand" as being synonymous with making money. The Donald convincingly commanded authority because -- love him or hate him -- he made himself rich.

Image credit: Temjin

In the world of digital signage -- and particularly in high-traffic environments like retail stores -- using ethos to help persuade your viewers is really, really hard. Unless your content actually features somebody both identifiable and well-respected in your field, you simply aren't going to have enough time to introduce your argument-maker, establish him as a reputable, respectable and noteworthy expert, and have him deliver your argument to the viewer. Heck, most infomercials can't even get this done in a 30-minute spot. How somebody might think they'd do it in a 30-second spot (of which a viewer might only see 3 seconds or less) is beyond me.

Pathos: What FUD was called back in 300 B.C.

Pathos is an appeal to your audience's emotions, whether positive or negative. It's when you make a statement about some value (e.g. "big government is bad") in hopes that it will reflect your audience's own perception of that value. Real-world examples? Remember those "I've fallen, and I can't get up!" commercials? Classic example of pathos. While fear and uncertainty are definitely the low-hanging fruit for producers working on pathos-driven content, positive emotions work equally well. It's the reason why everything gets decked out in red, white and blue around the 4th of July in the US (patriotism). Or why retailers start piping in Christmas music in ~~December~~ ~~November~~ October (nostalgia, or if you're a kid, toys).

There are a number of convincing ways to use pathos in digital signage content. For one, it's an appeal that lends itself well to imagery. If you're putting together a spot advertising the availability of the flu shot, add in a picture of a crying baby to induce feelings of responsibility and compassion, while using text to make the argument that neither you nor your children want to get the flu or give it to others.

There are also some text tricks that can help convey pathos. For example, it's common to use simile and metaphor when making an impassioned argument. I'd recommend skipping metaphor, since unless it's a very common metaphor, it might be misconstrued by your viewers. But similes are fair game in my book. So saying that the exhaust from your new hydrogen-powered car is "as clean and clear as spring water" and coupling that with the appropriate imagery will impart more pathos than the image alone would. Whether this would be more or less effective depends on how important the particular value is to the viewer.

Logos: Or, how to overestimate your audience

If all it took to win new customers was sound reasoning and a cogent, logical argument, I'd be sitting on a beach somewhere waiting for my manservant to bring my morning libation in a coconut. OK, probably not, but you get the picture. We all love to pretend that the average person is a rational being, but when it comes to advertising, logos is almost never enough. If it were, all ads would consist of a few lines of black text on a white background, and agency creative departments would look more like the accounting department and less like... well... have you seen what agency creative departments look like?

Now, that's not to say that your advertising copy shouldn't make a measured, logical appeal. We know that explanations of how products save time and money are some of the most effective out there, and we also know that most viewers respond well to simple statistics (e.g. "2 out of 3 plumbers recommend PipeClear!"). But because content on digital signs is typically seen for only a brief amount of time, logical arguments must be very basic, very clear, and very short to guarantee viewers see them in their entirety. Additionally, they work best when based on information and premises that the viewer is already familiar with, since transmitting new information takes valuable viewing and comprehension time. In short, a logical argument is most effective when it reiterates or reinforces an argument that was already made elsewhere.

Much like creating effective digital signage content, being persuasive requires both science and art. And it certainly takes a lot of practice. Yet for all the effort that content producers put into making clips that are pleasing to the eye, much less time is spent making those clips persuasive. (Big brands tend to be the exception, but let's face it, most digital signage content is not provided by the big brands.) Given that ethos, pathos and logos account for just about every form of persuasion that one might find in an ad, it follows that brands, networks and content creators are already using these tools in their ad campaigns. But if they thought about these things in the context of digital signage, the decisions on when, where and how to use each form would be considerably different than they are today. And that would lead to better, more effective and more persuasive content on screen.

What's the key to making persuasive digital signage content? Text? Imagery? Sound? Something else? Leave a comment and let us know what you think.

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What's WireSpring's Blog All About? WireSpring provides hardware, software and services for digital signage and kiosk projects. But our blog is a labor of love. Our posts cover everything from case studies to creative briefs, and are authored by some of the industry's most well-respected leaders.

Digital Signage and the Butterfly Effect

Bill Gerba

Just a few days ago, two mathematicians from the University of Pennsylvania posted a solution to the Boltzmann equation, a complex, 7-dimensional formula used to model the behavior of gases. More than 140 years after the equation was first developed, these mathematicians proved that gaseous systems as a whole remain stable when small, local disturbances (called perturbations) are introduced. How can this possibly relate to digital signage, you ask? If you guessed that it's because we vendors use a 7-dimensional formula to develop our pricing models, you're wrong -- though having seen the gyrations that some of my competitors go through just to generate a quote, I understand why you might feel that way. Basically, in layman's terms, the Boltzmann equation was the science behind the notion of the Butterfly Effect, which suggests that tiny perturbations can have really big consequences. The quintessential example is that of a butterfly flapping its wings, and those tiny fluctuations changing the weather elsewhere. Essentially, the newly discovered solutions to the equation show that the Butterfly Effect is bogus. As one commenter put it, "it takes a very large perturbation to convert a stable portion of atmosphere into a storm, and the flutter of a butterfly's wings is not significant to tipping the balance." See where I'm going with this yet?

Wanted: One very large perturbation

A few weeks ago, I lamented that we've yet to see a truly "game-changing" event in the digital signage industry. But when we do -- for better or worse -- it will make everything that happened in the past look puny by comparison. A number of people commented on that idea, some saying that we've already seen some big deals, others saying that I'd better not be holding my breath.

Image credit: Edwin Dalorzo

To those who believe the significance of any deal depends only on the number of dollar signs attached, I ask you: if PRN sold for nearly $300M, SignStorey went for over $70M, and other reasonably high-dollar-amount deals like the Danoo-IdeaCast-National CineMedia experiment have taken place, where's the newfound value to the industry? Hell, where's the value to most of the acquirers? Thomson famously bought PRN in 2005, but never seemed to take much interest in building on their purchase. If it weren't for the skill of PRN's managers, they could easily have fallen into obscurity or disappeared altogether by now. And as for CBS buying SignStorey... I don't think I could even make up a way to spin the results of that in a positive fashion -- unless you include how the founders made out, perhaps.

There have no doubt been deals over the past five years that transacted for very respectable sums of money, regardless of what industry you come from. But their overall effect on the strength and viability of the market could be likened to a butterfly's ability to change the weather. Ditto every company that has launched a "revolutionary," "game-changing," "paradigm-shifting" new product, feature or service over that time. We've seen evolution, yes. And that's important -- it's a sign that our core is solidifying and maturing. But for revolution we need a much, much larger catalyst than we've had so far.

In short, we're still waiting for a large perturbation.

And while we're on that subject...

Making killer content is hard

Another thing struck me as I read about the solution to the Boltzmann Equation: this is why it's so freaking hard to consistently make good content! Time and time again, we'll be working with clients and find out that we can develop a methodology that, when properly followed, makes content that performs better. But on a scale of 1 to 10, we can only consistently turn a 2 or 3 into a 5, 6 or 7. It's nearly impossible to consistently turn anything into a 9 or 10. What's standing in the way? In short, we start running into the "small perturbation" problem, where after a certain point on the quality scale, small optimizations can only yield small improvements. To make content that's a 10 requires a major perturbation in the process, and the necessary changes can vary with every single piece of content and every single message to be communicated. This drives up the cost of content development. It makes me think that Show+Tell's Phil Lenger was right on the money during his DSE presentation from last year. According to Phil, digital signage content only needs to be exceptional some of the time. If reaching peak performance means revamping your design protocol for every clip, it quickly becomes too expensive and exhausting to make each one a 10 out of 10.

Will our "game changing" event be driven by technology? Content? Business model? Leave a comment below and let us know your thoughts!

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What's WireSpring's Blog All About? WireSpring provides hardware, software and services for digital signage and kiosk projects. But our blog is a labor of love. Our posts cover everything from case studies to creative briefs, and are authored by some of the industry's most well-respected leaders.

Would Consolidation in the DOOH Industry Drive More Business?

Bill Gerba

Last week's article on Digital Signage Mergers, Acquisitions and Bankruptcies generated a lot of commentary, some of which either corrected or clarified the observations I made in the post. Richard Lebovitz from Digital Signage Expo also yielded further insights on the quantity and quality of business in the industry, as he passed along this quarter's DSE Business Barometer report. Our analysis last week, the subsequent reader commentary, and DSE's quarterly report agree on some things, but show stark differences in opinion when it comes to others.

In defense of "Bankrupt"

After publishing last week's article I took some flak for simply writing that a company "goes bankrupt" or "went bankrupt", instead of explaining the type of bankruptcy, primary cause, and current status of each company in that category. For example, as Matthias at 42 Media noted in a comment, they're still conducting business. So is Muzak, as Digital Signage Universe's Lionel Tepper noted. But the number of companies "going bankrupt" is an important thing to track, regardless of whether that means liquidating assets or filing for creditor protection. That's because -- aside from a tiny minority of cases where it's actually a valid strategic option -- bankruptcy is more or less an action of last resort. So while one company going bankrupt in a small industry might indicate troubles inside the company, lots of companies taking similar action points to serious health issues with the industry as a whole. And again, as a number of commenters pointed out, my list was extremely non-exhaustive. There were easily another 100 or more small network failures in the past 18 months that were too small for me to uncover.

Image credit: whatleydude

Once again, "going bankrupt" does not necessarily mean "going out of business forever." But it almost certainly does mean "taking evasive maneuvers because of extreme financial hardship," and that's what I was most interested in looking at.

In search of a forecast

I've complained about the fragmentation of the market a number of times in the past, and while the 40-odd deals noted in last week's post go a little way toward addressing the problem, it's nowhere near solved yet. Interestingly, the issue of industry consolidation was a common one in this quarter's DSE Business Barometer too, with one respondent astutely observing that "there is a lot of confusion and misrepresentation in the marketplace created by various rep agreements and aggregators. As a result, there is early evidence of mistrust in this vertical." Likewise, consolidation was cited as one of the ongoing industry "growing pains" keeping us from getting out of our own way. But on the balance, the people who responded to the latest DSE survey seem optimistic about the future, with the vast majority indicating that revenue levels and ad spend levels would remain the same or increase next quarter. Granted, respondents to this survey made similarly rosy guesses in the past four quarterly surveys as well. But if the data is to be believed, many companies are experiencing sales growth.

Whether that growth will continue through 2010 is anyone's guess. But it seems that short of another financial apocalypse, the industry should at the very least resume the 7-10% growth rate forecast by many analysts in 2008. To the best of my estimates (and in the face of more optimistic projections I made early last year), 2009 probably saw about 0% growth. Aggressive purchasing by small- and mid-size networks offset losses due to attrition and closure, but couldn't make up for the number of large (500+) venue installations that simply stalled out. Since there's little sign of slowdown on the low-end, if even a few of these larger networks resume their projects (in conjunction with the already-healthy number of large projects being floated right now), 2010 should mark a return to "normalcy." (And I use that word very loosely when describing our industry.)

Whether consolidation would actually help create new digital signage/DOOH business is another matter of debate. It seems unlikely that employees of a failed software venture would go on to start a network that might purchase technology from other, more successful companies. However, the consolidation (through merger) and dissemination (through dissolution or layoffs) of industry "experts" is surely going to drive new projects. These people will take their knowledge of digital signage business opportunities with them to future jobs and companies, and some percentage of them will successfully plant the seeds of future networks, whether they know it or not. On the flip side, as natural market segmentation and growth via organic and transactional means continues, expertise will "clump" in certain companies and segments -- which should be a competitive advantage that lets the "haves" further distance themselves from the "have-nots." And all the while, the march of progress will tirelessly continue, lowering the cost of technology and bringing more tech-friendly millenials into the job market.

Cobbling together the industry

I'm on the fence as to how far this industry can go without some kind of major, transformative event. Ten years ago, I would have expected to see a mature, multi-billion-dollar behemoth toiling along like a well-oiled machine by now. What we have instead reminds me of that 1980s board game Mousetrap, where you have to Rube-Goldberg together a contraption that barely gets the job done, only to learn that your little sibling ate some of the plastic parts, and you can't find all the marbles.

That's us. We've lost our marbles.

  While knocking on wood, I'll say it: our industry appear to be out of the danger zone. But I'll be carefully tracking the ongoing M&A in our space to try and objectively measure and monitor our health (and I know I won't be the only one doing so). We're still one big game-changer away from becoming the mature and respected industry that we should have been. Who's going to make it happen? Will it be one of the Fortune 500s who have stumbled into our space? One of the old stalwart tech or network companies? Or will it be a startup who sees the connections that everyone else overlooked, and can't understand how we've missed the forest for the trees this whole time? Leave a comment and let me know what you think.

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What's WireSpring's Blog All About? WireSpring provides hardware, software and services for digital signage and kiosk projects. But our blog is a labor of love. Our posts cover everything from case studies to creative briefs, and are authored by some of the industry's most well-respected leaders.

M&A List: Digital Signage Mergers, Acquisitions and Bankruptcies

Bill Gerba

About 18 months ago, just as the true scope of the economic crisis was becoming known, many in our industry wondered how a global downturn would impact the adoption, acceptance and growth of digital signage and related technologies. Many predicted a near-catastrophic decrease in demand. Others (and oddly, most of the "research" companies) renewed their expectations for hyperbolic, high double-digit growth. I think most of us expected a decrease in demand that might slow growth, but couldn't possibly stop it entirely. But one thing seemed certain: any sudden change in the economy would probably signal a new wave of mergers and acquisitions that would bring some much-needed consolidation to our industry ecosystem. Eighteen months later, has that prediction come true? Let's take a look at the data.

To merge, or not to merge?

  Before we get into who's been doing the buying, selling and folding, I'd like to pause for a brief history lesson. Back in the dot.com heyday of the late 1990s, companies with no customers, products and revenues to speak of were merging left, right and center out of fear. At least, that's what it looked like to the casual observer. Many dot.com execs believed that passing up an opportunity for growth through acquisitions would lead to certain death by asphyxiation, as they'd be squashed between newly-merged megacompetitors and a drove of upstart startups plotting from their dorm rooms. But as the bubble peaked in early 2000 and the recession of 2001 took hold, we witnessed a new kind of tech-driven M&A strategy: the roll-up. A roll-up is simply when an acquirer (who might be a cash-rich company, a holding company, or an institutional investor) buys up a bunch of competitors in a market with the goal of achieving economies of scale. In other words, they keep all of the acquired companies' revenue sources (i.e. customers) while reducing operating expenses. Unfortunately, a lot of these deals turned out badly, as overeager M&A firms suddenly discovered just why so many companies had no products, customers or revenues to speak of in the first place.

Fast forward to today. While the digital signage industry is nowhere near as large or overinflated as the dot.com guys were a decade ago, we do face many of the same problems as our tech brethren did. At present, we have a large pool of vendors serving a fairly small pool of clients. Because of this, many try to "create" demand by hyping the industry and making impossible claims. Despite the existence of four not-for-profit groups that serve our industry, we still have significant problems with basic items like terminology, cost/benefit analysis and technical standards. Meanwhile, many of the A-list networks in the space routinely have revenue problems, punctuated by layoffs and new rounds of investment just to keep the lights on. On both the vendor and network side, far too many companies are too reliant on equity investments to stay afloat, let alone thrive. Heck, some of the biggest names in our industry have found themselves scrambling for cash in the past year or so.

What sort of mergers, acquisitions and bankruptcies have we seen lately?

In a quick and totally non-exhaustive search, I came up with a list of 41 merger, acquisition and/or bankruptcy events that have taken place since August 2008, which is roughly when the true effects of the global recession became noticeable. (Special thanks to Adrian Cotterill for his help -- this research would have been a lot harder without the DailyDOOH archives.) I know there are others beyond what I've included in the list, because I left out several deals in China, Japan and Taiwan that I'm aware of, and that's just for starters. Regardless, I think we can all agree that 40-or-so deals in an 18-20 month time frame is pretty significant in an industry where a six-figure customer contract is still considered "huge." So without further commotion, here's my list of acquisitions, mergers and bankruptcies that have taken place since August 2008, presented in alphabetical order:

42Media Group goes bankrupt
Access 360 Media purchase Arena Media
Ad-Dispatch acquires Volt Media
AdWalker goes bankrupt
Artexe SRL acquires Emmerrelogic SRL, becomes DOOH.IT
Avanti Screenmedia goes bankrupt
Bally Technologies acquires Coolsign's gaming division
ClearOne acquires NetStreams (and just received its NASDAQ delisting notification)
Core Technology merges with Studio 911
Danoo acquires IdeaCast
Digiadvans acquires Mobile Eco Ads
Digital Poster AS goes bankrupt
EDR Media acquires The Golf Network, becomes Sports Retail Networks LLC
Fujitsu acquire global rights to TELentice (after bankruptcy)
JCDecaux acquires assets of Titan Outdoor UK
Kaleidovision acquires Music Concierge
Litelogic goes bankrupt
Medscreen goes bankrupt
Mermaid acquires Media Solutions AB
Millennial Media acquire TapMetrics
Minicom Digital Signage spins out from Minicom
Mood Media acquires Music Matic
Muzak goes bankrupt
National CineMedia makes strategic investment in Danoo (now RMG Networks)
NCR acquires NetKey
NetKey acquires Webpavement
Pixman Nomadic Media goes bankrupt
PlayNetwork acquires Channel M
Primesight acquires Titan Outdoor's UK roadside business
Redbus Group acquire assets of Streetbroadcast
RMG Networks acquires Pharmacy TV
Screenred disappears (and presumably goes bankrupt)
SMART acquires NextWindow
Sony acquires Convergent
TargetCast buys Ripple Networks
Touchtunes acquires Barfly
Verifone acquires Clear Channel Taxi Media
Vision Media Group goes bankrupt
Visser Digital Media acquires CampusLink and LevelVision College
WSJ/KPCB make strategic investment in TargetCast
Zoom Media & Marketing acquires Sports Display, ClubCom, GymTV, Allied Media's nightlife network and Wellness Health Education Network

For many, being on this list isn't exactly a good thing. In fact, more than half of the companies listed were acquired out of necessity, or simply went out of business. Yes, there were a few bright spots. Zoom Media & Marketing, for example, has been clearly and aggressively pursuing growth through acquisitions. Others, like National CineMedia, used their strong balance sheets to make forays into strategically valuable markets on the cheap. But most, sadly, were either reorganized, acquired, or simply imploded due to insufficient cash reserves, poor planning, skittish financial backers, or some combination of the three.

Whereas the roll-up strategy was pretty ineffective after the dot.com implosion, it could do somewhat better in the DOOH marketplace. The most obvious case would be when network owners (like Zoom Media) expand by acquiring venues and screen real estate for far less than the cost of buildout. But even tech vendors stand to gain. Netkey, for example, had been strong in the interactive kiosk market for over a decade, but had very little presence in digital signage. An inexpensive purchase of Webpavement, who was rumored to be foundering at the time, solved that problem. More importantly, it gave them a more complete slate of offerings, which ultimately contributed to them getting acquired by NCR.

Where will the next batch of M&A activity come from?

The deals listed above, along with the others I've missed, have brought some much-needed consolidation to our space. But I don't think we're done yet. I expect the frequency of deals to decline a bit in the coming months, but I believe we'll still hear about a few big surprises before the year is out. Stratacache is still sitting on most if not all of its $25M strategic investment fund. Navori has been making noise about expanding (through acquisitions) into the US market. And, as Adrian likes to remind us of frequently, PRN is going to be bought by someone, and that someone is suddenly going to inherit one of the largest DOOH meta-networks on Earth.

Lower costs, better acceptance, and a re-centering of expectations will drive more money into digital signage in the next 18-24 months. Combined with the re-emergence of venture capital and private equity funds -- who had all but disappeared from my radar up until about a month ago -- the revitalization of the global economy should bring with it a new wave of organic and transactional growth in the digital signage market.

Did I leave out any notable transactions from the list? If you know of any that I missed, please leave a comment below. With your help, we can turn this page into the most comprehensive M&A list for the industry.

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What's WireSpring's Blog All About? WireSpring provides hardware, software and services for digital signage and kiosk projects. But our blog is a labor of love. Our posts cover everything from case studies to creative briefs, and are authored by some of the industry's most well-respected leaders.

Selling Digital Signage: Is it a Luxury, a Commodity or Both?

Bill Gerba

While 2010 still finds us in the midst of a significant recession, the volume of deals being done in the digital signage industry is growing. These days, it's hard to go to a restaurant, hotel or retail store that isn't using some kind of place-based digital messaging system (whether they're using it effectively is another matter altogether, though). So I think it's a good time to start talking about the changing nature of how people are selling digital signage products. In the past, most of our time was simply occupied by explaining what digital signage is, what it does, and if it works. Today, most of those things are accepted and reasonably understood by most businesspeople. In my experience, the challenge now revolves around two key elements: explaining why the client should buy a "luxury" item like digital signage, and why, amongst the large and varied field of digital signage providers and integrators, your solution is the best choice.

Selling a luxury commodity

A consumer buying a Rolex or a BMW has a set of expectations about their new purchase. They may expect it to deliver an experience they wouldn't have otherwise. Or perhaps they expect it to provide access to people, places or things otherwise unattainable. Or maybe it just satisfies their aesthetic sweet tooth. Whatever the case, products that aren't necessities still have to do something for the buyer. Otherwise, they wouldn't buy them. In business it's no different. Very few businesses truly need digital signs. For most, they are nonessential luxuries that hopefully bring along some added values and benefits. The expectations of what digital signage will do for them vary from reaching tangible goals (like increasing sales of advertised products or promoting the use of largely unknown services) to yielding intangible "improvements" (like enhancing ambiance within the venue). But if the client can't articulate their expectations in some form or another, they won't buy a digital signage system, because in essence they haven't sold themselves on the idea yet.

Image credit: Brandon Baunach

When faced with a client who falls clearly into the "digital signage as luxury" category, we start by getting the client to explain their needs (which aren't really needs -- they're "wants") and their expectations. With those in hand, selling a high tech B2B product isn't much different from selling any other luxury good. In the end, it comes down to the skill of the salesman and the client's willingness to splurge. Of course, it also helps to be able to show them how they'd actually reach their goals before they buy.

Selling a commodity luxury

Next, let's look at the flip side. As a product developer, my resellers and I are offering a product that is fairly similar to other products available on the market. Much like how BMW tries to convince their buyers that they have the ultimate driving machine (even though it's just a car), we work to demonstrate that FireCast is the best digital signage platform by appealing to customers' needs and expectations. If an enthusiast wants to take a test drive, we let them take a test drive. If he's a gear head, we let him pop the hood. And if he's searching for luxury and convenience, we show off the hand-stitched leather interior (yes, that last metaphor is a bit of a stretch). More often than not, a client who's on the fence about making this "luxury" purchase will need to do all three of these things before feeling comfortable -- not only with buying our digital signage system, but with the idea of buying any digital signage system.

Every vendor's system has different bells, whistles, gadgets and doodads. Most of the time, prospective customers start their research without knowing that many of these things even exist. But over time -- and more importantly, with the experience of having compared several platforms -- they get a feeling of which features will make their operations better/easier/more successful, and which are truly unique amongst platforms (whether important or not). Interestingly, it can be useful to focus some attention on the latter group (the features the customer might not even need) simply because they allow the product to stand out in the customer's mind. When selling to customer "wants" instead of "needs," this can be a critical step toward winning the deal.

Even though a customer might walk through your door not "needing" a digital signage system, the skilled provider can turn it into a must-have item replete with newly mission-critical functions. Making the client wonder "how did I ever get by without this?" is absolutely an achievable goal, though it does typically requires a good deal of hand-holding, even after the sale is completed. For larger companies, or those whose business is selling the nuts-and-bolts, it might not be worth it. But for those who know they can drive incremental revenue, repeat business, and positive buzz towards their products and services, the payoff can be considerable.

Do customers still view digital signage as a luxury item? Do you think this perception is changing? Leave a comment and let us know.

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What's WireSpring's Blog All About? WireSpring provides hardware, software and services for digital signage and kiosk projects. But our blog is a labor of love. Our posts cover everything from case studies to creative briefs, and are authored by some of the industry's most well-respected leaders.

Asking the Tough Questions About Your Digital Signage Content

Bill Gerba

For a software company, we spend a surprising amount of time working with content. We don't make a lot of content in house -- hardly any, in fact -- but we're constantly testing, tracking and qualifying new technical formats and creative experiments in search of smooth playback, consistent performance and effectiveness in the field. We've also discovered that whether the client plans to handle content production, management and scheduling in-house or outsource it to somebody else, they've often left a lot of very basic questions unanswered. And this can have serious effects on the company's efficiency, growth and even survival.

Getting back to basics

These days, most of the startups and companies starting new networks that we come across have at least a basic understanding of the fundamentals. However, some still refuse to ditch their pie-in-the-sky projections even after a slap in the face with some data on why so many digital signage projects fail. Often the way we help them to see the challenge of scale, for example, is by using content (both its source and management) as a proxy. By getting the client to answer some very basic questions about their planned network rollout, we can approximate the amount of content (and thus the amount of labor) needed to fill their screens. For example:

Image credit: Quinn Dombrowski

How many venues will the screens be placed in?
How many unique channels of content will there be in each venue?
How long is the average content loop?
How many unique pieces of content will need to be created from scratch each month?
How many unique pieces of content will be provided by third parties each month?
About what portion (%) of a typical channel might be changed out each month?

By walking a newcomer through this simple list, they necessarily have to start thinking about related concepts that will invariably have a big impact on their strategy and execution. For example, "average length of content loop" requires the client to have a basic understanding of things like traffic patterns, average dwell time and trip duration. Those answers, in turn, will feed into future questions about dayparting and the associated creative and logistical needs for that. Likewise, the question about content provided by 3rd parties is actually a loaded one. Many networks -- even inside big, established and sophisticated companies -- presume that an agency or creative shop is going to hand over a perfect piece of media that they can then simply drop into their scheduling system. In reality, the content frequently comes through improperly formatted, or in a form that's useless for digital signage (e.g. an unedited 30 second TV commercial). While I find it's nearly impossible to convince a lot of these companies about the reality of the business, I at least have a jumping-off point for proffering some "what-if" questions that let them build out a more accurate worst case scenario budget.

These days, our "starter" content questionnaire consists of about 25 questions, and can be filled out in about 15 minutes. Needless to say, though, it spawns more questions and conversations that can take days to walk through. But for a prospective digital signage network company, time spent answering such questions (hopefully before their rollout begins, but frequently after, in response to some crisis) is time well spent.

More questions than answers (for now)

The boys over at The Preset Group have also been pondering the content question and looking for better ways to get networks up and running with great content. They've developed an online survey to sort out where the weak links are, and what might be done to strengthen them. It's short and easy, and the answers are entirely confidential. According to Preset partner Dave Haynes (whose honesty is the stuff of legend, mind you), it won’t take more than a few minutes to complete, and will hopefully generate a useful snapshot of the current state of content needs.

To thank respondents for their time, Preset will be handing out a summary of the findings, at no charge, to anybody who chooses to leave their email address. They promise not to spam you. And if they do, let me know about it and I'll bust some chops on your behalf. Promise.

So head on over and take the survey at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/content_provider_survey. And if you'd like more info on our content questionnaire, feel free to let me know via email or in a comment below.

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What's WireSpring's Blog All About? WireSpring provides hardware, software and services for digital signage and kiosk projects. But our blog is a labor of love. Our posts cover everything from case studies to creative briefs, and are authored by some of the industry's most well-respected leaders.

Digital Signage Content Creation: Grabbing the Low-Hanging Fruit

Bill Gerba

Today's post is light on words but heavy on visuals. Well, one visual anyway. You see, I've been working on updating our series about how to make great content for digital signage. In the process, I decided to whip up a little graph for those folks who are new to digital signage content production, with the goal of making it easier for them to decide where to invest their time and effort. I blame the current lack of great content on a few potential culprits. First, there are still lots of designers who simply don't consider digital signage to be its own medium, and thus don't bother adopting any practices to take advantage of its best properties. Next, there's a lot of conflicting (and often flat-out wrong) information on the Internet about what does and doesn't make digital signage content useful and effective. Plus, even the good resources tend to make presumptions about the content creator's overall skill level and familiarity with more advanced digital signage concepts like dwell time, trip duration and loop length. And finally, most resources on the web are quite long and somewhat hard to get through. Our guide is one of the shorter ones out there, but at 10,000 words and counting, it's still pretty daunting for the newcomer.

What are the easiest ways to make your content more effective?

To answer this question and provide some perspective for those who are new to the business, I put together the following illustration:

While this isn't a scientific measurement of "difficulty" or "effectiveness" (how could it be?), I think it highlights a couple of important things. For example, an effective sound program can dramatically improve the effectiveness of your content. It's also just about the hardest thing you could choose to tackle, considering that a bad sound program will not only make your content ineffective, but will also cause you to incur the wrath of your screen's host venue and its employees and clientèle. Text, contrast and font-oriented changes yield the best bang for your buck, and are a great place to start testing out optimization procedures.

The rationale here is quite straightforward: text tends to be easier to modify than complex graphical elements, and in some cases can even be dynamically inserted into otherwise finished clips, making for inexpensive tests and edits. Ditto for font faces and sizes, which can have a significant impact on viewing angle, visibility, comprehension and even recall. From an effectiveness standpoint, text does most of the selling in the vast majority of digital signage clips, whether in a retail store or at the DMV, so it's no wonder that optimizing text can have such a strong impact on overall content effectiveness. Contrast changes can be just as effective, but it can be hard to make all of the necessary adjustments to every element of a clip, translating to more time or more money (or both) spent to make and test the change.

Another broad generalization can be inferred from the chart: motion-oriented changes are harder to make than static ones, with the latter group including things like simple changes to visuals/graphics and text. I think this tends to be true in most cases, though perhaps not as much so for vector animations done in Flash versus full-motion video or 3D that has to be re-rendered each time a change is made. Still, as the chart indicates, there are plenty of high-value motion optimization strategies that can make a big impact on who sees and remembers your content.

How well does our chart match up with your own experiences? Have we left out any other ways to make simple content changes that have a big impact? Leave a comment below and let us know!

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What's WireSpring's Blog All About? WireSpring provides hardware, software and services for digital signage and kiosk projects. But our blog is a labor of love. Our posts cover everything from case studies to creative briefs, and are authored by some of the industry's most well-respected leaders.

Thinking of Writing Your Own Digital Signage Software? Read This

Bill Gerba

During the past few weeks, I've run into not one, not two, but three companies who are considering writing their own digital signage software. From scratch. We noted this phenomenon several years ago, when investigating the make-vs-buy question for kiosks and digital signage networks. Frankly, I'm baffled that people are still thinking about writing their own platform here in 2010, given all the mature and affordable software packages that are available today. Without turning this article into a sales pitch, I'd like to talk about some of the arguments that I've heard from the do-it-yourselfers and hopefully set straight some of the widely-held misconceptions about what really goes into creating a digital signage software platform -- or any piece of software, for that matter.

Better, faster, cheaper. Pick... none?

I don't want to write an article about why you should buy my company's software -- or anyone else's, for that matter. Nor would I ever discount the quality or capability of open source and community-authored software. I use many such programs every day of the week, and they usually rival or top their commercial counterparts. But of the three companies I encountered who were contemplating the make-versus-buy, none are software companies, and two aren't even tech companies of any kind. One has a significant amount of digital signage experience. Another has a more modest track record in the industry. And one is still cutting its teeth on a prototype network. In all three cases, WireSpring's kit is being considered alongside a number of our competitors -- mostly good ones, with a few lackeys thrown in. (Even with over 330 companies in our competitor database, we come across one or two new guys each month.) In each case, cost is being cited as the chief factor in prompting the make-buy decision. In general, the cost-related arguments fall into two categories:

Image credit: Andrew Michaels

Fallacy #1: We can write it ourselves for less than the cost of [X software licenses / Y months of SaaS service / Z firstborn children]

Software companies are businesses, so yes, we do make a point of trying to sell our products to others for money. And while some firms seem adept at gouging customers with sky-high prices, most of us either start out honest, or else we're kept honest by our competitors. Still, there's apparently a notion out there that software development involves no capital expense and has no ongoing support costs. The reality (from my point of view, at least) is that good software developers are expensive. I hate to objectify them like that, because they can be pretty awesome people, too. But awesomeness doesn't show up on my P&L statements. Salaries do. For the cost of even an extremely modest, hypothetical development team -- perhaps 2-3 developers and a QA engineer -- you can buy a lot of software. And that doesn't even figure in tech support or take into account how long it would take said developers and QA folks to build a product that was actually usable.

Another big misconception -- and I can totally appreciate why anybody who hasn't worked at a software company would think this -- is that once you've written and released your perfect software version 1.0, you can fire your development staff, kick up your heels, and be done with it. I really, really wish that was the case. (Well, except for the firing part -- see the aforementioned note about awesomeness.) But a software program is never really "finished," and even great software demands a considerable amount of expensive, ongoing maintenance. What drives this need for maintenance? Here are a few of the gremlins that are bound to pop up:  

Discontinued hardware: The playback hardware you install at your sites (whether it's a PC or an embedded device) will eventually be discontinued and replaced with a new model, forcing you to update the operating system, integrate new drivers and re-test hundreds of scenarios before you can deploy on the new hardware.
Security patches: Mandatory security patches for the underlying operating system (whether it's Windows, Mac OS or Linux) or the other programs you use on there will interfere with your existing playback tools, forcing you to re-write those tools to be compatible. Internet Explorer has been notorious for this, with even a small change in the IE security model requiring major changes to digital signage playback tools that rely on IE for showing any type of web-based content.
New content formats: Your customers will eventually want to display new content formats that didn't exist when you first wrote your playback software, requiring you to integrate new codecs or upgrade the existing ones.
Browser updates: The web browsers that your employees or customers use to access your management portal (whether it's hosted in-house or out on the cloud) will be updated to new versions, forcing you to update your HTML, Javascript, and other code to be compatible with the new browser releases.
Bug fixes: No matter how much you test before releasing a software product, some number of bugs will crop up once it's in the field -- and it can sometimes take years before a given bug shows up. Like it or not, you'll probably be issuing bug fixes for the life of your product.

These scenarios may be specific to the digital signage industry, but the same general issues apply to all software development projects. In fact, companies like Microsoft, Apple, Adobe and Symantec are all constantly updating their legacy products, keeping a veritable army of developers and quality assurance staff employed in the process. But they have millions of clients over which they can spread their costs. When you write your own software, your first, biggest and only client is you. You get to pay 100% of the cost of every new feature and every bug fix. And instead of having a predictable, known cost for what you'll pay every year for keeping things up-to-date, writing your own software means that you bear the entire risk that those endeavors will be more expensive and time consuming than you expected.

Fallacy #2: We have elaborate, complex and unique requirements that need to be designed from scratch

If you really, really wanted a teal and fuchsia zebra-striped car, would you buy a car and get a custom paint job, or would you get an engineering degree and redesign the internal combustion engine? I have a slightly more diplomatic way of phrasing this when talking to potential customers. But what it boils down to is that when taking a from-scratch DIY software approach, you will be spending time and money solving problems that others have solved already. And I can tell you from experience that even seemingly simple tasks -- like reliably moving a file from server A to player B, or getting said file to play smoothly from beginning to end unattended -- turn out to be pretty complicated when they have to work in the real world, and not just in your development lab.

At the same time, I understand that all businesses have unique requirements, and some might have enough complexity to warrant writing software to automate (or at least improve) those processes. But in my book, that just calls for a good API and some engineering cleverness. I can't think of many real-world cases that would warrant a rewrite of what is basically the digital signage industry's equivalent of the wheel.

Perhaps you've done the math and considered salary expenses, time-to-market delays and opportunity costs, and you still think DIY software is a good idea. In that case, you're either planning an extremely huge network with remarkably unique needs, or you're underestimating some part of the DIY proposition. That sounds like a harsh conclusion drawn by a biased party, and maybe it is. But given how many do-it-yourselfers have become our clients and the clients of our competitors over the years, I've noticed a clear trend that goes like this: (1) Meet new prospect doing make-buy analysis. (2) Prospect chooses "make." (3) Wait 2-3 years. (4) Get new call from old prospect looking to retrofit old network. (5) Repeat. This cycle is costly for everyone and ultimately limits the growth of our industry, as otherwise promising network owners spend their time re-inventing the wheel, instead of expanding their networks and creating compelling content that achieves real business goals. Hopefully this article will help some of those people ask the right questions and understand the true costs of writing their own digital signage software, and enable them to make the best technology decision for their business. And if not... Well... I'll see you at step (4) then!

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What's WireSpring's Blog All About? WireSpring provides hardware, software and services for digital signage and kiosk projects. But our blog is a labor of love. Our posts cover everything from case studies to creative briefs, and are authored by some of the industry's most well-respected leaders.

Shopper Marketing: Q&A with Saatchi X's Dr. Christopher Gray

Christie Liu

The concept of shopper marketing has grown in importance, and it's an area that industry players should keep an eye on -- particularly given the number of retail-based networks that are in operation today. Dr. Christopher Gray is the vice president of shopper psychology at Saatchi & Saatchi X, a leading shopper marketing firm. One year ago, he shed some light on the emotions and drivers of shopper behavior in a down economy. I caught up with him by phone last week to see how things might have changed during the past 12 months.

Q: Where are we now compared to one year ago in terms of consumer behavior and psychology insights? What did we learn from the past year?

One of the important themes for us to understand is that shoppers are willing to do what it takes to maintain their lifestyle while spending less. They're smart, they're savvy and they're resourceful. I've seen literally hundreds of shoppers over the last year and I'm always impressed with the creative ways that people are going about cutting budgets, but also trying to maintain a certain level of lifestyle and to feel good on how they're caring for themselves, their families and their homes. Some of the ways shoppers are doing this include shopping less frequently, shopping around for the best deals and perhaps trying new brands or trying private label. What's key also is that shoppers are looking to the marketers, retailers and brands to help them do so. There is a growing sense of what I'm calling "recession fatigue." People are getting worn out to have to pinch pennies and think about every cent they're spending. As a result, I've been seeing this expectation and need from shoppers to have retailers and brands provide them with solutions not only to save money, but also to maintain a lifestyle, or at least feel good about what they're spending or buying for themselves and their families.

Image credit: Ed Sweeney

Q: So what does this mean in terms of the emotions driving shoppers right now?

I think the fundamental emotional benefits that shoppers seek from retail and shopping experiences don't change. What does shift is how we go about getting those needs met and this is where we've seen a lot of the shifting. If I go into a store, part of what I am trying to do and the emotional benefit I want to feel is that my family is well taken care of. I want to feel like I'm a good mom. Such self-centric emotions around who I am and what kind of person I am stay the same. But how I am getting those needs met will change based on the circumstances. I think what we've seen is that as wallets have tightened and as the economy has challenged a lot of shoppers, they're trying to find ways to meet those emotional needs, in unique and very resourceful ways.

Q: How will this affect the messaging we give them?

It's messaging, but it's also products, innovation and merchandising. I've been hearing a lot about shoppers trading down. But shoppers don't want to trade down! It doesn't feel good when you're buying something that you feel is substandard for your family or isn't meeting the standard that you have previously. It feels terrible. It doesn't feel like you're being a good mom and it doesn't feel like you're being a good provider. It also doesn't feel like you're doing the best for yourself. I think in the past the only option when times are tough was to buy something cheaper. But shoppers have a lot more options now. We're seeing a lot of retailers and brands out there providing solutions that offer low prices, but also style, design, quality, great flavor and performance. Shoppers are now expecting those solutions from retailers and from brands.

Q: Pricing has obviously been a big issue given the economy, but are you doing any research around what attributes consumers are most concerned about?

We do. We do it across different categories for our clients and we see a lot of different things. The themes that we see are those we've been talking about. It is still very important to continue the low price messaging since it gets people's attention, particularly when budget is something that's top of mind. But what we're seeing again, is shoppers aren't just looking for an opening price point - they're not seeing value as price in a vacuum. We've done a lot of research in home care, on items such as laundry detergent, dish soap and dishwashing detergent. A consistent message that we've heard across this category is that it's not a good deal to me if it doesn't work the first time. If I open my dishwasher and the dishes are dirty, it means I have to redo them or wash them by hand. In this case, I don't care how inexpensive it was, I'm never buying that product again. While shoppers want a low price for sure, they're much more demanding when it comes to the quality of the product. It goes beyond a functional need; it's also an emotional benefit as well. If I buy a dishwasher detergent and it doesn't work, I'm not feeling very good about myself at that moment because I made a bad choice. I don't think we understand well enough as an industry how those emotional benefits really direct shoppers' behavior.

Q: How do we try to decipher and understand the shoppers' emotions and behaviors?

A lot of my work is around the emotional lives of shoppers, their expectations and the benefits they're looking for. You have to use a lot of unique types of research. You can't just ask somebody "did you feel happy when you did this?" You have to use more indirect methods and psychological techniques where people can indirectly talk about or indicate the emotions and motivations that are really driving their behavior. For me personally, I don't like to use surveys by themselves. Again, you're asking very direct questions about things that are difficult to articulate, difficult to admit to, or to identify in yourself. So if you're asking those questions directly, you're either going to get no response, or you could get a response that's inaccurate, or at worse misleading. If you're building a foundation of knowledge about your shoppers, the last thing you need is false information because that's going to exponentially create problems down the road when you create messaging or create merchandising and other experiential aspects. When we use surveys, I prefer that we also mix in more qualitative methodologies as well so that we can cross-reference and cross-validate. Being a psychologist, I have a certain bias in the methodologies that I like to use. Specifically when we're talking about emotions and needs and the underlying motivations, I prefer to use projective techniques - to use things like visual representations of our experiences, of our feelings, of our thoughts, to use narrative, to use personification.

Q: So where do you see us going in shopper marketing?

I read a lot of studies over the last year about how shoppers have fundamentally changed and are never going back to their old ways. I don't agree with that for a couple of reasons. First of all, we see a history of this kind of tightening of the belt, then loosening of the belt when things get better. If you look across the globe at financial crises in the 70s, 80s, 90s, we can see the historical reference that behaviors do tend to shift back. Also, I noticed that a lot of the studies are based on self-report by consumers, which I think should be taken with a grain of salt. As a psychologist having worked with a lot of people who are going through their own personal crises, if you ask them when in the midst of a personal crisis if they can imagine things getting better, you always hear no. No, I can't. It's very difficult for people in the midst of a crisis to see the light at the end of the tunnel, or see that things might change or be different. So I think when you rely on self-report in the middle of a crisis, you're going to get the report that no, I'm never going back to that behavior again. In general, we'll see that as the economy loosens up and as people don't feel the need to budget quite as tightly, we are going to see some movement back towards more spending. Tied to this is the idea of price versus convenience. At some point, shoppers are going to shift whether they think it's worth doing all the extra things to get lower prices (clipping coupons, finding deals online, shopping across multiple channels, etc.) because they do come at a cost of spending time on other things. We're going to start to see the shift as the economy loosens up and people are going to say, it sure would be nice to spend more time with my family or take care of the yard versus spending all my time pinching pennies and finding the best deal.

Want to learn more about shopper marketing?

Find out how Dr. Gray's colleague Peter Viento uses shopper marketing insights to support creative at retail. Peter is the executive creative director at Saatchi X in New York and is a featured speaker at this year's Digital Signage Content Strategies Summit, to be held on April 12th and 13th in Las Vegas. For details on the conference, visit http://www.strategyinstitute.com/041210_dscss5/dsp.php.

(Full disclosure: The author of this article works for the Strategy Institute, the producers of the Digital Signage Content Strategies Summit. WireSpring has sponsored Strategy Institute conferences in the past, but is not involved with the conference mentioned in the article. WireSpring did not receive any financial compensation for publishing this article.)

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What's WireSpring's Blog All About? WireSpring provides hardware, software and services for digital signage and kiosk projects. But our blog is a labor of love. Our posts cover everything from case studies to creative briefs, and are authored by some of the industry's most well-respected leaders.

Where's This Industry Going? Keen Observations from the 2010 DSE

Pat Hellberg

By pure coincidence, a young man I met during my DSE panel discussion wound up sitting in my row on the flight home from Las Vegas. My session, entitled "Do it right the first time: the politics and pitfalls of digital signage deployment and how to avoid them", had been well attended -- mostly by prospective or current network operators long on entrepreneurial spirit but short on experience. My row mate's situation was typical. He has started a doctor's office network that currently has just two locations. His questions for me (and the focus of his two-day fact finding mission at DSE) included weighty topics like, "should I get serious and expand?" and "where is digital signage/digital out-of-home going?"

Good question... where is this industry going?

Digital signage veterans (some of us have been around for over a decade) have never seen as much activity nor felt as much energy as we just experienced in Las Vegas. Exhibitors entered DSE 2010 anticipating the norm: few buyers, but lots of "tire kickers" walking the show floor. Instead, there were plenty of indications that buyers were qualified and conversations were positive. Some vendors were even writing business on the trade show floor. So the future is bright, right? Maybe yes, maybe no. Certainly the short-term view is encouraging. Digital signage/digital out-of-home finally seems to be approaching a heightened level of maturity. After dipping their toes in the water in past years, two mega-players -- Intel and Cisco -- reportedly are diving into the deep end. And established entities like LG, Sony, NEC and others are expanding their traditional, conventional DS/DOOH offerings. All of this suggests money is about to pour into the space which, logically, means the good times are about to roll.

Image credit: Athena's Pix

Good times, with a caveat

Geri Wolff works for Exponation, the company that produces DSE. Part of her job is to compile the collective wisdom of DSE's advisory board into a form that can be passed on to the digital signage community at large. At the DSE advisory board meeting the night before the show opened, Geri polled the board for advice. She asked: what are we (both the DSE & the digital signage industry in general) missing?

Patrick Moorhead, VP at Chicago-based agency Draftfcb, did not hesitate. Patrick said, flat out, there simply are not enough ad agency types in attendance. None of us disagreed. We acknowledged that currently, there's no reason for agency folks to care, let alone attend.

Ironically, this comes at a time when agencies are slowly warming up to the idea of sharing the wealth and spreading the buy. The TV audience is shrinking. That can't be disputed. But those TV dollars won't automatically default to DS/DOOH unless the agencies see it as a media buy that makes sense. Right now, they generally don't. And that can't be disputed either. Thus, unless the focus of DSE -- and the industry overall -- shifts more toward the audience and less toward bright, shiny tech, the agencies will continue to stay away in droves. That's one of those things that keep "good times" just out of our reach.

Where art thou, content?

Back to my flight home from Las Vegas. My new friend said that by walking the trade show floor, he felt he received an adequate overview regarding digital signage hardware, software, etc. But he had a nagging question. "I need help creating content that will look different from all of the other content, content that makes sense for my doctor client and his patients. Why isn't there more help at the show regarding custom content solutions?" My knee-jerk answer: "Because it is extremely difficult to make a living creating custom content solutions as custom content is not valued in the digital signage industry."

  Oh, there was plenty of content literally jumping off the digital displays on the trade show floor. From an aesthetic standpoint, some of the content was truly spectacular. (The Christie MicroTiles were amazing. But then, Christie could have hooked them up to an old security camera and would still have stopped attendees in their tracks.) But from an editorial standpoint, the content playing on the show floor was, at best, generic. Mind-numbingly generic. No-one-pays-attention generic. As my Preset partner Paul Flanigan tweeted from Vegas, "I know the weather in every city in the world by walking the show floor. Does everybody do weather?"

Unfortunately, it seems that everybody does do weather. And stock tickers. And news. They combine to form an easy default. But weather, stocks and news are not the answer to our collective problem of mediocre content.

Where should DSE and this industry be in 5 years?

That was another question Geri Wolff asked the DSE board. I spoke up. "Unless this show and this industry changes its focus from being transaction-based, unless it shifts its focus away from hardware and software and starts focusing on the audience, the person on the other side of the screen, and focuses on the messages we are sending to that audience... unless that happens, in five years, digital signage will still be a bunch of technology folks talking to each other." And the digital signage show, as Patrick Moorhead observed, will be nothing more than vendors "selling picks and shovels." Shifting the priority from an emphasis on prettier pixels to an emphasis on compelling consumer communication will not be easy for this industry. But the opportunity has never been more, well, more opportune. Digital signage/digital out-of-home has momentum, and momentum attracts resources and buys time.

It's time to provide an offering that compels the agencies to recognize digital out-of-home as a viable alternative, and time to pay more attention to what plays on the screen and less attention to the screen itself. If that shift in emphasis comes to pass, every DS operation will benefit: the mammoth enterprise projects, the two-office network operated by my new friend, and all networks in between.

I can't wait to see where we're at in five years. Meanwhile, what do you think the next half-decade holds for our industry?

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What's WireSpring's Blog All About? WireSpring provides hardware, software and services for digital signage and kiosk projects. But our blog is a labor of love. Our posts cover everything from case studies to creative briefs, and are authored by some of the industry's most well-respected leaders.