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		<title>A Sound Approach to Digital Signage Audio</title>
		<description>Discuss A Sound Approach to Digital Signage Audio</description>
		<link>https://www.wirespring.com/30-legacy-blog-digital-signage-insider/716-a-sound-approach-to-digital-signage-audio</link>
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			<title>Bill Gerba says:</title>
			<link>https://www.wirespring.com/30-legacy-blog-digital-signage-insider/716-a-sound-approach-to-digital-signage-audio#comment-959</link>
			<description><![CDATA[Hi Kelly,
I've not heard of any studies that look at such a specific topic... in fact, I've never seen a study that looked at the use of directional audio (vs "regular") at all, though I'd love to!]]></description>
			<dc:creator>Bill Gerba</dc:creator>
			<pubDate>Mon, 10 Aug 2009 20:13:11 +0000</pubDate>
			<guid>https://www.wirespring.com/30-legacy-blog-digital-signage-insider/716-a-sound-approach-to-digital-signage-audio#comment-959</guid>
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			<title>Kelly Parks says:</title>
			<link>https://www.wirespring.com/30-legacy-blog-digital-signage-insider/716-a-sound-approach-to-digital-signage-audio#comment-958</link>
			<description><![CDATA[Hi Bill,
Thanks for the great post. This is a major issue I deal with with our customers (mostly retail shops). We've moved away from standard audio and are now working with directional audio solutions. Audio still isn't right in many situations, but I've found that using this type of audio I can use it in more situations. The primary issue customers seemed to have was annoyance: they were worried about annoying the customers or their staff. Directional speakers gets around this by only delivering sound in the target and not outside. I saw that one of the other comments mentioned directional speakers and referred to the ultrasonic speakers. We tried these, but the customers complained about the sound quality. We are now using Sound Shower speakers from Panphonics, and are happy with the results.
Do you know if any studies have looked at directional audio with digital signage. Such a study would help my pitch to customers, as I feel that our use of directional audio helps to make us stand out from other local installation companies.
-Kelly P.]]></description>
			<dc:creator>Kelly Parks</dc:creator>
			<pubDate>Sun, 09 Aug 2009 19:18:43 +0000</pubDate>
			<guid>https://www.wirespring.com/30-legacy-blog-digital-signage-insider/716-a-sound-approach-to-digital-signage-audio#comment-958</guid>
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			<title>Christian says:</title>
			<link>https://www.wirespring.com/30-legacy-blog-digital-signage-insider/716-a-sound-approach-to-digital-signage-audio#comment-957</link>
			<description><![CDATA[Bill,
Glad you touch on this subject as well. "Don't rely on sound alone to make your message." and "Your visual messages should be comprehensible without sound..." very much hits home; especially from the network operator and agency perspectives. Currently, I know for fact that the lack of audio alone could be a "deal killer," and it is good to see the work is getting out that networks and content can work effectively without it, or with other solutions as well.
Check out http://tinyurl.com/co36rn and http://tinyurl.com/c8498o if you have the time. I would love your thoughts and I'm sure Paul would love it as well.
Great post! Gerba hits again. :)]]></description>
			<dc:creator>Christian</dc:creator>
			<pubDate>Wed, 06 May 2009 23:16:11 +0000</pubDate>
			<guid>https://www.wirespring.com/30-legacy-blog-digital-signage-insider/716-a-sound-approach-to-digital-signage-audio#comment-957</guid>
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			<title>Lyle Bunn says:</title>
			<link>https://www.wirespring.com/30-legacy-blog-digital-signage-insider/716-a-sound-approach-to-digital-signage-audio#comment-956</link>
			<description><![CDATA[Why leave sound/audio in the communicators toolchest as digital sigange is pulled out ! Suitable apply, as with touch, and even smell audio can augment the messaging, its influence and call to action, adding to brand recognition. Suitable and appropraite to the environment are the words I most read into your comments Bill (and other commentators). Interesting to note that "best of the best" content award winners almost always have audio. (Smirnoff, Gilette, etc.)
Talking head - bad, Raw noise - bad, Long form spot spot (i.e. Movie Trailer - bad. Familiar tones and tunes in context - Audio good.!]]></description>
			<dc:creator>Lyle Bunn</dc:creator>
			<pubDate>Mon, 04 May 2009 21:25:50 +0000</pubDate>
			<guid>https://www.wirespring.com/30-legacy-blog-digital-signage-insider/716-a-sound-approach-to-digital-signage-audio#comment-956</guid>
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			<title>Roi Iglesias says:</title>
			<link>https://www.wirespring.com/30-legacy-blog-digital-signage-insider/716-a-sound-approach-to-digital-signage-audio#comment-955</link>
			<description><![CDATA[Hi,
Sound and music are a great team at POS. If you work sound and music thinking in consumers you have their atention.
Music, sound and content, produced specifically for digital signage, get the channel to work, that the public is better informed, and that employees do not perceive noise.
We are working some channels with music, sound and video, with Kentia Software. The video content is only sound when they are relevant, if not noise pollution.
Music and sound affects the way shoppers (retail week)]]></description>
			<dc:creator>Roi Iglesias</dc:creator>
			<pubDate>Mon, 04 May 2009 10:58:05 +0000</pubDate>
			<guid>https://www.wirespring.com/30-legacy-blog-digital-signage-insider/716-a-sound-approach-to-digital-signage-audio#comment-955</guid>
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			<title>Julian Treasure says:</title>
			<link>https://www.wirespring.com/30-legacy-blog-digital-signage-insider/716-a-sound-approach-to-digital-signage-audio#comment-954</link>
			<description><![CDATA[Thanks for the namecheck Bill - I have tweeted your excellent and thoughtful blog in return.
Good to see such well-considered comments also. It's reassuring that everyone sees the perils of uncontrolled intrusive AV in public spaces. I blogged a while ago about the screens in the Milan underground, which batter the poor travelers waiting for trains with sound offering nowhere to run, nowhere to hide.
We will surely have to endure some unpleasant testing like this of the boundaries between adding value to retail experiences and irritating the heck out of people... but I believe the future will see a holistic approach to space design that takes into account all five senses from the start, designing to take advantage of what Prof Charles Spence calls 'super-additivity', where 1 1 1 1 1=20 or more.]]></description>
			<dc:creator>Julian Treasure</dc:creator>
			<pubDate>Fri, 01 May 2009 17:52:29 +0000</pubDate>
			<guid>https://www.wirespring.com/30-legacy-blog-digital-signage-insider/716-a-sound-approach-to-digital-signage-audio#comment-954</guid>
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			<title>Jason Goldberg says:</title>
			<link>https://www.wirespring.com/30-legacy-blog-digital-signage-insider/716-a-sound-approach-to-digital-signage-audio#comment-953</link>
			<description><![CDATA[Frankly due to the lower hardware costs and content development costs of audio, there are many retail merchandising challenges that can be solved quite effectively by a Sound Only solution where a video based solution wouldn't have a favorable ROI. As someone who has deployed over half a million listening stations to music retailers (back in the old days when there were physical music retailers), it's quite possible to do.
People like Martin Lindstom in "BrandSense" have done a pretty thorough job of documenting that fact that multi-sensory branding can be exponentially more effective than focusing on any one sense.
So if you're going to do audio (in retail), you do need to consider some factors:
Employee Fatige - Employees exposed to repetitive and irritating audio are going to find a way to disable your display. (we use motion sensors and timers to limit audio when a customer isn't actively engaged with a display).
Volume Levels - Ambient volume in the environment will change throughout the day and certainly from store to store, so you can't set a default volume at the factory, or even in the store during set-up. You need to use dynamic volumes that adjust to current ambient levels.
Volume Control - If the audio has important information delivery (vs. being a UI element or attraction device) then you need some use volume control, but it needs to be non-persistent (so the volume resets for the next user/shopper).
Think about sales assisted experiences. We always design our experiences to be multi-modal (self service customer, sales assisted customer, sales associate education). When a sales associate is helping a customer at the display, we give them the ability to easily "snooze" the audio for a specific period of time, so they don't have to talk over it.
Directional Audio - There are a variety of technologies out there, that can work in the right environments, but they have trade offs. Parabolics can be expensive and aesthetically challenging to install. HSS panels can have audio bounce/leakage problems. None of the directional solutions support much dynamic range.]]></description>
			<dc:creator>Jason Goldberg</dc:creator>
			<pubDate>Thu, 30 Apr 2009 15:42:23 +0000</pubDate>
			<guid>https://www.wirespring.com/30-legacy-blog-digital-signage-insider/716-a-sound-approach-to-digital-signage-audio#comment-953</guid>
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			<title>Stephen Ghigliotty says:</title>
			<link>https://www.wirespring.com/30-legacy-blog-digital-signage-insider/716-a-sound-approach-to-digital-signage-audio#comment-952</link>
			<description><![CDATA[I programmed and managed a 600 location network across Canada and the States a few years ago where every location was indeed audio enabled. Our sales folks were of the mind that the louder we ran the more likely we would sell ads.
What was the result? Sales folks working in proximity to the screens in full uproar; complaining to management and even starting blogs about the situation.
Bill's advice to move cautiously and thoughtfully with audio is sound. Read and learn...]]></description>
			<dc:creator>Stephen Ghigliotty</dc:creator>
			<pubDate>Thu, 30 Apr 2009 12:25:04 +0000</pubDate>
			<guid>https://www.wirespring.com/30-legacy-blog-digital-signage-insider/716-a-sound-approach-to-digital-signage-audio#comment-952</guid>
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			<title>Pat Hellberg says:</title>
			<link>https://www.wirespring.com/30-legacy-blog-digital-signage-insider/716-a-sound-approach-to-digital-signage-audio#comment-951</link>
			<description><![CDATA[Couldn't agree more. It's an unfortunate reality that we still have to worry about the worst case scenario. But we do. If your content includes audio that is driving the on-site employees insane, the worst case scenario is they will find a way to sabotage the audio system. I've seen it happen also. Another good argument, as if we needed another one, against playing broadcast spots in store. Without music and/or narration, most broadcast spots make no sense. A TV spot, played without sound in-store, does more harm than good.]]></description>
			<dc:creator>Pat Hellberg</dc:creator>
			<pubDate>Wed, 29 Apr 2009 20:36:23 +0000</pubDate>
			<guid>https://www.wirespring.com/30-legacy-blog-digital-signage-insider/716-a-sound-approach-to-digital-signage-audio#comment-951</guid>
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			<title>Bill Gerba says:</title>
			<link>https://www.wirespring.com/30-legacy-blog-digital-signage-insider/716-a-sound-approach-to-digital-signage-audio#comment-950</link>
			<description><![CDATA[Jeff: Interesting, and I'd have to agree that smaller locations with less transient populations tend to be more likely to at least try sound. But the annoying loop at the dr's office is just as likely to put me (or an employee) in a bad mood as it is in a grocery store, don't you think?
Christian: Yeah, as a number of people have told me, employee fatigue should have been the #1 reason against sound on my list :)]]></description>
			<dc:creator>Bill Gerba</dc:creator>
			<pubDate>Wed, 29 Apr 2009 17:17:26 +0000</pubDate>
			<guid>https://www.wirespring.com/30-legacy-blog-digital-signage-insider/716-a-sound-approach-to-digital-signage-audio#comment-950</guid>
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			<title>Christian Xell says:</title>
			<link>https://www.wirespring.com/30-legacy-blog-digital-signage-insider/716-a-sound-approach-to-digital-signage-audio#comment-949</link>
			<description><![CDATA[Sound? No way. We made the experience that the sales staff gets crazy. We do not see any advantage by the usage of sound. Our hardware is also not ready to play sound :-).
But this was wanted when we developed our hardware.]]></description>
			<dc:creator>Christian Xell</dc:creator>
			<pubDate>Wed, 29 Apr 2009 16:12:32 +0000</pubDate>
			<guid>https://www.wirespring.com/30-legacy-blog-digital-signage-insider/716-a-sound-approach-to-digital-signage-audio#comment-949</guid>
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			<title>Jeff Metzger says:</title>
			<link>https://www.wirespring.com/30-legacy-blog-digital-signage-insider/716-a-sound-approach-to-digital-signage-audio#comment-948</link>
			<description><![CDATA[A majority of the hundreds of installations that we perform daily throughout North America do not have sound. However, we are seeing growth in focused sound applications in retail as well as more installations in professional lobbies - vet, dental, health offices which require sound.]]></description>
			<dc:creator>Jeff Metzger</dc:creator>
			<pubDate>Wed, 29 Apr 2009 16:07:43 +0000</pubDate>
			<guid>https://www.wirespring.com/30-legacy-blog-digital-signage-insider/716-a-sound-approach-to-digital-signage-audio#comment-948</guid>
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