Digital Signage Tips

December 09, 2011

Weekly Spot - December 9

Here’s some recent news that caught our eyes and we thought you may be interested in reading.

Commentary: Three tips for maximizing your digital signage investment

Our retail expert Marcy Patzer  provides insights on how Quick Service Restaurants can maximize their digital signage investments.

Mobile Marketing on the Rise

An infographic based on new survey data about expected rise in mobile marketing for 2012. Respondents plan expanded use of digital signage.

Scala and Telecine Present at Strategic Internal Communications Conference

Scala’s very own Jeff Porter and Telecine’s James Fine will lead a session on December 14 at the Strategic Internal Communications Conference.

Mobile e-Commerce Driving Holiday Spending

Business Insider highlights how mobile e-commerce continues to drive sales this holiday season.

 

December 9, 2011 in Digital Signage Industry , Digital Signage Tips , Food and Drink , Retail Digital Signage , Scala , Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

November 11, 2011

New Book on How to Get Started with Digital Signage and Displays


Digital Signs and Displays for DummiesThis week, a new book - Digital Signs & Displays For Dummies - became available which explains how digital signs and displays can cut through market clutter and information overload.

Written in “plain English” for marketing and communications professionals as well as anyone interested in learning how to communicate creative, intelligent, targeted information, the book shares with readers, digital signage and display fundamentals, and innovative ways to use the technology.

Digital Signs & Displays For Dummies was written by Steve Kaelble and published by John Wiley & Sons, which has more than 1,600 For Dummies titles in print.

The book is available for free and can be ordered at www.scala.com/ds4d.

Andy Cummings, For Dummies Tech Publisher says, “Digital signage can be found everywhere - in stores, restaurants, corporate campuses and more - but many marketers still have not had the opportunity to learn the fundamentals. In Digital Signs & Displays For Dummies, expert author Steve Kaelble explains what digital signage is, how it works, and how you can get the most out of the technology.”

 

November 11, 2011 in Books , Digital Signage Industry , Digital Signage Tips , Retail Digital Signage , Scala | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

October 31, 2011

3 Quick Questions with Michael Shuman of 4food

MASphotoDigital Signage Spot caught up with Michael Shuman founder of 4food, a midtown Manhattan based restaurant that offers not only healthy food fast, but a unique customer experience.

DSS: Being located in buzzing New York City, how does digital signage help distinguish 4food from your competitors?

MS: The digital signs in the store give life to our creative ideas and provide a unique experience. The interesting thing about digital signage is that it is such a visual medium; very eye-catching. We are located in midtown Manhattan, which has the highest density workday population and digital signage is very effective in grabbing attention of pedestrian traffic. Whether it’s the menu board or the media wall, digital displays draw attention from far away. They effectively build curiosity among people who stop in their tracks and come inside to learn and experience more.

Our competitive advantage comes from the way we employ digital signage in our restaurant. We use it in a very interactive, informative and customizable way. It drives content which is user generated. Our customers are encouraged to build their own burger; they brand it, they market it and share it with their friends. And if the creation becomes popular among others, the creator gets royalties. Customers love to see their “branded” work on the big screen. It helps build tremendous amounts of brand loyalty and brand partnership. The burger builds also crowdsource and drive R&D for our menus.

DSS: Social media is central to how you delight your customers – how have you integrated social media and digital signage? And how has this combination enhanced your customer’s experience?

MS:  We want to give power to the consumer. They build their burger, share it with their friends and if the burger gets popular, the creator gets royalty. It has been interesting to see how customers trust another customer’s creation. Seven of our ten best-selling builds are user generated.

We have integrated Twitter streams to display any tweets directed at the 4food handle and Foursquare streams to track check-ins. We also have a 240 square foot LED display which we call the “media wall.” The media wall showcases user-generated content such as YouTube videos promoting a customer’s burger build.  This process enhances customer service since we get comments in real time that we can quickly address.

The menu board is a series of tiled LCD screens that show the ala carte menu along with burger builds. The interactivity of the menu board is really sort of a living organism, so if we run out of something it just removes that item. We are constantly introducing new things and it’s critical that we have a very dynamic system which allows us to make those changes in real time.

We don’t spend any money on traditional marketing. So the use of digital signage with social media really allows us to work in a very affordable and efficient way. And it’s important when you compete with a lot of larger established chains.

DSS: Based on your experience, what advice would you give to other restaurants on how digital signage can help them grow their business? 

MS: Knowing that we don’t spend on traditional advertising, using digital signage has generated very quick ROIs for us. We are not just stopping people who are passing by and attracting them to the restaurant, but digital signage can be used very strategically as an informative point of contact. And sometimes this information can be difficult to get across in a written brochure. With a trained staff, you can communicate a lot of important information through digital signage in a way I think is much more effective and efficient.

Michael Shuman, founder of 4food in Manhattan, is using Scala to power his interactive displays and menu boards. These fun and interactive displays allow customers to build their own burger and share it with friends via social media! To read more about 4food check out their mention in InformationWeek.

October 31, 2011 in Digital Signage Tips , Food and Drink , Scala | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

September 05, 2008

Fonts and Colors in Digital Signage

By Mike Rivers, Technical Support Specialist, Scala

Mikerivers When I was a kid I was asked to help make posters for a spring fair held by my elementary school. On a lovely Saturday afternoon in the Sixties, I assembled with my classmates, a few of the more artistically inclined Moms, some poster board, and boxes of those new fangled felt tip markers everyone was talking about at the time.

Of course, kids like to go nuts with colors, and we did our best to represent the name, date and time of the event as cleverly as we could with varying degrees of success. One bit of advice given by the parental supervision really stuck with me: “A good rule of thumb for designing circus posters is use no more than five colors and three fonts”.

I've used this advice in my adult life in several ways; everything from designing graphic user interfaces to writing press releases, all with varying degrees of success; mostly good I'm pleased to report. Some of the press releases..., well, that's another story.

Today, there's a great new opportunity to apply this venerable maxim, it's with Digital Signage! Whenever I design content now, I think back to that Spring afternoon. I also refer to the mountain of reference books on computer art I have, but the most interesting questions I think are about the basics, use of fonts and colors.

How do designers decide on color schemes for digital signage? What guides their decisions regarding fonts? Obviously some clients will have corporate styles or branding that are pre-determined and need to be adhered to in the preparation of signage and ad campaigns. Sometimes the designer can have a an entirely free hand or is expected to concoct an new look for an ad. Either way, I've seen a lot on interesting tools on the web for the designer.

One of the most intriguing and most powerful tools is Stumble Upon. It's free; set up an account, set your page preferences, and stumble away. It's better than TV! I'll narrow the “stumble range” to graphics and kill some time seeing what people have been up to. It can be inspiring.

In the course of Stumbling, I've found tools like Eyedropper, that allows you to get the RGB, CYMK, or HTML values for colors on web pages. Find a page with a color scheme you like? Get the color values and start experimenting! I hit a site called colortools.net that has some neat utilities (about a dozen or so) for working with color on computers. This approach can get you up to speed quickly on the subject of color. There's been volumes written about the subject over the centuries. My best tip is open your paint program and start collecting color schemes, find a good treatise on monitor color matching.

Use of fonts alone is a detailed subject. Is three enough? Are six too many? The answer: yes. A lot is said about adding interest with fonts, contrasting fonts, use of serif and sans serif, the list of subjects goes ever on. I get an idea in my head about what effect I want, and start collecting fonts.

When you get to a point where you have some idea of what you want to do, don't be afraid to print some pages, cut things out and glue them back together. Always remember: have some fun, you deserve it!

For me it always comes back to that Spring afternoon: “A good rule of thumb for designing circus posters is use no more than five colors and three fonts”. Happy Designing!

September 5, 2008 in Digital Signage Tips | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)