In the UK LloydsTSB, a good bank, with clever people at the helm and a great brand, has been playing with Digital Signage for almost 2 years now.
Across London they have not quite half a dozen branches with screens. The first rollouts were using John Ryan / ScreenRed technology and the last one to be installed was a 3M rear projection system with another signage engine.
The content on all of them is awful.
The magnificent 3M rear projection system (which deserves good content even when switched off) is playing the worst simple loop of a current LloydsTSB TV commercial you have ever seen.
The TV commercial itself is quite good but suits TV and not signage in a bank branch.
On leaving the branch I was thinking of how poorly served the UK is at the moment with decent signage projects. HSBC have been playing with a number of technologies – many have claimed to have HSBC as a customer but none have rolled out more than a single branch – Immedia Broadcasting’s HSBC Live ‘music’ system being the exception (with 400+ branches using Cisco technology but no screens).
Cisco has a giant video wall with Barclays and Nationwide Building Society have had a few test installs as well with a number of vendors.
But nowhere in the UK is there a big rollout yet.
Considering how good the rollouts have been in the Netherlands and Denmark (both reported here) it is a real shame and lets the UK down immensely.
For anyone involved in retail banking, a MUST read is the TellerTV blog, which is “An annotated guide to digital signage in the retail banking industry”.
I have added http://tellertv.blogspot.com/ [1] to my blogroll.
TellerTV has the most fantastic and as far as I can tell – incredibly accurate “Network rollout honor roll” which states: –
1,200 sites: Banamex (Mexico)
1,000 sites: Wachovia (USA)
850 sites: Citizens-Charter One (USA)
500 sites: Bank of America (USA)
500 sites: Caixa de Madrid (Spain)
400 sites: TCF Bank (USA)
400 sites: Commerce Bank (USA)
400 sites: BNP Paribas (France)
250 sites: Washington Mutual (USA)
200 sites: Synovus Bank (USA)
200 sites: Rabobank (Netherlands)
200 sites: JP Morgan Chase (USA)
150 sites: Jyske Bank (Denmark)
150 sites: Harris Bank (USA)
125 sites: Flagstar Bank (USA)
100 sites: SunTrust (USA)
100 sites: Astoria Federal Savings (USA)
I love their comment – “Pilots need not apply” 😉