Gail Chiasson, North American Editor
As we announced last Thursday, DIRECTV and RMG Networks, San Franscisco, are planning to revolutionize digital signage services with the development of a best-in-class digital signage product for businesses offering customized messaging along with the ultimate DIRECTV experience.
The product suite called DIRECTV Message Board will launch nationwide this spring, and with DIRECTV, the national TV distributor by satellite, already offering its hundeds of channels into hundreds of thousands of businesses across the U.S., the potential for the new DIRECTV Message Board seems unlimited.
“Everyone can relate to TV, so this will raise the visibility and role of digital out-of-home across the business community immensely,” says Garry McGuire, CEO of RMG Networks.
With the DIRECTV Message Board, while 80% of the screen will continue to run regular DIRECTV programming, the ‘L’ down the side and across the bottom of the screen will carry information programmed by the business owner. This could be, for example, totally controlled by the individual business, or, could be, for example, a standard message for all businesses in a chain on the vertical bar while the local business could put its own message at the bottom. eg. A hotel could have the brand logo and corporate message on the vertical column, while an individual hotel bar could promote the night’s drink special across the bottom.
The product thereby empowers business managers to improve service, and up-sell products while entertaining consumers with premium satellite TV.
This easy-to-use product is web-based so businesses can create messages in minutes from any computer to display on one or more TVs. DIRECTV’s off-the-shelf Message Board solution eliminates the need for costly rollout and installation. It is simply built into the DIRECTV service bundle. Businesses can access a wide variety of templates to help incorporate messages, logos and other art. A local business can log in and have its message up in three simple steps.
McGuire says that DIRECTV was interested in getting into digital signage and RMG was hired to work with it a year ago to build the new technology.
“This is version 1.0,” sayd McGuire. “We’re still working to develop the technology even further down the road.”
RMG is one of the largest digital place-based media companies in North America offering technology, services, and advertising opportunities for businesses in the transportation, fitness, health and wellness, and retail industries.
“By integrating RMG’s industry-leading digital signage technology with DIRECTV’s advanced video services, the DIRECTV Message Board product creates a groundbreaking new solution for customer interaction,” says McGuire.
DIRECTV is a $20 billion publicly traded company with a huge sales force
“And with DIRECTV’s 6,000 distributors selling this across the country, it will help grow the visibility of the digital signage industry,” says McGuire.
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Oswin Eleonora, senior vice-president of Broadband and Emerging Markets for DIRECTV, says, “Adding the DIRECTV Message Board functionality to our comprehensive pay-TV package puts digital signage within reach for thousands of businesses looking to entertain and inform their customers. We believe this new product will arm businesses large and small with an important tool for growing their bottom line.”
Stop by the DIRECTV booth #1039 at the Digital Signage Expo in Las Vegas March 7-8 for more information and, we hope, a prototype.
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