It’s the biggest screen to date for the digital network provider Ram Vision and as you can see from the photo below, it is located above a new H Samuel store overlooking Grammar Square.

Paul Masterson, Ram Vision’s Commercial Director explained “The big screen went live this month. It is a fantastic platform for capturing people in their leisure time, which is when messages are most likely to sink in. As with all our screens, the iconic is located in a premium viewing position, above eyelevel and un-obscured by any retail fixtures and fittings.”

Trinity Walk was one of only three new shopping centres opened in the UK in 2011. With over 2.5 million visitors since opening, the 46,000 m2 retail environment has transformed Wakefield into a new sub-regional shopping destination bringing shoppers in from far and wide.

The LED, like many of the screens in the RAM Vision network runs BroadSign.

The report also showed that marketers who believe that there was an increase in the quality of their integrated marketing plans has doubled since 2003, with 42% of respondents rating them as “Excellent” or “Very Good” against 21% who felt the same 8 years ago.

The ANA concluded that this perceived increase might be due to the introduction of “newer media platforms which allow enhanced targeting and richer metrics.”

Obviously, the proliferation of social media networks and mobile marketing have played a significant role in this evolution since the report found that the value of mobile and social marketing communications within integrated marketing campaigns has increased considerably among the 107 client-side marketers surveyed.

As far as measuring the success of their integrated marketing campaigns, 3 out of 4 marketers measured the success of their campaigns by sales growth/volume and 2 of every 3 marketers surveyed use a brand tracking study. The report suggested that the use of response data and metrics for measuring a campaigns effectiveness remains steady.

If there is one cold hard fact to take away from the report it is that ‘Marketers want their agencies to have an in-depth knowledge of their customer as well as the overall business and to be able to develop the “big” creative idea that can be leveraged across all the different media disciplines.’

ANA surveys are based on topics identified by the ANA and it’s membership as critical issues and emerging trends that nearly all marketers face. For more information please visit: www.anasurveys.net

If you are attending Digital Signage Expo in Las Vegas next month, the Retailer Education Forum, being presented by the Platt Research Institute from 12:30 to 5:30 March 6. is the session geared especially for you.

Coordinated and co-moderated by Margot Myers, PRI’s director of education and training, and Steven Platt, PRI president, this session is focused at integrating digital signage across multiple platforms.

“It’s difficult to do, but needed, along with the accompanying data analytics,” says Myers.

“Retailers are faced with this and how to do something with it and how to change their approach because of it. Technology is becoming critical for retailers, and they are finding it difficult to manage.”

With that in mind a solid program has been lined up that includes sessions on:

• Cross-Channel Retailing;
• Intelligent Digital Signage Solutions in Retail;
• Leveraging In-store Technology;
• Interactive Case Study Learning Session;
• EU Retail Trends;
• Selling Digital Signage Retail Media Channels.

The first session should get the program off to a great start with two speakers in quite diverse business sectors sharing the stage: Algernon Callier, vice-president, strategic innovation and emerging technology, Universal Orlando Resort, and Dave Finnegan, CIO, Build-A-Bear Workshop Inc..

Along with exploring innovative and emerging technologies and their business applications, one of the may responsibilities of Callier is leading a cross-functional Innovation Task Force focused on identifying leading technology trends, activating their application, and delivering tactical solutions. For his part, Finnegan oversaw the launch of the Build-A-Bear Workshop virtual world and entertainment destination, Bearville.com – an extension of the company’s in-store experience with enhanced games, imagination, education and learning for kids of all ages. The two will discuss such points as interacting with the brand across multiple channels and how to manage the consistent brand message.

One of the most interesting panels of the afternoon is expected to be that moderated by Barton Weitz, holder of the JCPenney Eminent Scholar Chair in Retail Management at the University of Florida. Prior to DSE, all those attendees registered for the Retailer Education Forum will be emailed a copy of a case regarding a hypothetical retailer. The panel of speakers will discuss it, but mainly, the session will be a wide-open forum where attendees can ask questions and trade ideas with the panelists and across the floor.

The entire afternoon will have a distinguished group of both individual speakers and panelists, in addition to those mentioned above, from: AT&T Mobility IT; Broadview Advisors; Intel;PRI; Safeway; Metro Systems GmbH (Germany); Best Buy; and Starcom Worldwide.

If you are a retailer and haven’t yet registered for this session, we urge you to do so quickly. You can register here.

‘Near Field Communication: Changing the Digital Signage Value Proposition‘ is a half-day pre-conference educational opportunity which runs 9:00 to 12:30 p.m. on Tuesday 6th March.

Robert Sabella, President & CEO of OTA Training, which produces the NFC Bootcamp series told us “Near Field Communication will change forever how consumers engage with digital media.  There is no better place to come and understand the impact this technology is going to have on the industry then the DSE.  We are very pleased to have been asked to be a part of the program this year.  It demonstrates the continual commitment that the DSE has in bringing the most important and relevant technology developments to their attendees.” 

Richard Lebovitz, Educational Director for Exponation, LLC, which produces DSE explained “Digital Signage Expo is very pleased to be able to include an immersive session on NFC which has become a “hot button” topic as one of DSE’s pre-conference educational opportunities to allow attendees to explore different facets of the digital signage industry. The NFC workshop complements the half-day Mobile Models You Can Believe In workshop, providing attendees valuable insight into the social-local-mobile landscape and its convergence with digital signage.”

More on the NFC Bootcamp can be found here.

Registration for NFC Bootcamp AND in fact, all of DSE’s Tuesday, March 6th pre-conference seminars, or any of the DSE 2012 educational conference seminars on Wednesday and Thursday, March 7th and 8th is available online here.

We’re just asking but we thought it kinda funny – especially when we read the filing statements at the same time as some of the latest announcements from the organisers of #dse2012. We quote…

• Jennifer’s panel of Media Strategists, on March 6 from 11:05am – 12:00pm during the Digital Place-Based advertising summit, How Media Strategists Are Successfully Selling Digital Place-Based To Brands, is a must-attend for media buyers and networks looking to receive tips on how to help get the most out of their conversations with clients interested in DPB media
• Jason’s presentation, on March 7 from 3:00 – 4:00pm, Getting Noticed By Advertisers, will offer networks insight into how you can increase revenue by positioning your digital out-of-home network favorably in the eyes of agencies and advertisers

That will be those experts Bolt and Kates then.

RVUE HOLDINGS, INC. are also doing some interesting off-balance sheet deals, if you are interested then see this Form 8-K/A from 1-Feb-2012 and this Form 8-K/A from 6-Feb-2012

These guys have lost USD 4.4 million in the past 5 quarters which surely isn’t good.

AOpen Partners who have been briefed have been presented with a slide labelled “your solutions support team” which then lists Vernon Slack (AOpen’s Director of Business Development) and Kelsen and Curran!

5thScreen Digital Services bill themselves these days as folks who will “provide strategic consulting services for digital signage networks that simplifies the technology supply chain, reduces the cost of operational support and content production plus audience analysis to effectively measure campaign effectiveness”

Perhaps we need to have a better understanding of what AOpen actually think that OpenService entails because it looks to us, just like it would to their existing software partners that they (AOpen) are working against the very software vendors who sell AOpen hardware product.

The 50 cabs equipped with VeriFone Media screens are also outfitted with technology allowing passengers to purchase beauty products by swiping their smart phones over special tags inside the cab.

Passengers will get the free cab ride for being part of the five-day Fashion Week event. By doing this, they will see a three-minute video loop on either Lancome lipstick, Lancome eye makeup or Yves St.Laurent Touche Eclat complexion highlighter. Screens will show programming from Glamour on beauty trends, with makeup artists from L’Oreal brands Lancome and Yves Saint Laurent doing demonstrations.

SnapTags from technology company SpyderLynk, Denver, Colorado, are hung on either side of the screens in the taxis and passengers who want to shop for products on the screen can download an app and hold their smartphone over the tags to make a purchase which is then delivered to their home or office. (At this time, the New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission doesn’t allow purchases directly from taxi screens.)

“This is really a powerful demonstration of the future and what can be done in terms of integrated in-taxi commerce,” says Jason Gross, director of strategy and marketing, VeriFone Media. “We call it WIT. People have gone from simply Watching to Interacting on the screens and, we hope, will eventually be transacting.”

We understand that the ‘mobile taxi shops’ were inspired by the virtual stores the supermarket chain Tesco launched in the Seoul subway system. Riders there could use their smartphone cameras to scan the codes of items advertised on station walls, then pay and have the purchases delivered.

Bill Wackermann, executive vice-president and publishing director of Glamour, wanted to replicate the Tesco project in New York, where the subways aren’t WiFi-enabled. He convinced L’Oreal SA, Glamour’s biggest advertiser, to become a partner in the taxi project.

Glamour worked with VeriFone to contract with taxis for the event. The taxis will pick up passengers only at the special locations in the Lincoln Center and Meat Packing districts, – major sites of Fashion Week activities – and Glamour will subsidize 100% of the costs for the taxis during the program.

Looks like they are now broadcasting to over 10 million motorists each week.

The install took eight weeks (and that’s with a 10 day break over the Christmas / New Year holiday period). Hats off.

First we hear that John Kaminski left last week – John was, for almost four years ‘Installation and Support Manager at DigiCast Networks (formerly TargetCast Networks)’

Second we are led to understand that Brian Moore, former TCN CEO (and one of the three executives who was kept on when TCN were acquired) has allegedly told his new bosses that he too is all set to leave.

Brian held / holds the position of ‘SVP of Operations & CFO, Interim CEO, SVP/Divisonal Head DigiCast Networks (formerly TargetCast Networks)’ according to his LinkedIn profile.

“That means helping the beginner learn, helping the smaller operators reach the next level, and helping the well-established to see what’s new and where the industry is going next.”

DSE in 2011 had 3,614 attendees and 195 exhibitors, and Gibbs is expecting about the same this year. Like most show managers we talk to, he’s reluctant to forecast numbers ahead of time, and with the U.S. economy still in a slow state of recovery and it being an election year – both constraining capital investment in the industry – he’s not about to shout “Yipee!” ahead of time.

Nevertheless, the combination of a more finely tuned group of educational and informational sessions combined with an exhibition area seen as The place to be – witness, for example, the larger spaces taken by such companies as Scala and Planar than in previous years – Gibbs is forecasting a great show.

Gibbs is no rookie at putting together an exhibit. With a background in IT consultancy and recruitment, he co-founded Exponation in 2002 with his wife Danielle, who, as a manager, had been involved in the lighting industry, and Angelo Varrone who, as part of Shore Varrone, had founded GlobalShop (since sold). Their first show was Lightshow West (still in existence) in 2003, and he’s been putting together shows since. He originally handled the sales side of the picture, but as the company grew with the Digital Retailing Expo in 2004 in San Francisco, then in 2005 in Chicago, and then renaming and refocusing the show as Digital Signage Expo in Las Vegas, it has been a growing and learning experience for him as well. (The company now has 15 employees.)

This year, so far, we know we have 29 new exhibitors, and we’re still selling space,” Gibbs says. “ There will be a range of new products being shown (at least 16). And we know that there will a number of exhibitors making announcements at the show. Among them, Intel is expected to announce something with the Wow! factor.

“We’ve also developed a special section devoted to content and we expect some whiz-bang things there. And, in general, we expect to see more touch interaction displays this year.”

Gibbs says that the APEX and Content Awards have each garnered a record number of entries and that the Wednesday evening Awards Dinner is shaping up nicely. New this year: best-of-the-best awards will be chosen from among the gold award winners in each of the APEX and Content categories.

“Although it seems like a lot of learning sessions, we’ve actually cut back a a little on some,” says Gibbs. “This year we have 32 sessions whereas we had 40 last year. And we’ve added five new (mainly half-day) educational sessions on March 6. They include: Digital Signage 360: A Global Perspective (arranged by DailyDOOH); Near Field Communication: Changing the Digital Signage Value Proposition; Digital Signage in Transportation; Hands-On Content Workshop; and Mobile Models You Can Believe In.”

Also new this year are 40 ‘Industry Vertical Discussion Groups’, to be held in closed-off areas near the show floor. These (20 per day) will each have a specific focus with a maximum of 18 people around a table plus a moderator, where people involved in a particular sector can discuss and trade ideas on a particular topic. For example, representatives of universities might attend the Education discussion group and discuss integration of digital signage of campuses. These discussion groups cover a wide range of topics such as: banking and finance; public spaces; government; hotels and casinos, and many more. (Some may be duplicated because of expected heavy interest.)

“Since these are limited seating for first-come-first-served, we’re urging people to enroll quickly if they want to participate,” says Gibbs. “We’ve found that people want to learn so our educational component continues to grow. But people also want to see, touch and feel for the ‘Ah ha!’ moment on how something will work in their case, so it’s important to be out of the trade show floor as well.”

Gibbs says that DSE is spending a lot of effort on marketing this year, especially to the ‘non-choir’ – those who aren’t among the leaders or industry insiders, dubbed ‘the choir’.

“We want to reach all those who are interested in getting into digital signage in one way or another, or who are into it is a smaller way and looking to grow. We want to bring them for knowledge, ideas, innovation, new applications. And, naturally, we want all the bigger players as well. They all can find something among the new innovations, ideas and learning experiences of others.

“I think keynotes will set the tone for the show,” he says. “Myself, I’m really looking forward to hearing the futurist John Underkoffler, chief scientist, Oblong Industries.”

By the Digital Signage Federation being the official industry association of Digital Signage Expo, and DSE being the official trade show and conferences of the DSF, “I think it’s helping the industry to grow,” says Gibbs. “The DSF, of course, financially benefits, and we provide it with exhibition space. And DSF helps people understand how we want the industry to grow.”

Gibbs says that the economy is still tough, and “While the digital signage industry is strong, it has lots of room for growth. It’s not yet where it should be. More capital must be freed up to help it prosper.”