His focus is very much - it’s about Captivating Audiences NOT a Captive Audience!

He starts by saying “Contrary to what many marketers would like to believe, there is no such thing as a “captive audience” anymore. In fact, in today’s digitized world, the term is misleading and even lazy. It implies that an audience has no choice but to watch what you push onto their retinas and into their brains. As such, it gives short shrift to the importance of relevant, quality content…”

Click here to download the full article as a PDF

With two English teams in the final of the Champions League next week I guess we can just about manage to talk about Euro 2008 in Austria and Switzerland starting in June - England of course did not qualify

It looks like Adwalker will be there - attending the event with one of the major sponsors of the tournament (lucky them)…

European Football Championships June 2008

The countdown is on for the top European football teams to represent their countries in a soccer showdown being held in Austria and Switzerland. This massive sporting event will have the world’s football fans eagerly awaiting kick off. Definitely a campaign to check out …

Issue 5 of their newsletter contains some nice US campaign updates also.

The colours should have given it away (no red in sight) and I can’t blame any of our contributors as I took the photos myself!!

We wrongly attributed these photos to Vodafone when it should have in fact been Carphone Warehouse - even more embrassing as we have had a LOT of interest in the install since we published it early this afternoon.

The screen shot here leaves one in no doubt who owns it!!!

Many of you have asked who the touchscreens are by?

We are pretty certain that they are Visual Planet Touchscreens - a Cambridge, UK based company.

Regular readers would have seen the 3M and Mediazest stand design two days ago BUT we now have the official press release from 3M reproduced below…

In-Store Show 2008, 20-22 May, Earls Court, London, Stand G12

Versatile Vikuiti Displays from 3M on show at In-Store

Retailer designers, brands and property owners will see how to achieve increased footfall using eye-catching rear projection technology in store windows

Bracknell, UK, 15 May 2008 – Diversified technology company 3M and creative media supplier MediaZest will demonstrate innovative digital display technology for high impact, high performance, in-window visual merchandising at the In-Store Show 2008 (Stand G12). Windows and shop displays are an often neglected part of the marketing mix but using Vikuiti Rear Projection Film to transmit digital information they can now be made more vibrant to enhance the shopping experience and help increase footfall in stores and retail outlets. Coral Racing, Bluewater and Alfa Romeo are among the latest brands to realise the true value of Vikuiti technology.

The 3M and MediaZest stand will resemble a dynamic in-store environment to highlight the huge potential for Vikuiti Rear Projection Film and Screen
technology to create dynamic, large format digital advertising and signage in a wide range of retail applications. Stand visitors will be entertained with a circular screen in the centre, a shaped screen on one glass window and an interactive screen on the other window, all three running vibrant multimedia content.

Vikuiti Rear Projection Film

3M’s versatile, self-adhesive Vikuiti Rear Projection Film transforms store windows on the high street or in shopping malls into a vibrant branding and promotions tool by enabling video, static images and dynamic messaging to be projected directly onto the surface. The film is ideal for any retailer wishing to increase footfall, promote their brand, differentiate themselves and enhance their visual appearance.

Unlike other window display systems, Vikuiti Film offers crisp, high contrast image quality combined with a wide viewing angle of 180 degrees, making it ideal for shop fronts with narrow pavements. It is also the only film that can be effectively viewed in daylight and in bright ambient light locations such as shopping centre atriums. The flexibility of Vikuiti Film means it can be cut to any desired shape and size, reflecting, for example, company logos and brands. It is also lightweight, easy to install and can be applied to rigid clear acrylic panels to create easily-portable displays.

Vikuiti Rear Projection Screen

Lightweight rigid Vikuiti Rear Projection Screens from 3M are also available for free-standing or suspended installations. The screens have a slim, elegant 5mm profile, are available in 4:3 and 16:9 formats and sizes from 1.5m (60-inch) to 2.4m (95-inch) diagonal. Like Vikuiti Film the screens can be cut to any custom shape and are ideal for suspended and free-standing installations.

The picture attached to the press release is a bit dissappointing. It shows the Windowgain installation in Bluewater but not to wondefully good affect.

We are most proud of our side by side comparison that we managed to achieve (again at Bluewater) by getting a photo of the early non-Vikuiti installation followed by same installation but then with Vikuiti.

Even with poor photography skills you can really see the difference

See http://www.dailydooh.com/archives/1541

I am sure Mark won’t mind us reproducing it here…

As companies focus more strategically on where to spend their marketing budgets, marketing vehicles must ensure they deliver a strong enough ROI. As trade show organizers, we are witnessing fading print and online publications and events. What has also become abundantly clear is that not all trade shows are created equal. Some will deliver the quality and quantity of qualified buyers, others will not.

To help you avoid a bad investment we recommend four basic qualifiers before you spend precious marketing dollars:

1. Are there qualified attendees? Who will you really meet with? How does the show ensure that? Most trade shows allow anyone to enter, making it harder for you to identify and engage those companies that are ready, willing and budgeted to buy your products and services.
2. Are the Event and Marketplace growing? Find out how attendee registration compares versus previous years.
3. Do exhibitors return year to year? Find out what percent of exhibitors return from at least the last two years. If the ROI is not there then exhibitors don’t return, period. Ask to see the current and past exhibitor lists to compare.
4. Get the list of attendees. Are your prospects really coming? Ask for an Excel file of titles and companies who actually came. Don’t believe pie charts and graphs - believe the true list. You have a right to see the file of actual attendees from the show organizer. If they are proud of their roster of attendees they will gladly share that with you.

He then goes on to say “ONLY do GREAT Tradeshows!” and explains, very well in fact why KioskCom Self Service Expo and The Digital Signage Show are Great Tradeshows.

Very clever, very good!

There’s no reason for the Blue Screen Of Death (BSOD) shown here AND this is one of our favourite networks in London too!!

We often get sent or pointed at BSODs but you never know - especially with the BSODs shown on large LEDs, whether they have been faked / mocked up but two of us saw this with our own eyes yesterday.

A dozen screens in the store, all connected to the same windoze PC Server we assume were affected for much of the day we believe.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windoze

… intentional misspellings can be used to promote a specific negative attribute, real or perceived, of a product or service. This is especially effective if the misspelling is done by replacing part of the word with another that has identical phonetic qualities. For example, the term “Windoze”, which emerged on Usenet in the early 1990s … is used in reference to Microsoft Windows; this alludes to criticism of its slow and unreliable performance issues

Since that time the administrators of course have been busy. This email went out this week…

Dear Sirs,

I am a liquidator’s agent currently liquidating The Big Media Group. They were a company that ran a network of approximately 200 sites in the UK.

Their main areas were retailers and garage forecourts.

I am currently looking for parties who may be interested in acquiring the rights to this network.

If this is of interest to you, perhaps you would please contact me to discuss this further.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Yours sincerely

GEOFF READY
Direct Line: 01792 479843
Mobile: 07805 418967
E-mail: geoff@rowlandjones.co.uk

Rowland Jones and Partners is the trading name of the JWT Partnership Limited, registered in England and Wales - No. 4292973. Registered Office - Llys Tawe, Kings Road, SA1 Swansea Waterfront, Swansea SA1 8PG. All reasonable precautions have been taken to ensure that no viruses are transmitted to any third party, but Rowland Jones and Partners accept no liability for any loss or damage as a result of the use of this e-mail.

Rowland Jones and Partners
Llys Tawe
Kings Road
SA1 Swansea Waterfront
Swansea SA1 8PG
Tel: 01792 648809 Fax: 01792 641110

There was some really nice content on the new screens in the windows of the Carphone Warehouse stores that we saw in London earlier this week.

We also liked the attention to detail - notice the ‘touch me’ and the arrow putting at the screen painted onto the window itself.

The content loop also had ‘touch the window to see more’ text references to re-inforce the point that these window displays were interactive.

Here’s the very latest windows displays in Carphone Warehouse stores. This picture was taken in Oxford Street, London.

We mistakenly attributed this screen shot to Vodafone earlier. Our mistake. This is a new install for Carphone Warehouse and very impressive it is too.

We last wrote about these guys in February in some detail…

Network Mediagroup is heavily involved in Digital Out of Home in the region, via a subsidiary called Digital Posters AS in Norway and through another subsidiary called Q-Vision in Sweden.

Together the network comprises of around 1700 screens in 525 locations offering 300 million viewers per year

Digital Posters AS is the largest network in Norway with over 700 screens installed in 300 buses (Transit Advertising) and 26 retail outlets.

According to Finansavisen, Norway’s daily financial newspaper, Digital Poster AS has gone into receivership with losses last year of about GBP 2-3 million

Revenues 2005 : 6,2 mill NOK ( GBP 600.000 ) Results -7,9.mill NOK (GBP 790.000 )
Revenues 2006 : 23 mill NOK ( GBP 2.300.000 ) Results -11,9 mill NOK (GBP 1.120.000)

Digital Posters’ business model was very similar to that of the UK’s Firebrand Media - screens given and installed for free, all or most of the advertising revenue then goes to teh installer, the venue getting some airtime on the network.

It’s a very difficult business model to get right and is capital intensive early days especially if you ever win a large roll out - we think Firebrand Media have found this to their cost for example when pitching for 1,000 retail estates - you would need an awful lot of money to fund an initial deployment and it will take 6 months or more to start gettinhg serious advertising revenue in - especially in a predominantly retail environment.