One week, two shows: European Sign Expo and Marketing Week Live

July 16, 2013 by
Electronic paper displays are creating new opportunities in indoor applications, such as internal communications

Electronic paper displays are creating new opportunities in indoor applications, such as internal communications

At the end of June, London hosted two large shows relevant to the DOOH industry, doing battle during the same week: European Sign Expo (ESE) and Marketing Week Live.

ESE, held at Excel, was an appendix of FESPA and, as with all appendices, it could be removed without causing any life-threatening harm. The show’s aim was to unite traditional, manufactured signage items with digital signage, showing off displays, media players and everything in between that might be needed to increase adoption, particularly in DOOH. However, it failed to attract many of the big players, leading to criticism before the show had even opened.

The companies in attendance did make a considerable effort to meet these objectives. Inurface Media promised and indeed showed a wide range of displays on a packed stand duly representative of this significant company in the UK supply chain. Display Solutions integrated, well, solutions from partners Intevi and Neo Advertising, while iBase demonstrated 4K displays using Dise software. This latter company also previewed its new S1-64, a four-input DVI signage player, plus an eight-up DVI redundancy system to be launched at next year’s ISE.

WizePanel from Wilke Technology was the star of this show. This is a standalone proposition that uses e-ink screens to display content, networked via a digital radio frequency. It may look like using a monochrome Kindle for signage, but whether it’s for wayfinding, internal communications or product information, the displays are clear and neat. This cable-free system can be attached using Velcro or magnetics, weighing as they do between 0.6 and 1.5kg, and measuring between 1.4 and 19″ (3.6 and 48.2cm).

Managing an installation requires the WizePanel dispatcher, its central station for the radio tags which connect to the IT environment. Supplied with its own software, clients can create different designs and change content dynamically. Jurgen Wilke, chief executive, explains the economics: “The cost will depend on the project, but about €500 (£432) per unit. The life expectancy is between five and 15 years; it carries long-life batteries which last for months. It is an all-round green and economical solution.”

But if you wanted to find more accomplished stands showing DOOH-relevant propositions, Olympia’s Marketing Week Live had the better draw. While pitched to marketeers, the Retail and Live areas contained strong digital signage offerings.

Live was located at the entrance of the event, dedicated to events and exhibitions companies; one of the first exhibits we came across was Alchemy, showing a couple of Christie MicroTiles displays fed with content from Amigo Digital. Channel Interactive was showing its for-hire touchscreen solutions, developed with U-Touch technology. There were videowalls and multi-touch tables which, according to business development director Mark Evans, are proving ‘very popular’ in the events community.

Beaver Group was in the Retail area, showing an impressive nine-by-six videowall composed once again of MicroTiles, enabled for interactivity using a touch-pad located in front. The wall’s 4K content has well deployed to give a truly immersive experience. Incidentally, the presence of Christie’s flagship display format across so many stands tells a tale of an industry that has cash to spend and is intent on providing impactful signage.

One newcomer was AVM Impact, whose product manager David Summer described Marketing Week Live as a ‘very good’ outing for the company – but he preferred to discuss digital media rather than digital signage, per se. “AVM Impact has so far been focused on the corporate market, but digital media encompases many other sectors,” he explains. “For this reason we are developing a new website which will better serve this market.”

Stratacache was showing its full range of products, although if you’ve been to other shows recently you’d already have witnessed this. Dutch developer JamiePro was also aiming to keep it simple; its background is in kiosks and was launching a new mini-kiosk with touchscreen and print facilities at Olympia, making it ideal for table-top applications. Also on offer were screens ranging from 17 to 80″ (43.2 to 203.2cm). Signbox, meanwhile, offers printed light-boxes that look very much like digital screens, complete with QR codes and smartphone interactivity, showing that, as we often debate at Output, digital signage’s next frontier is almost certainly mobile.

ESE is the successor to Screenmedia Expo, and the approach was the same: showing digital screens as a medium. Displays and players may be key components in the digital signage puzzle, but this is no longer enough. DOOH needs context and content – so it’s easier to see why Marketing Week Live was more of a success.

First published 16 July 2013 – Output

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The debutant steps out: European Sign Expo preview

June 24, 2013 by

Pyramid Computer's polytouch solutions can pair with receipt printers and other peripherals to create new customer-facing propositions, including this concierge solution

Pyramid Computer’s polytouch solutions can pair with receipt printers and other peripherals to create new customer-facing propositions, including this concierge solution

The buzz is gathering pace for European Sign Expo (ESE), which, in only a few hours, will open its doors for the first time at London’s Excel exhibition centre. Presented in colocation with FESPA’s wide-format print show, which carries the same name as the organisation, and having acquired Screenmedia Expo a few months before, ESE draws in old and new exhibitors from the analogue and digital systems worlds, representing a new way of looking at what each calls ‘signage’.

Inurface Media was one of the first companies to sign up. Director Joshua Bunce explains that the positive exposure the company received last year at Screenmedia Expo, plus the fact that this is a new show, encouraged him to participate. “The signage industry is changing and we have lots of bespoke solutions of interest to people from the print industry that are thinking about jumping into digital,” he elaborates. “Print and digital complement each other, but the latter provides more flexibility and the opportunity of having dynamic content.”

Bunce is hoping the colocation of ESE with FESPA will bring more visitors to his stand. This year, Inurface will showcase videowalls using technology from NEC and Christie MicroTiles, plus a 46″ (116.8cm) IP65-rated outdoor screen developed by the company itself. Also on display will be an interactive, gesture-based rugby game created for the Heineken World Cup, as well as wayfinding solutions.

As a franchise-based network of sign-making companies, Signs Express doesn’t originate in the digital signage arena but decided a month ago that a stand at ESE might help it reach into a new market. Headquartered in Norfolk, Signs Express has 70 franchise centres across the UK and Ireland and has become a household name since its inception 20 years ago.

“Our goal for the show is to speak to specifiers and end users about our signs and graphics services, and in particular our national account and project management solutions,” comments marketing manager Rebecca Dack. “We are interested in finding out more about opportunities in digital signage, as well as changes in wide-format digital print machinery.”

Pyramid Computer’s business development manager for polytouch, Florian Pagendarm, will be at the show’s Digital Lounge demonstrating the company’s 22 and 32 Classic kiosk terminals. “ESE provides us with an ideal platform to reach a wide range of vertical markets that are key for us, such as tourism, transportation, retail, hospitality, banking, public sector and events,” commends Pagendarm.

Pierre Gillet, BrightSign’s vice-president for Europe, is also excited about the event. BrightSign’s XD Smart Menu Board makes its debut at the show: an all-in-one, integrated digital menuboard solution for fast-food outlets, cafeterias and restaurants, the package has been specified to make it simple for novice installers to construct their first projects cost-effectively and without specialist knowledge.

“[ESE] promises to take digital signage to a whole new audience,” he states. “We are very much part of the signage industry as a whole. The key audience for us is not only end users, but the integrators and installers that they rely on for effective signage.”

Meanwhile, on the FESPA side of the show partition, established software vendor Caldera will be showing its own digital signage proposition. Having spent many years in the wide-format industry developing its RIP platforms, Caldera wants to build the bridge between print and digital with its Variable Display product. New templating features, in particular, now promise to make the creation of an effective campaign based on original print artwork even simpler.

For some, the success of the show doesn’t lie in the crossover between formats, or even the presentation of new offerings. Former exhibitor Richard Corbett, founder and chief executive of Eyetease, which launched its iTaxitop at Screenmedia Expo three years ago, is looking for diversity in the visitor base: “Last year distinctly lacked a presence from the media owners,” he explains. “The million dollar question is whether or not they will be present this year to assess their options across print and digital formats.”

The show’s exhibitors, and therefore the products on offer, weigh in at an easier point of cross-over for the sign and display producers treading the halls next door at FESPA. Seminars – including those from our editor-in-chief James Matthews-Paul – on digital signage basics should also help with this ambition. If delivered well, it may not matter that there is less at ESE specifically for the DOOH (digital out-of-home) crowd, and instead could create a show that serves the new digital signage channel well enough to earn its place on the must-attend list.

First Published 24 June 2013 – Output

 

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Watching and waiting: European Sign Expo

April 25, 2013 by

European Sign Expo will co-locate with FESPA 2013 at London's Excel – but who is actually exhibiting?

European Sign Expo will co-locate with FESPA 2013 at London’s Excel – but who is actually exhibiting?

European Sign Expo will co-locate with FESPA 2013 at London’s Excel – but who is actually exhibiting?

European Sign Expo (ESE), organised by FESPA and the European Sign Federation (ESF), will open its doors in two months. But who will be on the show floor?

For those outside the print market, FESPA is a global federation of wide-format print associations with events running world-wide. In November last year it teamed up with ESF to launch ESE. FESPA acquired Screenmedia Expo (SME) at the end of January, adding digital signage to its new mixture of print and signage systems. Resultantly, it will now form part of the main FESPA/ESE colocation at Excel on June 25th to 27th, expecting to welcome 23,000 visitors; the majority will be print-related but 28 percent of those pre-registered have expressed interest in the new zone.

Neil Felton, managing director of exhibitions and events at FESPA, says the show will demonstrate the full spectrum of print and non-print display technologies, giving exhibitors the chance to reach a new key audience not addressed by other events. He also emphasises FESPA’s role as a not-for-profit and, therefore, an educational entity. This sounds like a promising proposition – so what support has there been from the digital signage side?

BroadSign has been confirmed as platinum sponsor for the event, and Felton says more than 20 digital signage companies have already signed up, with some 15 more in the pipeline. However, this is not yet apparent when looking at the floor plan: only BrightSign and Barco add to the list of heavyweights. A further dozen offers everything from embedded computers to digital scoreboards – products which may appeal at the lower end, but none is a major name.

For Brant Eckett, director of marketing EMEA at Christie, there is one concern that overrides all others. “In these cost-sensitive times, tradeshows need to deliver not only brand promotion and opportunities to educate the market – they need to deliver new business,” he emphasises.

Steve Robinson, product manager for Onelan, notes that the digital signage market is changing rapidly. “Once the hardware and services are fully commoditised, I strongly feel that digital signage will simply become part of the wider digital marketing landscape,” he warns. “If the ESE and FESPA can fulfil their goal of bringing ‘marketers, advertisers, brand owners, buyers and specifiers of advertising’ together, then this will be great for Onelan and the industry as a whole.”

Denys Lavigne of Arsenal Media is also cautious, but for a different reason. Arsenal Media was an exhibitor at SME but works broadly across the visual communications spectrum, and is a company indicative of the target audience FESPA and ESE both would like to attract. “I haven’t seen any event where print and digital have truly been successful together as an integrated solution context,” he says. “I think it hurts the digital side to be too closely associated with print because of the culture shock and different market interests.”

For two years in a row DOOH taxi-top creator Eyetease exhibited at SME, but its chief executive, Richard Corbett, doesn’t believe that a marriage with print is the way forward. “DOOH is a powerful medium and holds a key position in the consumer’s daily journey,” he states. “We should encourage the association of DOOH exhibitions with online and mobile – rather than with print.”

Jason Cremins, chief executive of signagelive, was one vendor ‘disappointed’ with last year’s SME; he says his company will wait to see how the new show performs. Others, however, are more positive about the combination – including NEC’s Northern Europe vice-president Simon Jackson, despite his company not intending to be present. “The purchase of SME makes some sense for FESPA, as the print world is rapidly being absorbed by digital media,” he says. “It will be interesting to see how many of the brands on board [with SME] migrate to the FESPA show.”

These observations from key stakeholders are ones that FESPA may very well answer. However, it has two other challenges. The NEC Showcase, now in its fifth year, lists 44 sector-relevant ‘solutions partners’ as exhibitors. Marketing Week Live, which runs at the same time as ESE, has added a new out-of-home section and appears to be more in keeping with the type of interplay the digital signage sector is looking for.

Digital signage vendors are looking for a real business proposition, and ESE must meet this in order to succeed. So far, the event hasn’t projected a clear enough profile or thorough understanding of the market to convince the major
screen, media player and software manufacturers onto the show floor.

First published 25 April 2013 – Output

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Hardware habits: digital signage changes shape at ISE 2013

February 8, 2013 by

 

 

Curved screens were amongst the hardware innovations at IS

Curved screens were amongst the hardware innovations at IS

Digital signage at ISE 2013 in Amsterdam occupied three halls and had 273 companies exhibiting. But DOOH also extended beyond it. Big players such as Samsung, NEC, LG and Christie took large stands showing their display propositions to a record 44,151 attendees – an eight per cent rise on last year’s numbers.

The focus on the end user experience was apparent throughout the show, with companies presenting new smartphone interactivity applications, multi-touch surfaces, transparency and unusually shaped screens.

Also following end user habits, there was a big Twitter presence. Prysm, Scala and NEC all used twitter feeds to populate their screens with content. Prysm’s 3D graphic twitter shuffle tower in the press office was particularly clever; the company partnered with software developer X2O Media for this application. Meanwhile, Scala presented an interactive screen communication solution that consumers can manage using mobile and tablet devices, also integrated with Twitter. There were more than 7,000 tweets generated at the show on the official hashtag, #ISE2013.

Screen shapes no longer need to be rectangular. On display we saw the beehive shape of Eyevis’s rear-projection modules, Distec’s triangular TFT models and elongated rectangular displays, like LG’s. More flexible arrangements, such as Mitsubishi’s OLED and Prysm’s Laser Phosphor Display (LPD), allow for curved screens.

The emphasis on shapes didn’t end there. Size factor is increasing, not just in terms of the individual display but also in combined displays and videowalls for larger format installations used to stun the passerby and capture their attention. A solid example was the array of screens on Samsung’s stand, arranged at an angle and creating a virtual wall without actually being mounted. NEC also featured the Pixel Machine – a videowall of 23 X55UN displays, powered by Hiperwall.

The main thing to consider for these large and creative displays is that the requirement for a decent image at this sort of scale takes us beyond full HD. There was a lot of talk about 4K resolution (or Ultra) for large video walls. 4K is commonplace in cinemas, but it’s still to come to signage – although some manufacturers, including Planar, launched screens to anticipate this need.

On their search for life-like experiences screen manufacturers have been investigating colour-accurate displays. An example of this is the SpectraView range from NEC, some of which is Fogra-certified. Simon Jackson, vice-president at NEC Display Solutions in Northern Europe, explains: “Being able to show exactly the same colour on screen as the one displayed at a store is very popular amongst retailers. The customer can see a sweater, for instance, and at the same time a screen will show a model wearing it.”

Even though 3D is still not widely spread in DOOH, many companies were showing 3D technology with and without glasses. These included Eyevis’s 3D active stereo rear-projection display OmniShapes, Alioscopy’s 42″ (106cm) thin bezel screen and Phillips, which had increased viewing autostereoscopic viewing angles since ISE 2012.

There were also some interesting box displays using translucent screens and interactive technology: SiComputer showcased its Explora Vitra and Crystal Display Systems set up a massive 70″ full HD, TFT LCD panel with touchscreen interaction via IR.

Gesture-based interaction and multi-touch were also popular in both vertical and horizontal configuration; leading the way on ease-of-use are kiosks solutions such as Pyramid Computer’s Polytouch models, capable of detecting 20 simultaneous touches at an ultra-fast 10 millisecond response time, now with modular auxiliary functions, such as swipe card and receipt printing. ISE had its own interactive pathfinder touchscreens, but they were slow and not very intuitive. Omnivision provided the software and Prestop the hardware, but they’ll have to try harder for next year to win over visitors.

New partnerships included the news that content outfit ComQi has given hardware company Kramer exclusive rights to manufacture, sell and market its media distribution products; ComQi will also be able to market and distribute the Kramer range. Scala’s collaboration with StreamAlot will see music incorporated into its solutions, while it is also integrating its enterprise software with the plug-and-play Samsung Smart Signage Platform. Signagelive is also working with Samsung in a new bid to offer off-the-shelf applications. AOpen announced its OpenService, a consultancy model previously launched in North America, hoping to deliver custom digital communications to provide better interconnectivity and an improved end user experience.

There was nothing totally new at ISE: we saw, in the main, advances of what’s been tried and tested. Moving forward, the industry needs more thought leadership and cross-platform standardisation to allow more effective project deployment.

First published 8 February 2013 – Output

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