By Lionel Tepper

NEW YORK, NY— June 22, 20010 — The Screen Forum, a UK-based organization dedicated to information sharing and networking within the digital out-of-home industry held its first New York City event and simultaneously launched The Screen Forum USA. The event, Planes, Trains & Automobiles: Digital Signage Takes Transport, was held in association with the Digital Screenmedia Association and brought together thought leaders from advertising, media, and industry stakeholders to explore the current trends in digital out-of-home media in the transit sector.

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Following the Money and Offering Greater Reach

“It all comes down to money. It’s pure and simple. At some point, somebody has to pay for the infrastructure, somebody has got to buy advertising, and it all has to work,” said Lou Giacalone, President and Founder of CoolSign. “If we follow the money trail and look at where the money is right now, it’s all in traditional media such as television and newspapers.”

According to Mr. Giacalone, this represents one of the great conundrums of the media industry. Traditional media garner more than $100 billion in spending, yet it’s widely accepted that the money is not being spent effectively. “The DVR is knocking out commercials, channel fragmentation is reducing the audience sizes, and the newspaper audience is dying off,” added Mr. Giacalone. “All of these things combined are leaving us with a vacuum to reach the masses.”

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There are hundreds of different software providers offering the basics of a digital signage platform, so how does someone planning a network weed though them all and find the right one?

Start by getting some key questions answered.

The request for proposal process (RFP) lets you “check all the boxes” on basic functionality a network will need, and is a powerful tool for probing the true capabilities and underpinnings of vendors. Asking the right questions gets you past the marketing spin and allows you to see what an organization really offers, and how it can deliver.

Here are five key questions that should get raised and addressed when choosing a software partner, and how CoolSign answers them:

• What are the software development and quality assurance processes?

The size of the developer team and the processes used to deliver a product can speak volumes about that vendor’s real capabilities. The biggest development team doesn’t necessarily win, but a larger team represents more capacity, probably a broader range of skills, and genuine redundancy when things like vacations come around or people quit. Work still gets done. With very small teams, if a key guy is knocked off his feet by influenza, every customer knows it and feels it. The RFP process is a good tool to smoke out the real size and characteristics of the developer team.

Vendors should have well-defined development and software release processes, and a roadmap that lays out targets and dates. Roadmaps demonstrate where a service is going, and tells prospective buyers whether they’d be getting a product that is evolving with the marketplace, or locked down and not keeping up.

Buyers should probe how the vendor tests and releases software. Some firms regularly release and patch code to users, letting customers do the debugging. Others put new releases into weeks and months of rigorous testing before customers get near it. Ongoing releases provide new functionality more quickly, but there will be bugs. Full “QA” means new functionality may take a year or more to arrive, but when it gets there, there are few surprises.

COOLSIGN: We have a large, stable, full-time research and development team based in Portland, Oregon that works to rigorous guidelines and takes a highly disciplined, professional approach to both the development and release of new features.

• What can you see and manage?

The front-end functions of screen layouts and scheduling are common across just about all digital signage software platforms. Where differences emerge is in the back-end, in how the software platform lets users monitor and fully manage deployed devices.

Those remote controls are essential to the integrity and uptime of networks, and for the total cost of ownership. The best platforms enable networks to see and control everything going on with deployed equipment without a network’s technical people leaving the operations center.

Site visits should be limited to planned maintenance or replacing failed or damaged equipment. A platform that provides limited remote management means the only way to solve problem is a costly site service call, which can quickly cripple operating budgets.

COOLSIGN: Our platform is based on more than a decade of direct, relevant experience in this sector and has been designed to address the critical operating demands of networks – with our users having fully visibility of their deployed equipment and full remote control to remedy issues and control costs.

• Is the system open or closed?

Media technology is rapidly converging, and as this sector matures and enters the mainstream, digital signage software platforms must allow external applications and devices to work with it.

You will want, for example, a vendor that has Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) that make software platforms open to third-party development, or bridge different technologies.

You will also want a vendor that is helping shape and enshrine much-needed standards that are being developed by and for the industry. Members of the industry have been trying to herd the sector towards technical standards that enable the many different products and services out there – from pure software providers to ad-booking engines – to have at least basic interoperability.

Standards for such things as scheduling and audience measurement are absolutely critical to the advancement and acceptance of the industry, and vendors that work outside these emerging guidelines may impair of their clients to fully do business.

COOLSIGN: We have the APIs our partners and end-user clients are looking for, and the flexibility in our system to package up and operate the platform in ways that best meet business needs. We have the industry ties and the insight to keep the CoolSign product at pace with the most important and relevant emerging technologies.

• Is the system future-proofed?

The perfect solution, right now, could prove a bad choice two years out if the system design leaves a network operator  stuck in the “now” – particularly with consumer and computing technology evolving and rapidly converging.

Almost all digital signage software platforms are built for and run on x86 personal computer platforms, but that’s changing. It’s already possible to buy, for about $100, a networked media device that plays HD video and can display custom news and social feeds. These solid-state units are all many simple networks may need, but they require lean, custom operating systems that would probably never run Windows.

Ask prospective vendors where their platforms are going and how they are embracing emerging technologies. Can they port the software to non-PCs now, or soon? Is the design extensible? Do they understand social media’s implications, mobile convergence, new display types, and things like using one platform to deliver media across everything from a lobby screen, to phones, to office desktops?

COOLSIGN: While almost all of our competitors are talking about things like set-top boxes and non-PC networked screens, we’re already supporting them. With CoolSign, there’s no “Best Before” date.

• Will the platform be efficient for your current and long-term needs?

Efficiency and ease of use decisions for software should have more to do with how long it takes to complete tasks on a platform, once trained, than how long it took to “learn” the system. In choosing a platform, look for something that best addresses the time and money equation of staffing.

If all the work needed to manage a network of 100 sites means one full-time hire, does having 10 times as many sites mean 10 times as much work, and 10 hires? Staffing needs can’t grow at the same pace as network site counts, so a platform must make planning, scheduling and distribution as efficient as possible. Large networks with schedules that differ site by site need systems that use databases to make big scheduling and target jobs manageable.

One way to get a clear sense of just what’s involved is to ask a software vendor for a thorough demonstration of what all is involved in getting a piece of media into a system and getting it targeted to the right screens at the right time. How many clicks did that really take?

COOLSIGN: We’ve been there, done that, and learned a bunch of things. Our platform already manages huge shopping mall, mass transit and urban outdoor advertising networks. It has been purpose-designed to address the challenges brought on by sophisticated, targeted networks, through elegant database structure and workflow, not by adding more work and therefore more people and costs.

Summary

There many more key considerations for choosing the right vendor. This first set will help get someone planning a network much closer to the right choice.

NEW YORK, NY – CoolSign (formally CS Software Holdings, LLC) has signed a master reseller agreement with Jeff Burgess &Associates, known as JB&A, for the US and Canada.  This relationship brings together two respected long-standing groups.  CoolSign has been providing digital signage software for customers from small to enterprise since its inception in 1998 and JB&A has been serving the A/V systems industry’s needs for over 14 years with a key focus area in the digital signage market.

“CoolSign is thrilled to find such a capable and motivated partner in JB&A,” said Lou Giacalone, Jr., Founder and President of CoolSign.   “This is another huge step forward in our commitment to selling through the Channel.  We spent the first 12 months since becoming independent upgrading our product to maintain best-in class status and now, with this agreement in place, are poised to dramatically expand exposure to the CoolSign product from end-user and reseller alike.”

With over 1,000 of the top integrators in the United States, JB&A is highly respected in the industry and is widely recognized as one of the premier Digital Signage distributors in the U.S.  Giacalone described the decision to partner with them as a natural progression of the CoolSign’s growth: “JB&A has deep connections in the marketplace and they don’t just sell products: they have direct experience in selling Digital Signage Solutions, an important distinction from their competitors.”

“CoolSign represents a major partnership that brings JB&A an enterprise end to end digital signage solution. CoolSign’s vision and technology is totally in line with how JB&A believes the  marketplace needs to be addressed. We will be able to provide our value added partners with a top tier platform that is an industry standard. JB&A prides itself in always choosing the best technology partner in the industry. CoolSign is that company.” said Jeff Burgess, CEO of JB&A

JB&A also represents several of CoolSign’s Digital Ecosystem Partners, including TruMedia, Seneca Data, Christie Digital and others.  CoolSign launched the CoolSign Partner Program at DSE in February and has seen tremendous interest from its partners to be able to deliver seamlessly integrated solutions to clients, reducing confusion and reducing the influence of “pretenders” in the marketplace.

CoolSign recently announced the 4.5 version of the CoolSign software at the Digital Signage Expo in February.  Significant upgrades to the product include Multi-Tenancy, enabling partners to create their own SaaS (software-as-a-service) offerings; Internationalization, enabling CoolSign to serve non-English speaking markets; our Application Programming Interface (API) that enables others to develop their own applications integrated with CoolSign; Support for scheduling to networked digital picture frames and set-top box-style players, and many other features that customers have shown a strong desire to upgrade to.

About CoolSign

CoolSign has been providing cutting-edge digital signage software solutions to customers big and small for over 12 years. Our technology and people are behind some of the largest digital signage networks in the world. We understand, from deep, direct experience, what goes into designing, building, operating, and maintaining sophisticated, reliable digital signage and digital out-of-home networks. For more information about CoolSign, please visit our Website at www.cool-sign.com

About JB&A

JB&A has been servicing the vendor and reseller channel throughout North America since 1996. JB&A is a very unique company. We are a mix of Channel Management, Solutions Provider, Consultant and Distributor. We specialize in the Streaming, IP, Medical, Digital Signage, Post, Broadcast and ProAV markets. . We are staffed by experts in the field of Video Technology and workflows, including Digital Signage, Digital Asset Management, Streaming, Encoding, Transcoding, Video Conferencing and all forms of Video Distribution. For more info, visit www.jbanda.com

For more information, please contact:

Raffi Vartian, VP Business Development

Phone: 312.725.4584

Email: raffi [at] cool-sign.com

Greg Burgess, President

Phone: 415-256-2800

Email: greg [at] jbanda.com

• Define what you are trying to do, and who needs to be involved in making it happen;
• Define what success looks like and how it will be measured;
• Define the programming model;
• Define the near and long-term scope of the project, and the resources required to manage it;
• Settle on target budgets and both a timeline and the milestones on it;
• Make initial technology and service provider decisions for a test, or pilot;
• Test, measure, tweak, and measure more;
• Assess the experiences of the test, and review the performance of the service providers and the technology choices;
• If the results were positive, plan out a full rollout, review vendors/providers (possibly in an RFP) and settle on final choices, build a budget plan and if approved, rollout.

The digital signage networks that do well are those that have clearly defined objectives, and are properly budgeted. A network’s life is only beginning when the screens turn on. The real work, and the need for appropriate budgeting and attention, really begins when the initial excitement subsides and the network becomes part of business operations.

The content must be regularly refreshed. The screens and other technology must be maintained. And the network operators must steadily pay attention to their audience and a fast, ever shifting media landscape. A network designed to keep people occupied in a waiting room made perfect sense, before text messaging, smart phones and high-speed cellular broadband. But are audiences still captive now?

Know the audience, and ensure what the network is doing is meaningful and meeting those objectives, even as the objectives and media landscape evolve.

We place a huge amount of time and effort into the people and organizations surrounding our company.  That’s one of the reasons we don’t sell directly and instead use a channel-only selling strategy around the globe.  We have excellent relationships with top-tier resellers in the industry and are continually building strategic partnerships with hardware, software, and service providers that bring value to the ecosystem.

Hardware vendors

CoolSign works with vendors for server hardware, playback PCs, special-purpose media players, and screens that range from standard monitors to specialty displays that are defined by their scale or use, such as ruggedized outdoor applications and new, fast-emerging tiled and ultra-thin displays.

PCs that can be ordered online or picked up at an electronics shop have the basic processing power and speed to drive digital signage displays, but those are consumer products not well suited to the heavy duty needs of business applications. CoolSign works with vendors and clients to determine the specifications and system design that will ensure reliability and high quality performance, but also predictable, reliable component supplies and high quality support.

Through years of hard-won experience, we know what’s really important in making hardware decisions, and have developed strong relationships with some keep suppliers. Our display partners include Vertigo Digital Displays, Jaco Electronics and Planar. For devices, we work with such companies as Dell, BrightSign and HaiVision.

Software vendors

The software that network operators use to plan and manage digital signage networks is offered in two ways: operators can buy it and run it themselves; or they can rent it, using something known as Software as a Service, and put IT needs in the hands of a third-party.
We sell our software, and have reseller partners who work with end users to make the most suitable, flexible arrangements on how the software is hosted and managed.

The CoolSign software eco-system includes companies such as Billboard Planet, a major player in the traditional out of home ad booking software business. We’re now fully integrated with Billboard Planet’s engine, which gives our clients a direct bridge into the advertising media planning industry.

We also work with software development companies, who use our applications interface to develop their own “front-end” user interfaces to CoolSign that are tailored to the specific look and feel, and emphasis requirements, of their end-user clients. Our APIs allow clients to tweak the platform to their needs.

AV and IT Systems Integrators

Critical to the CoolSign eco-system are audio-visual and systems integrators who resell our software and put all the pieces together for end-user clients, usually sourcing the hardware and software, subcontracting the trades and getting the network up and running.
Our partners include smaller regional players and those with unique sector expertise, to large national and multinational firms capable of installing and servicing thousands of sites and developing sophisticated, many-layered systems that may have digital screens as just one of several service and communication elements.

CoolSign’s partners include Diversified Media Group and CRI.

Audience measurement and research firms

Measuring and validating the size of potential and actual viewing audiences is fast becoming a core component of the advertising part of the industry, and also plays a strong role in how to optimize digital screen networks for retail. There are two core types of research – one using manual counts and interviews, the other applying technology such as sensors and cameras to automatically count audiences and measure behaviours and patterns.
Directly, and through clients and partners, CoolSign works with many of the mainstream audience research firms that measure and validate audiences. We have also developed direct integration with Tru-Media, one of the leaders in the emerging audience counting technology sector.

Content

What’s on the screen, to the audience, is infinitely more important than how it got there or what’s under the hood. The best networks in the digital signage sector are those that provide a well-considered balance of marketing material and content and other messaging that interests and engages viewers.

Digital signage operators have for many years made broad assumptions that what’s good for TV or good for the Web is good, as well, for digital screen networks. But it’s really not. Digital signage is a new medium with different audience dynamics and therefore different content needs.

CoolSign works with partner companies such as Datacall to can offer the news and weather feeds that many network operators use to capture viewer interest. But Datacall also has a much broader range of data that can be fine-tuned to the context of the venue and the audience. If the venue is a medical clinic in South Texas, for example, and the patients are predominantly Latino, news and other information fed in Spanish makes more sense.

We also work with a partner company, ScreenFeed, that has changed up the way news and other content is presented, using MediaRSS feeds to provide more compelling presentations than news tickers we believe are ineffective.
CoolSign also works with partner LocaModa, which taps into the fast-changing social media and mobile phone businesses to present content in ways that are unique and compelling.

Other elements of the system

The eco-system goes beyond partnerships. To fully realize a successful digital signage project, that project also needs to include people and companies that do:
Creative – What’s on the screen matters, and just as there are you hire a plumber to get your home’s pipes in order you need creative motion graphic designers to produce advertising and marketing creative that really drives brand image and measurable results. There are software tools that enable anyone to produce creative, however that does not mean what they are producing is creative. There are pure-play companies focused on doing creative for such networks, and a range of different companies all the way down to individual freelancers. Some companies hire creative talent and bring it in house. CoolSign and its partners can help define what you need.
Consultants – The digital signage industry is now old enough and large enough that there consulting groups and individuals – some highly specialized like content strategy or research – are working with client companies to help build and manage their plans. Their experience can be invaluable, and CoolSign and its partners point clients in the right direction when that help is needed.
Carriers – Moving content around a screen network is almost always done using Internet connectivity. A network’s need for speed and often the challenges brought on by location dictate whether that connection comes by DSL, cablecos, mobile phone carriers with high speed wireless, one-way or bi-directional satellite, or newer technologies such as WiMax. We have experience with it all.

A digital signage network can be as simple as a single PC connected to a storefront window display—or as complex as a spectrum of different screens, shapes, sizes and uses, used across hundreds or thousands of locations, across many countries – all controlled from a single desktop.

Digital signage is very flexible. With a little help, a company can set up a tailored network that meets business needs and speaks specifically to customers, employees, or guests.

How it’s used

Digital signage efficiently takes the place of printed poster material in most environments, hence the name. Full color messages at a venue that normally take days or weeks to switch out – because of all the planning, printing, delivery, and posting steps involved – can now happen digitally, and be delivered and changed almost instantly. It’s no longer one printed poster, one message, for a month. It can be many messages, rotating and changing in tone by the time of day and the nature of the audience.

Simple status messages are suddenly full motion. With a touch screen they are interactive. Using software from CoolSign, they can be dynamic – the messages adjusted and changed based on what external systems are reporting.

In retail, digital screens serve many purposes, the primary one being sales. There’s plenty of evidence in the marketplace that well-executed, positioned screens help sell more goods and services in stores. That sales lift is most achievable when the goods being promoted are in close proximity to the screen. This plays on the idea of reminding or prompting people to do something right at the big moment of truth, when they are deciding to put something in their shopping basket.

But retail digital signage is not just about sales. Some retailers use the screens to educate shoppers, help them find their way around stores, or raise the level of the experience through visuals that make the clientele feel more like this is their place, their store.

But retailers are by no means the only companies and institutions using screen networks. The rationale behind screens placed in public-facing areas may have everything to do with safety and getting vital information to people quickly. It might be about moving people around a facility effectively through way-finding displays and meeting room identifiers. Many airports have stepped beyond simple flight arrivals and departures screens to having screens at each departure gate that tell them far more about where they are going and a flight’s boarding and departure status.

Corporations use screens to tell their staff what’s going on far more effectively than emails that don’t get read and sheets posted on lunchroom corkboards that don’t get noticed. Cruise ships tell passengers what’s going on and where on the monster boats. Transport companies have news and messages tied in with GPS location screens on buses and trains. Service-based companies tie their customer handling systems in to the display system to more effectively deal with the customer flow, flashing announcements letting people know things like the status of their car’s tune-up.

Just about anything that needs to get communicated and updated on a regular basis, or could benefit from compelling visuals, is a candidate for digital screens. It’s not a case of doing it just because it’s possible, but because it can be more effective, efficient and cost-effective in the long run.

Digital makes messaging fast and flexible. Allows those messages to be dynamic and somewhat automated. Most of the human factor is removed with digital, meaning messages are up and down when and where they need to be, because the wild card of “hoping” staff at branch offices or retail outlets follow instructions. It’s much more green, removing paper and transport costs from the equation. And the possibilities for what marketers and corporate communicators can do with their messages are greatly elevated.

The potential applications of digital signage are limited only by your imagination.

Digital Out of Home Advertising

DOOH is the acronym for the one broadly-accepted alternative name for digital signage, but it is really more accurately described as a subset of digital signage focused on advertising. The advertising billboard and poster industry has long been called the Out Of Home business, and adding digital references those billboards and posters that are being replaced by video displays. Pure-play advertising screen networks, companies that put screens in targeted, vertically-defined venues like waiting rooms or sports bars, are also labeled as DOOH networks. Those networks run content other than ads, but they exist to make money from ad revenues – like micro TV networks running outside of homes.

CoolSign powers DOOH networks by providing the tools to efficiently target, schedule and distribute advertising, as well as update some elements of ads dynamically or trigger ads to play based on contributing information from databases. The CoolSign platform also gives network operators the tools to accurately monitor and manage networks, and feed back proof of performance reports to advertising clients.

Private networks are screen networks owned and operated by the venue, the primary driver being the ability to fully control the messages appearing on the screen.

Ad-based networks, most typically, are networks of screens installed in third-party premises by media companies and entrepreneurs who take all the capital and operating risk and usually share a percentage of the screen time.

Hybrids are a combination of the two, generally private networks that allow some limited third-party advertising to offset operating and capital costs.

A digital signage network is a complicated, multi-faceted project that presents a challenge just sorting out where to start. A project needs a roadmap and guideposts, but more than anything else, it needs an objective. It’s hard to get started when it’s not clear what the end is all about.

Screen networks are put in by their operators for a huge range of different objectives. The programming could be intended to influence, inform, engage, entertain, preoccupy, distract, direct, or even warn viewers.

Some networks are deployed for no other reason than to advertise to an audience that is attractive – because of its sheer numbers, its time “captive” in front of screens, or its demographic and interest profile. There are networks in rail stations because 1,000s of people pass through them, and networks in hair salons where the numbers are small but the audience attentive and all of a similar profile.

Retailers can have wildly different reasons for wanting screens in their stores. Some see sales lift as a direct consequence, while others see that as the soft by-product of a better shopping experience.

Some companies put screens in their buildings to help keep staff informed, while others put them in only with visiting customers and partners in mind.

There are times that the digital screens are nothing more than a better, less labour-intensive way of changing basic information regularly, taking the human factors of accuracy and reliability out of the equation by putting a sign on a network and automating the data.

Sometimes, a network is a pure dollars and cents issue, as with billboards in major cities that are transitioning from paper and plywood to giant walls of networked LED display modules. The outdoor billboard companies ran the numbers, and determined they can make more money putting six ads on one board than they can sending a special truck and crew out every few weeks to paper over the old ad with a new one.

The best networks, whatever the type, went in with clear objectives, or worked their way to them. The most common, but by no means the only, objectives for network include:

• Improving communications at the venue
• Better wayfinding
• Distracting from wait times
• Sales promotions
• Improving brand awareness
• Better message compliance
• Improved internal communications
• Improved safety
• Reduced costs
• Green initiatives
• More revenue generation for the retailer or the ad network operator

Sorting out the Total Cost of Ownership for a digital signage network, long before the first screens light up, is critical to the project’s success or failure.

Operators buy a network once, but they maintain it for the life of a project. Budgets that look great in planning can fall apart when the actual costs start coming in, because a wide spectrum of operational considerations were overlooked or ignored.

It’s tempting in planning to focus on big ticket items – like display screens – that have the most zeroes in their totals, but technology is just one factor for networks. There are a lot of downstream costs to also consider, some of them tied directly back to those initial technology choices. Cutting corners may save a few dollars at launch, but add far more to the overall cost.

In sorting out the real costs of starting and running a digital signage network, operators need to think about the costs and implications of maintenance, network operations, and feeding the ever-hungry content beast.

Maintenance

Mainstream consumer electronics are everywhere, their prices fixed in our heads from shopping trips and advertising. But big flat panel TVs that may be perfect for a man cave at home are entirely wrong for just about any digital signage network.

Consumer-grade flat panel LCDs and plasmas are designed to operate for a few hours each evening in a home. They are NOT engineered to operate around the clock or even most of a day. Professional monitors are engineered to withstand much more intense usage and environmental conditions, but they typically cost at least 20 per cent more than consumer versions. For a network planning to roll out, for example, 1,000 screens, saving that 20 per cent by using cheaper consumer LCDs could bring an initial capital expense down by $200,000 or more. But that decision will likely cost the operator far more – in service and replacement dollars, lost opportunity and credibility – through the life of a project.

When designing networks, operators should be thinking Mars Rover – choosing technology that can be deployed and managed from great distances, without ever sending anyone on site. That means hardware designed for high endurance, and with the necessary connectors and control codes that allow full, remote device management.

Consider this common scenario: a network deploys consumer HDTVs in hair salons across a country. Screens go off at shops for any number of reasons, and while salon staff notice this, they don’t do anything because it’s not their problem. The network operators don’t know there’s a problem because the PCs on site don’t know or report that screens are off.  So no alarms are raised until advertisers complain they’ve been at salons lately and seen screens were black. So the operators subcontract field services teams to go on site and turn screens back on – paying $250 a pop to “roll trucks.”

So $200 saved with the cheaper LCDs is now $50 extra spent getting those units back on, never mind those that die from overheating. Advertisers are reconsidering future buys and salon operators are questioning the value of being on the network. By using screens that allow remotely management, and better software platforms, the screens would have never stayed off.

Operations

Digital signage networks don’t manage or maintain themselves. They need care and feeding everyday, and there’s a long list of tasks that can quickly equate to one or several Full Time Equivalent (FTE) jobs. The tasks include proofing, scheduling and distributing content, generating reports and watching and troubleshooting deployed equipment.

The right software choice can mean the difference between paying a person, or a team. An easy to use, basic platform might save $25,000 in annual software costs, but actually adds $40,000 or more in annual staffing costs because it lacks all the workflow efficiencies of a more sophisticated platform. Work that needs a .5 FTE using an efficient platform might need two FTEs on another, more cumbersome platform. The same applies with network management. A well-designed network may require and automate trouble notices, while the wrong design and weak monitoring can mean a constant headache for one or even several people.

Content Production

A digital signage network is a content-hungry beast and it must be steadily fed.

The refresh rate for content on a network owes heavily to the dynamics of the venue and its viewing audience, and the duration and volume of content for a medical clinic with long wait times and limited repeat visits is very different from a grocery network with shorter times in store, but weekly visits. With each, operators must understand how much content is needed to populate programming loops and how long it can run before getting stale for viewers. Different programming based on things like geography and language can bring on even more production requirements.

There are three costs centers for feeding the beast:

• Full-time, staff creative;
• Outsourced;
• Automation.

If a network’s particular beast is a hungry one, bringing it in-house may makes the most sense. A trained, talented motion graphics specialist can probably produce 200 spots in a year, and if average pay packages in the market are, for example, $60,000, that equates to $300 per spot. Getting that same quality of work produced by third-part firms would typically double or triple in-house costs. Operators can then make a more educated decision on total content costs based on expected work volume.

Using the right software platform, at least some spots can be largely automated, using templates and scripting that dynamically populates creative with such data as retail prices.

TCO can also be massively impacted by network design and choices involving things like display shape. If a network has displays in both landscape and portrait modes, that almost always means two distinct pieces of creative, and therefore near-doubled production costs.

Final Thoughts

Total Cost of Ownership planning is essential to the business and operational modeling for a network. Done right, a network’s numbers, plans and service delivery should meet the expectations of its stakeholders. If TCO is not factored, operators can easily lose control of their operating budgets.