Digital Signage Expo – a bright light in the gloomy media landscape

One only needs to review the daily online news and media blogs to appreciate the pain that traditional media is presently enduring. The struggling economy has dramatically accelerated what was already inevitable – the decline of analogue media formats in favor of new digital and inclusive formats like social media, the internet and (of course) digital out-of-home. The recent closure of the Rocky Mountain News (check out this amazing video  http://www.vimeo.com/3390739), a 149 year-old daily in Denver, has shaken the foundations of traditional media. The San Francisco Chronicle may be next.

The show floor and conference sessions at the recent Digital Signage Expo in Las Vegas showed a very different picture – that of an increasingly confident medium continuing to flourish in troubling times. ExpoNation, the show long-time producers, must have been happy (relieved?) by the turnout of both exhibitors and attendees. The floor bustled the entire two days, and the number of industry executives paired off in the cafeteria seating area were indicative of the constant meetings as new alliances were forged and existing business deals cemented.

I won’t here go into detailed descriptions of conference sessions or new announcements (Lyle Bunn, Laura Davis-Taylor and Bill Gerba, amongst others, have done a thorough job already), but a few highlights for me were:

The legendary Paco Underhill from Envirosell told us that many, even most, current digital signage networks within retail environments were poorly executed;

In Seminar 8 – “How To Sell Advertising on Your Out-of-Home Digital Network” – the panel, led by Dave Krupp from Kinetic, openly supported the role of companies like Adcentricity in facilitating DOOH buys;

And finally, Session 19, “Critical Measurement Options at Retail: Strategies for Success” – in my opinion still failed to clearly put forward the one meaningful barrier to the success of DOOH – the adoption of an industry-wide currency that is audited by a credible industry body. We all need to get on board with the implementation of the OVAB metrics guidelines as quickly as we can manage.

Congratulations to Chris Gibb, Angelo Verrone and the rest of the ExpoNation team. The DSE has become the one annual must-attend event for those involved in the DOOH business from a hardware, software, or network operations perspective.