Indoor digital signage is seeing an increase in LCD advertising displays, these LCD advertising displays are used in locations such as hotels and corporate head quarters for quick, trouble free deployments.

What goes into LCD advertising displays?

The floor standing digital advertising signs are a complete solution that includes a commercial grade screen (normally LG screens), a media play that is PC based and will run almost any digital signage software.

All a user has to do is to create the content and add it to the media player, the media player is internally connected to the screen and is initially controlled by a remote control through the screens. The signage can be programmed to show the content at set times, it can even be scheduled to power up and power off if 24×7 operation is not required, this saves time, money and is good for the environment.

LCD advertising displays now touch screen.

The digital advertising signs are now being fitted with touch screen capabilities, so they be used for multiple functions from hotel way finding to allowing customer to select the model of vehicle they are interested in at a car dealership.

These touch screens can be single touch or multi touch, these can be used for gaming in Quick Serve Restaurant applications.

An example of way finding in a hotel.

Now imagine you arrive at an unfamiliar hotel for a conference, you then see the floor standing LCD advertising displays with the name of the conference so you approach the sign, you are then instructed to touch the sign and it directs you to the room the conference is held in. This reduces peoples waiting time for directions and frees hotel staff to deal with more serious issues.

Now touch screen solutions can be used for displaying the restaurant menus for lunch and dinner.

Sizes of LCD advertising displays.

These floor standing LCD advertising displays are available in sizes from 36” up to 85” and vary so much in design and functionality,  a units have software to display the ads, some do not, some have to be updated manually or updated through a digital signage network. Content updates for LCD advertising displays.

One of the main challenges is getting the content onto the advertising screen, this can be done in two ways, the first is manually using a USB drive, copying the content form a computer and then inserting the drive into the media player, however if there are a few of these signs the problem arises that it is time consuming and the additional cost of a networked enabled solution then seems more appealing as it pays for itself much faster. The networked digital sign can controlled from any where as long as there is an internet connection.

LCD Enclosure Global Limited make a range of outdoor LCD enclosures as well as supplying LCD advertising displays.

Digital advertising and signage is a large market that is gaining momentum, now digital advertising in hotel chains is becoming more frequent, this now engages with visitors and can provide invaluable information to make the stay at the hotel the most memorable stay ever.

Solutions used for digital advertising in hotel chains.

There are two clear kinds of digital advertising solutions for hotels and these include wall mounted and floor standing digital advertising solutions. These two groups are then split into touch and non touch screen and then sub divided into a further two groups these are standalone USB media players or network enabled media players. The later allows the marketing department to control the entire digital signage network and update content throughout the network simply and within minutes.

Wall mounted digital posters for digital advertising in hotel chains.

digital advertising in hotel chains for effective marketing

Wall mounted digital posters are also available in touch screen solutions, these are ideal for visiting delegates so that they can navigate the hotel lobbies to reach the correct location for a meeting or seminar. They can also be used for guests to search local attractions and to be used as a concierge solution, from seeing the local theater shows to what time the local museums open and close. The way these units are configured, allows the guest to search deeper into files that are stored on the media player, usually a networked solution is ideal as this can also update with the theaters and other attraction websites to ensure the guests have the correct information.

Non touch screen digital posters can be used near elevators to provide updates on the weather or even flight delays for visiting guests who may be affected with any delay at the hotel. Hotels are also using this type of marketing to promote the restaurants within the hotel, by being used as a digital menu board showing vivid, high definition images and a description of the food. These can store the data on the CF memory card inside the USB media player.

Free standing digital signage for digital signage at hotels.

digital advertiisng in hotel chains

This type of signage can be used again either touch or non touch and depends upon the application within the hotel. Some hotel chains have even deployed this type of solution for express checkout, for guests in a rush, perfect for any traveling business person.

How digital advertising in hotel chains can boost profits.

So imagine using digital signage in a hotel chain that has just taken delivery of some local produce and have come up with a seasonal menu using locally grown food, this is more cost effective and will increase sales using digital menu boards in either of the solutions mentioned above. On another note should a guest make a booking for a show, the hotel may be in an affiliate program that the theater offers and there for received a commission for the tickets sold through the concierge digital advertising solution. Over a period of 12 months the return on investment will be increased, as these digital signs do not take off personal time, they do not ring in sick, they just work 24×7, proving that digital advertising in hotel chains are helping to improve efficiency of marketing plans.

LCD Enclosure Global Limited are a leading manufacturer of LCD display enclosures as well as supplying digital advertising in hotel chains.

Event digital signage is booming, especially with exhibitions and trade shows using event digital signage to boost their brand and company awareness to new and existing customers.

What is event digital signage?

This is marketing to delegates at trade shows and exhibitions using the latest technology, including LCD and plasma screens , these are either wall mounted of free standing on the floor with the sole intention in making the company using the digital devices stand out from their competitors who are not using this technology.

Now using digital signage at exhibitions can be done right as well as wrong, during a recent visit to the Autosport International exhibition at the NEC in Birmingham, we noticed digital advertising displays in some but not all exhibitors stands. Some had it spot on, but some had it so wrong!

Event digital signage who got it right?

You would not expect to see high tech devices at such a show as the Autosport International show, but in our experience Lotus had it spot on, they had 4 x 40” LCD screens in portrait position and mounted on the wall, the image was split between the screens and displayed the history of Lotus up to the present day, the high definition images were excellent and engaged with most people passing the stand, so much so there was a bottle neck in the isles.

Event digital signage who got it wrong?

One exhibitor in our view got it not quite right, as the LCD screen was in landscape mode and only displayed cars driving round a race track, now compared to the Lotus stand there wasn’t many people looking at what they had to offer and unfortunately this is when digital signage fails, when the content isn’t compelling enough for people to stop, look and listen.

Exhibitions and trade show have to provide leads and therefore pay for themselves, otherwise the event is a complete waste of time and a financial loss, speaking to many of the exhibitors who did not use digital signage devices found they had a much less foot fall than exhibitors who used digital signage units. One exhibitor confessed that they had to reduce their motor sport clothing so that they could pay for the exhibition stand, with a single square foot costing £100!

Digital advertising users had much more visitors to their stand, they stayed longer and the uptake in enquiries was far greater than exhibitors with no digital signage solutions present on their stand. Proving there are winners and losers in event digital signage.

LCD Enclosure Global Limited produce a range of LCD enclosures as well as internal digital signage solutions that are also used for event digital signage.

Indoor digital signage which includes solutions like the digital poster, ad board and so on, have become all the rage in these recent times. Thanks to the advanced use of accessible and sustainable technology across the world, these indoor signage solutions are finding a great usage and worldwide appeal. These flat screen LCD screens are becoming increasingly important in a variety of functions in large scale public access buildings such as airports, malls and hospitals.

As such, a digital poster is the core product in these solutions. Any digital poster can effectively be modified and changed in its content which makes them great for advertising in movie theaters, stores and malls. Apart from these, there are also lcd ad players, which are basically great for playing videos and such on a large scale and continuous basis. As such, these screens can also be made interactive by the use of touch-screens and sound prompts to cater to the needs of direction finding services and restaurant service in the form of a digital menu board. As can be seen, such a high degree of flexibility and ease of use makes these indoor digital signage solutions a very lucrative buy for all business owners and public buildings.

Uses of a digital poster.

Basically, people can use the digital poster, placed at several strategic points throughout the facility to cater various differing needs through a single control source. The benefit of time and cost saving is highly obvious from such a procedure. The posters can be modified to show directions, issue advisories and bulletins, update people about changes in any schedule and also for advertisement of and brand or cause.

These indoor digital signage solutions can therefore go a long way in helping a business owner successfully reach and communicate with patrons in a very efficient and smooth manner. The great thing about these solutions is their extreme flexibility in matters of size and functionality. They can be extremely small and provide only the most crucial information and can also be very large and can cater to a variety of other needs. By the use of great solutions such as the digital signage totem, users can keep their patrons constantly informed and the induction of interactive services makes them great and cheap for effective communication.

A such, it can be said that the indoor solutions come as a boon in today’s times of rising costs and extra pressures without having to incur to much of an expense. The advent of the digital poster and its counterparts has made information and communication extremely easy, fast and cheap.

LCD Enclosure Global Limited manufacture a range of digital signage enclosures as well as supplying a wide range of network enabled digital poster solutions.

Digital posters are being deployed in retail outlets for the run up to Christmas and the January sales, so the return on investment (ROI) would be in the first month when deployed successfully.

Which digital posters are being deployed?

One high street retailer is installing digital posters that have a 26” LCD screen, with a built in media player. The digital posters (12 in total) are being mounted on walls near power outlets, with the advertising media stored on a CF memory card, one main concern was the time it would take to update the content, from the Christmas promotions to the January sales, this was explained and a demonstration took place highlighting how easy it was to update the digital posters with new advertising content through a USB drive. The update time for 12 digital posters was 2minutes per digital poster.

What content can be displayed on digital posters?

Dynamic advertising has to engage with the consumer and compel them to watch the full presentation, for this reason there are several ways to display various forms of content on the digital posters.
Usually the digital posters will run JPG, PNG and BMP image files, with AVI and MPEG4 video files, however there is a way in which Flash files can be used to create fabulous images that will hook the consumer into watch the full presentation.

The media player comes with its own software, or you can use free Power-point presentation slides and record the screen so there is no need to spend a lot of money on content creation, however this could have a dramatic effect upon your success. So investing a few hundred dollars in a specialist to create the content will have a much better return on the investment than thought.

Success stories for digital posters

A certain retail jeweler used digital posters to advertise their range of designer watches in December 2010 and noted a 32% increase in sales for the same period the previous year.

One hair salon noted an increase in advanced books from October through to the end of November for the Christmas period, they also noted a 21% increase in sales of their hair care range of products that was advertised on the digital posters in front of their customers whilst having hair care treatment.

An automotive retailer advertised their winter check program in November throughout their digital posters that had been installed in customer waiting areas and noted an increase in additional product sales using this medium for advertising.

LCD Enclosure Global Limited manufacture a range of digital signage enclosures as well as supplying a wide range of digital posters.

3D digital signage is the new development in digital signage, but will the 3D digital signage campaign be engaging enough to hold their attention?

Who will use 3D digital signage.

Any company that can afford the new digital signage hardware will be using this hardware to control their hold on their target audience. This new innovation in digital signage has to work right out of the box, it would be pointless if the audience had to don 3D glasses to see the true effect, just imagine walking through a busy mall and seeing every consumer wearing 3D glasses, sounds ridiculous? Well there are some solutions that have not mastered it fully and are deploying the untried solutions.

What are the different digital signage software solutions?

There are two main types of 3D dynamic signage solutions, these are glasses based 3D digital signage (stereoscopic) and glasses free 3D digital signage (autostereoscopic). The difference is based on the “grey levels”, being around 2 for stereoscopic 3D digital signage and 5 to 9 for autostereoscopic digital signage.

With 3D digital signage being in its infancy and testing part, it will be a while until we see the major roll outs for 3D digital signage.

If it is ill thought out or the 3D digital signage campaigns are not engaging, they will have little success and will result in a major financial loss. As one of the main benefits of digital signage is that if the content is engaging the campaign will be a success.

Return on investment is paramount to fund future development of the 3D digital signage network, without a business or agency will not grow.

LCD Enclosure Global Ltd provide a range of LCD enclosures to protect digital signage hardware including 3D digital signage solutions.

The digital signs industry is estimated to grow to a massive 22 million displays being used by the year 2015, digital signs are the way forward for advertising.

Who installs digital signs?

The growth in the digital signs industry can be put down to installers who overlap in the AV and IT sector, mainly installers (around 80%) supply their services to local businesses. These installers deploy everything from digital posters for reception areas, digital menu boards for quick serve restaurants to outdoor digital signs in digital signage enclosures.

Digital signs increase in demand.

In 2009 the industry predicted that is would grow to 16 million digital signs by the year 2015, but now it is believed to grow to 22 million by the same year, proving that the digital signs industry is little effected by the current economic climate.

Why digital signs are in high demand?

We are all aware in of the weaknesses of traditional advertising mediums such as print, digital signs wins hands down due to its ability to be targeted at large numbers of people and market to them efficiently.

With the increase in technology development, the prices for digital signs is dropping, even the installation cots for the infrastructure is reducing making a digital network possible for most companies.

With network enabled digital posters and free standing LCD displays, planning and implementing digital signs is easier and more cost effective.

Digital signs are increasing in the education sector, being used to inform parents of what the students have achieved, freeing up teachers and lecturers to deal with the running of the class room, rather than dealing with updating parents on the progress of their child. Any updates such as this has to be done on a more formal basis by making appointments for the parents and teachers to meet and discuss the pupils progress.

Digital Signs could save lives…

The statement sounds unreasonable however imagine a gun man is on the campus and the campus goes into lock down, informing other students in the locality to go to their dorm where they are safe and in turn saving lives.

Investment in a digital sign.

Investment into any digital sign solution can be rewarding as the results will certainly be seen by an increase in brand or product demand, resulting in a faster ROI.

Retail digital signs.

A Retail digital sign, namely Point Of Sale (PoS) are the main reasons that digital signs are in demand as most stores and retailers are seeing the benefits of using these small screen displays with the advertising content being on the built in media player. From advertising Wellington boot cleaning systems to how carpets repel wine and other liquids.

LCD Enclosure Global Limited are a leading manufacturer of a range of digital signage enclosures that protect retail digital signs.

A digital menu board is a unique way to display advertising content for any company, a digital menu board can provide a cost effective solution for this new technology.

Digital menu board – definition.

When restaurants wanted to promote a food product or special of the day, they usually added them to “the specials board”, this was a black board, however as time and technology has advanced we are now seeing an increase in digital menu board installations in quick serve restaurants.

As a digital menu board can be mounted in either landscape or portrait mode and includes images so the diners know what they will be getting. Have you ever been in a restaurant and seen a waiter with a dish, just about to give it to the consumer and wondered, “that looks nice – what is it?” Now a digital menu board takes the guess work out of ordering a meal.

Two types of digital menu board.

These LCD advertising displays are used both indoors and outdoors, however there are some challenges, because if you put an indoor unit outdoors the electronics inside the unit are prone to attack from the elements. This is why there are specific units for indoor digital signage as well as for outdoor use.

The outdoor digital menu board comes complete with a steel housing that protects the hardware from vandalism and the weather. If used indoors this would look out of place due to the protective housing.

Digital menu board solutions.

Both types of digital menu board have a screen and a media player, the media player can on the entry level units stores the ads on a memory card and updates are done manually, by either replacing the memory card with an updated one or by updating the ads using a Flash drive and over righting the previous ads or there are network enabled solutions that will be discussed later.

Digital menu board – sizes.

Usually digital menu boards add impact to a quick server restaurants, so the size needs to be able to display text and images so that they can be seen from a distance of 10 feet, so the digital menu boards have to be as large as possible.

The standard range of digital menu boards start from 26” (ideal for a sandwich bar) to a 65” screen perfect for any major QSR (Quick Serve restaurant).

Network enabled digital menu board.

A network enabled digital menu board are increasing in popularity, due to the flexibility and functionality compared to the other standalone digital menu board. As large companies can create a digital signage network throughout a country, or even the world and control the content form one central office. Updates are done using the internet and the content is stored on an internal hard drive with a capacity of 250GB.

These high tech digital signs are being installed in high end fish and chip shops, so they can promote “that days freshly caught fish”. Up selling this fish at a premium price, or by take out stores that promote a meal deal, mainly in the USA when the franchisee signs up to the brand their outlet is equipped with these digital menu board solutions so all the brand owners does is update the content and everything throughout the outlets is the same no matter what state, town or country you are in.

LCD Enclosure Global Limited manufacture a range of LCD enclosure solutions as well as supplying digital menu board solutions.

Digital signage is the most controversial advertising medium, that is being deployed in almost every environment. Learn how digital signage can help as well as offend.

What is digital signage?

We are all aware that every single business needs to advertise their services and products, without this customers will not know anything about the company or the products they offer. Advertising has been the number one focus for most business owners, however only recently has the change from print advertising to dynamic digital advertising been appealing.

Even newspapers have gone online! So with advancement of technology digital signage was born, a digital signage solution can be created using some rather basic hardware and all any business needs is a display screen this can be either a plasma TV or LCD and a way to run ads on the screen. Here entry level media players can be used that store the advertising material on the memory card within the player.

But this is only the basic solution and does depend on how the business or company wants to be perceived in the advertising world.

Digital Signage For businesses.

Some companies opt for the all in one solution that either hangs on the wall or is floor standing, these digital posters are ideal as they incorporate a screen as well as a media player with some digital posters having the facility to be networked, enabling the entire digital signage hardware to be updated with fresh content at a moments notice. With screen sizes from 20” to 65” these will provide all the attention grabbing images possible to get your brand and products noticed.

Digital signage – digital menu boards.

Originally designed for providing menus in a digital format to customers in Quick Serve Restaurants, this digital signage hardware allows the screen to be split in to zones, the main zone could be running a video, with images in 2 other zones and a news ticker on the bottom. This captures peoples attention and can also promote your main product as well as a secondary product.

Digital signage and possible drawbacks

However, some customers do not appreciate the screens, especially when this new breed of screens broadcasts messages to peoples mobile phones as they pass by. Most of use have Bluetooth enabled on our mobile phones, so when a business man passes a cafe and he gets a message telling him if he buys a bacon roll he gets a free latte, this is of interest as more often than not, he will have missed his breakfast. This type of messaging is in its infancy and is likely to boom in the next 2 or 3 years, but as you can imagine, I would not like to receive messages on my phone that I have not requested, this is why shopping malls will have to display notices informing people to switch off their Bluetooth on their mobile phones if they do not want to receive any sales messages.

LCD Enclosure Global Limited are a leading manufacturer of digital signage enclosures used to protect digital signage hardware.

Digital posters are one of the more affordable ways to use digital signage, now discover digital posters and points to consider for an installation.

A wall mounted ad player is one of the more cost effective solutions for indoor digital signage applications available in the current market. These units have revolutionised the way advertising is displayed, now let us discover how to maximise when we deploy digital posters in one location.

Digital posters – locations.

Location is one of the essential elements of a successful digital poster installation, these digital posters need to be in high foot fall areas, usually in a reception or waiting area within a company, or directly in front of customers in a hair salon, this allows them to be entertained whilst they are waiting and can provide some valuable information.

For example digital ad players in a reception area can show how the site you are at is connected to the head office and what it’s responsibilities are within the group. In hair stylists the digital posters can advertise the latest promotion the salon has or publicise the discounts on the in store branded hair care range.

As you can see (pardon the pun), but if the digital posters are not seen or in areas with little traffic the advertisements will also suffer.

If the digital posters are of a large size, they need to be mounted to a solid wall, otherwise you have the possibility of an accident waiting to happen.

Digital posters – size?

Digital posters vary in size from tiny 20” units up to an including massive 65” units, now one point here to think about, is if you are using a large digital poster the structure it is mounting to has to be strong enough to support it. For example it would be futile in mounting 65” digital posters on a studded wall, as the weight of the LCD advertising screen would put it from the wall.

Digital posters – mounting options.

Depending on where the digital posters are being installed will dictate how they are mounted, for example in the centre of a hair salon, large digital posters can be mounted from the rear using the VESA mounts and a ceiling mounted pole system, this also allows the screen to be tilted around 15 degrees. However if the digital posters are being mounted in portrait position there are special digital signage mounts that will take screens up to 65”.

Digital posters – network or USB

Now this is a regular debate, weather or not to use a network enabled digital poster or USB digital posters, this comes down to the actual application and if several digital posters are used this is when a network enabled digital poster is ideal, due to the fact that within a few seconds the digital signage posters can be updated simultaneously and should a ad need editing fast it can be edited within seconds to ensure the rights ads are running at the right time.

LCD Enclosures Global Ltd manufacturer a wide range of LCD enclosures that are used for outdoor digital signage protection as well as digital posters for indoor use.