Here's an example of a digital signage promotional campaign gone awry at a local veterinary hospital:
Someone clearly spent some marketing budget on a digital sign that they intended to promote their product at the shelf for an up-sell opportunity in the waiting room. Naturally I am instinctively drawn to see what is being promoted by whom and how in a scene like this, but I was disappointed to find the unit powered off - you can see the rectangular supply laying atop the counter without a power cord.
While there are any number of plausible explanations for this scene, I was immediately stricken by some distinct possibilities that afflict other electronic sign options. The first (most obvious and common) was that the unit was unplugged by an employee of the facility or their cleaning service and it simply was not plugged back in. In truth it could be any reason, but regardless, it boils down to two questions: why was it unplugged, and why hasn't anyone noticed?
To the former, sometimes it's simply that the additional power outlet was needed for something else. But sometimes it's more sinister: employees are annoyed by the audio, or "feel bad" about leaving it running when they close up shop for the night. Through its native remote management and scheduling automation, the Mediacast System addresses these issues by permitting the display network operator to make adjustments to volume levels as well as to schedule operational hours so that the display visibly turns itself off, thus lessening the temptation for employees to pull the plug on the unit.
(As a side note, while the appropriateness of audio in content is always a consideration for effective business communication in any given deployment, if audio is necessary, it is best to follow-up with the employees at the establishment to ensure that it is not irritating which could leave a lasting, negative impression of your brand!)
Another possibility is that the content became out-dated - perhaps there was a recall on something being promoted, or the product was discontinued, or there was some other rights issue with the media... any of a dozen reasons that the media has to stop playing, and now. For other electronic sign platforms, there is no way to remotely manage the content at all; they require an operator to physically come to the site and change out a memory stick or disc, etc. So until they can come out to the site to change out the media, when it comes to issues like those mentioned, their only recourse is to pull the power.
From day one the Mediacast System has provided a purely remotely managed store-and-forward content distribution method with the assumption that our customers have better things to do than constantly visit their display locations to change media. Using the web-based Mediacast Digital Signage SaaS, you upload your content to the portal, then remotely distribute it to the Internet-connected display network - take control without stepping foot into the remote sites.
The other nagging question is why, after several months (and missed opportunities) of sitting like this, has nobody noticed that the display is offline? The answer in many cases is: because nobody is watching. The Mediacast system provides a flexible alert notification system that dispatches emails to selected individuals if a display goes offline. The idea is to dispatch a technician or other field representative to the site so as not to prolong a simple problem.
The automated monitoring also keeps an active status on the displays so that even if the email is missed initially, operators logging into the portal system on a regular basis as able to see displays that have a problem.
(As an annecdotal side bar, we once had a display go offline for a customer running a network in a major consumer electronics retailer at the end-cap of one of the aisles. The assigned technician phoned up the appropriate department and inquired about the unit; when the store employee checked on it, they found that another employee had disassembled the end-cap display and was preparing to install a different vendor's display in the same location. This turned out to be miscommunication internally on the part of the retailer and the end-cap was properly restored, but it shows the value of expedient response; had the materials been boxed up and sent off to the back of a warehouse in a busy environment like that, they might never have been located and recovered.)
As you can see, it is only a matter of time before this vendor's counter top becomes general purpose storage because the dead screen doesn't look like it needs to be visible. The only thing I'm left wondering is how much time is needed for the sorry thing to finally decompose and disappear like so much dust in this otherwise quiet and solemn environment.
Someone clearly spent some marketing budget on a digital sign that they intended to promote their product at the shelf for an up-sell opportunity in the waiting room. Naturally I am instinctively drawn to see what is being promoted by whom and how in a scene like this, but I was disappointed to find the unit powered off - you can see the rectangular supply laying atop the counter without a power cord.
While there are any number of plausible explanations for this scene, I was immediately stricken by some distinct possibilities that afflict other electronic sign options. The first (most obvious and common) was that the unit was unplugged by an employee of the facility or their cleaning service and it simply was not plugged back in. In truth it could be any reason, but regardless, it boils down to two questions: why was it unplugged, and why hasn't anyone noticed?
To the former, sometimes it's simply that the additional power outlet was needed for something else. But sometimes it's more sinister: employees are annoyed by the audio, or "feel bad" about leaving it running when they close up shop for the night. Through its native remote management and scheduling automation, the Mediacast System addresses these issues by permitting the display network operator to make adjustments to volume levels as well as to schedule operational hours so that the display visibly turns itself off, thus lessening the temptation for employees to pull the plug on the unit.
(As a side note, while the appropriateness of audio in content is always a consideration for effective business communication in any given deployment, if audio is necessary, it is best to follow-up with the employees at the establishment to ensure that it is not irritating which could leave a lasting, negative impression of your brand!)
Another possibility is that the content became out-dated - perhaps there was a recall on something being promoted, or the product was discontinued, or there was some other rights issue with the media... any of a dozen reasons that the media has to stop playing, and now. For other electronic sign platforms, there is no way to remotely manage the content at all; they require an operator to physically come to the site and change out a memory stick or disc, etc. So until they can come out to the site to change out the media, when it comes to issues like those mentioned, their only recourse is to pull the power.
From day one the Mediacast System has provided a purely remotely managed store-and-forward content distribution method with the assumption that our customers have better things to do than constantly visit their display locations to change media. Using the web-based Mediacast Digital Signage SaaS, you upload your content to the portal, then remotely distribute it to the Internet-connected display network - take control without stepping foot into the remote sites.
The other nagging question is why, after several months (and missed opportunities) of sitting like this, has nobody noticed that the display is offline? The answer in many cases is: because nobody is watching. The Mediacast system provides a flexible alert notification system that dispatches emails to selected individuals if a display goes offline. The idea is to dispatch a technician or other field representative to the site so as not to prolong a simple problem.
The automated monitoring also keeps an active status on the displays so that even if the email is missed initially, operators logging into the portal system on a regular basis as able to see displays that have a problem.
(As an annecdotal side bar, we once had a display go offline for a customer running a network in a major consumer electronics retailer at the end-cap of one of the aisles. The assigned technician phoned up the appropriate department and inquired about the unit; when the store employee checked on it, they found that another employee had disassembled the end-cap display and was preparing to install a different vendor's display in the same location. This turned out to be miscommunication internally on the part of the retailer and the end-cap was properly restored, but it shows the value of expedient response; had the materials been boxed up and sent off to the back of a warehouse in a busy environment like that, they might never have been located and recovered.)
As you can see, it is only a matter of time before this vendor's counter top becomes general purpose storage because the dead screen doesn't look like it needs to be visible. The only thing I'm left wondering is how much time is needed for the sorry thing to finally decompose and disappear like so much dust in this otherwise quiet and solemn environment.
As a brief introduction, my involvement with 
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