Advantages of Cellular Digital Signage and All-in-One Systems For Banking

Worldwide digital signage deployments continue to outpace analyst expectations, with the overall market doubling nearly every two years. Why? Simply put, digital signage broadcast networks are extremely effective at delivering messages and influencing consumers. As a world-leading provider of award-winning, cellular digital signage solutions, MediaTile is front and center in this communications revolution. In this article, I’ll begin by highlighting some of the key reasons for the increased adoption of digital signage in banking, and then discuss some of the key new technologies to look for when choosing a digital signage solution provider. Four specific areas of technology will be covered: Display Technology, Networking Technology, Control Software, or Software as a Service Technology, and Media Player Technology.

The Significance of Digital Signage
What is most significant about this new medium is its ability to deliver a greater degree of relevance and directly connect with a viewer to invoke an immediate response and action. With digital signage, you can create an emotional connection with consumers and attach your brand to their lives, which in turn creates loyalty and builds brand equity. Consumers can be educated and entertained while waiting in line, giving you the ability to promote services and intensify the customer relationship.

With an all-in-one, web and cellular-based digital signage solution, the need for on-site network infrastructure, setup and ongoing management is virtually eliminated.

Digital signage also eliminates the costs and waste associated with printing, delivering and ensuring that paper-based signage is implemented across all branches. In the US alone, nearly sixty percent of paper signs and paper-based displays are displayed incorrectly in consumer environments. With digital signage, you are assured of 100% message delivery compliance.

Although these are the major advantages of digital signage, the following key advantages of a digital signage network always seem to be top of mind with our banking clients:

• Reduce perceived wait times with entertaining content
• Create brand equity with an emotional connection
• Cut down on printing expenses, waste and clutter
• Train staff during bank off-hours
• Increase visibility and sales of new financial products and services
• Inform and educate current customers
• Target messages to neighborhoods and regions
• Ensure 100% compliance on message delivery

Unlike traditional communication mediums such as television, radio, and print advertising, digital signage networks can be used to send specific messages directly to targeted individuals when and where they make their purchase decisions. Promotions can be tuned to specific regions, or even a single location, and matched to the specific demographics of the clientele. In addition, digital signage has other advantages, such as the ability to program displays to run employee training content automatically during off-hours. Finally, with digital signage, promotional metrics can be easily analyzed, giving marketing and sales teams the ability to measure the success of their promotional campaigns and make ongoing adjustments as necessary.

And the biggest benefit of all: in-bank marketing research has yielded very positive results for MediaTile-based digital signage projects, with consumers consistently reporting that they take note of the displays, watch the promotions, and can recall specific advertisements and messages. In addition to this, other MediaTile clients have reported product sales increases anywhere from 17% to 270% in consumer environments.

All-in-one, cellular-based digital signage significantly reduces the costs and complexities of deploying and operating a signage network, while enabling more flexible deployments.

Display Technology
Technology choices are critical when it comes to evaluating and selecting a digital signage system and provider. It is vital that you look closely at the complete, end-to-end solution. Many vendors offer systems configured from a number of disparate components that include displays, servers and additional networking gear – all of which must be set up and configured at each location. This is where MediaTile separates itself.

MediaTile is the proud recipient of the 2008 Digital Signage Technology of the Year Award from independent analyst Frost & Sullivan for its fully integrated, cellular and web-based system. With our Digital-Sign-in-a-Box system and web-based control center, MediaTile delivers an end-to-end digital signage solution that simply requires power. MediaTile displays are all-in-one systems, each of which fully integrates a high-definition LCD display, media player, and built-in cellular broadband services. The entire system is controlled from a secure Broadcast Portal, accessible from a PC with a web-browser.

When looking at digital signage systems, it’s best to choose a pre-integrated device, referred to as an all-in-one display. For screen technology make sure you are getting a Hi-Definition LCD-based display. Not only will the image quality of an LCD be among the best in the industry, but your power consumption as compared to a plasma-based device will be far less. You should also look for a commercial-grade system with a high MTBF (Mean Time Between Failure) to ensure the longest life span possible, and a metal housing to stand up to the rigors of consumer environments.

Powerful media player technology should be integrated directly into the display housing, and not hanging off the back of the display, or loosely coupled in some other fashion. The media player should be able to process all the necessary file formats you require, something I’ll discuss later, as well as store all the necessary content, schedules and media files locally. Having a self-contained system delivers far more business flexibility and technology advantages with fewer points of failure and overall less maintenance and support.

For more sophisticated deployments and to engage customers at a whole new level, you may want to consider a kiosk-based system or touch-screen option. These are available on virtually every size display. MediaTile offers touch-screens across its entire product line, from 19” to 47” displays, giving customers the ability to interact and “call up” additional product or service information, add their email address to a mailing list, or perform even more transaction-based functions with a kiosk-based system. Recently MediaTile delivered another industry first – a combination large screen digital signage solution with a separate integrated kiosk system. This platform, called Kiosk-in-a-Box, Marquee Edition, delivers all the impact of a digital signage and the interactivity of a kiosk.

Multiplied by hundreds of locations, infrastructure-based digital signage networks require significant investment and management as compared to cellular-based digital signage networks.

Getting Connected
The vast majority of today’s leading digital signage solutions work over IP based networks. This enables complete control over the digital signage network for sending content, playlists and schedules, receiving monitoring information and audit logs, and performing remote and ongoing support and maintenance. MediaTile goes one step beyond a traditional IP based network by offering cellular-based IP network support.
Cellular-based digital signage technology delivers a huge business and technology advantage. First and foremost, with integrated cellular internet services, individual displays do not need to be connected to an on-site network, although they can be if required. This means the existing, and highly private, local area network within each bank remains uncompromised by the digital signage network, thus reducing any bandwidth impact or potential security threats to the bank. Finally, no additional on-site IT support or services are required to keep the signage network up and running.

Cellular broadband networks provide a relatively high amount of bandwidth for uploads and downloads. Because they are able to use the latest GSM and CDMA technology, cellular data networks can support peak download data rates of up to 3 Mbps Megabits per second (Mbps). Additionally, cellular networks use an efficient technique of deploying media data, called the “store and forward” model. Store and forward essentially means that digital content is transferred directly to every display that needs it.

An alternative cellular-based technology which is gaining popularity is the Cellular-To-Wi-Fi router. With this technology, each location uses a single Cell-to-Wi-Fi router to provide an internet connection via cellular broadband data services and communicates to displays using integrated Wi-Fi support. This hybrid alternative eliminates the need to connect to an on-site network, and eliminates the need to cable each display. In this configuration, each display integrates Wi-Fi connectivity support, accessing a single cellular-to-Wi-Fi router at each site. As mentioned earlier, MediaTile displays can be connected via Ethernet cable as well, if required.

Why create and manage an on-site network when cellular broadband networks already exist virtually everywhere. With a cellular network your on-site bank network remains uncompromised, thus reducing any bandwidth impact or security threats.

Controlling Your Network
The ability to control your digital signage network rests with the digital signage software platform used to manage content, playlists, schedules, alerts, devices, audit trails, user accounts and much more from a central location. All too often buyers are drawn to a digital signage partner with an impressive display technology, only to find the content management system unwieldy, confusing, non-scalable, and simply hard to use. In addition, many vendors still require the purchase of a software license which must be installed and configured at each location. If you’re looking to the future of digital signage, look for a vendor that offers a hosted, Software as Service model for your control and command center.

The command center for a MediaTile-based digital signage network is the MediaTile Broadcast Portal. The Broadcast Portal is a hosted, web-based application that provides an extremely powerful, easy to use means to control and manage a digital signage network, from one to thousands, all at the touch of a few buttons on your browser. On-demand 24x7, the MediaTile Broadcast Portal gives you any-time, anywhere access to your signage network. MediaTile also backs up its on-demand claims with a 99.9% uptime guarantee.

A content management system should enable multiple users to access and control the various facilities and functions provided by the application simultaneously. The system should offer the concept of “user privileges,” which must be assigned to each individual accessing the portal, to match their specific roles and responsibilities within the system. This ensures a system and workflow process with the built-in protection necessary to prevent unauthorized access to, or delivery of, content across the digital signage network.

Also look for a vendor that provides enhanced services that add dynamic content, touch-screen capabilities, and extended warranty support to get your network up and running quickly, and keep it running effortlessly. This includes services such as Weather, News and Custom RSS Feeds. In addition, worry-free guarantee services for fast on-site replacement might be required, as well as creative media services to help you generate professional, dynamic media that attracts and retains viewers.

Another flexible network option for banks is the cell-to-Wi-Fi router that eliminates the need to connect to an on-site network yet connects all displays to the internet.

Content is Critical
Content is still King!  Even with the best technology, what is on the screen is what matters most. Developing content that is specifically designed for your digital signage broadcast system is fundamental to its success. Concurrent with the deployment of a digital signage network, MediaTile engages clients with its Media Services Division to define a content strategy and ensure the best possible Return on Message (ROM). Evaluation of the Return on Investment (ROI) alone is not enough. You must also consider your ROM (Return on Message) for the complete picture in understanding the impact of content in driving ROI. ROM considers the objectives, messages and overall mission of the digital signage deployment. ROI and the elements of ROM may be weighted differently according to your goals. For Example:

• ROI 60%
• Enhancing Viewer Experience 20%
• Brand Equity 10%
• Associate Training 10%

Having a comprehensive content strategy and implementation plan that follows our Content Best Practices for Banking will ensure the success of your digital signage network.

Before you get started on a specific content strategy, you’ll want to make sure you can take advantage of the widest range of available media formats. By choosing a digital signage platform that supports a wide variety of media formats, your content group or advertising agency will be able to leverage and repurpose existing materials and campaigns easily without starting over from scratch. This will not only save your organization time, but expenses as well.
With any digital signage solution, make sure it supports today’s most popular media formats, such as dynamic Flash, Mpeg 1-4, WVM, AVI, JPEG, PNG, GIF, RSS feeds, and XML data schemes. Also take care to note whether the system supports or offers the prerequisite weather and news feeds; these are popular items with viewers.

As the Chairman for the Content Best Practices Committee for the Digital Signage Association, a global trade organization to further best practices and growth in the industry, I can assure you of a world-class deployment with MediaTile. For more information on MediaTile Content Best Practices for Banking, visit: www.mediatile.com/banking

About Keith Kelsen
As CEO of MediaTile, Mr. Kelsen has built a world-class digital signage company with deployments in more than 25 countries. For three decades he has held executive positions as CEO, producer and director, creating commercials, documentaries, and television programs that have aired internationally on HBO, TBS and PBS, and has been recognized with over 20 content awards.