More than 50 pages longer than the previous edition, Sign Gallery 6 presents recent Signs of the Times competition winners, honorable mentions, and others in this expanded edition of electric ...
Shrinking downtime is critical for EDS success.
The sign industry has proudly recognized our medium as the first form of advertising. A sign is a rudimentary vehicle, but an essential starting point for any retail establishment. Other media have developed and evolved, as additions to the basic sign, which has maintained its position as the guidepost to a business.
Programmable, electronic digital signage (EDS), as an advertising vehicle, came along well after mainline media’s evolution. As such, it became the advertising industry’s barely recognized stepchild and was used, predominantly, by guerilla marketers to add on-premise punch to larger, more traditional, advertising campaigns. EDS, for decades, was considered a changeable-message sign rather than a viable advertising medium.
Today, traditional media faces serious challenges from a host of new and viable advertising alternatives, including the new and improved EDS technology. With increased lamp brightness, resolution, color balance and dependability, the changeable message sign has evolved into EDS.
Today, it’s the talk of the greater advertising community. In the last year, dozens of stories have been written in such print media as the Wall Street Journal and Advertising Age. Local media has also covered the EDS evolution. Further, advertising agencies, which hadn’t given the slightest consideration to programmable signage, are adding staff to focus on EDS advertising and its content.
In this new business model, display manufacturers and sellers must acknowledge that limited reliability and performance could limit the medium’s overall growth.
Failsafe methods
Display technologies suffer occasional technical failures. Each is a complex assortment of interconnected electronic components that can be affected by surrounding environmental conditions. Therefore, accept, anticipate and prepare for the reality of periodic failure.
The financial impact of such failure is directly proportional to the display’s use. For example, if a business-front EDS fails, the firm loses exposure for the products and services that would have been presented during the down time. In the past, that was taken lightly, but it wasn’t an end-of-the-world scenario, either. Today, however, the display industry is more laden with higher performance expectations.
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