Successful digital signage communication demands content that meets an audience’s expectations.

Whether it's suspended from the ceiling of a retail store, positioned near a gate in an airport terminal, or stationed in a hotel lobby, a digital sign has one basic function: to communicate.

Clearly, the types of communication -informational, promotional or advertising-related- are unique and different. What's the same is the expectation of the person responsible for the digital sign that it will convey a bit of information to its intended audience. All other expectations for the sign -like connecting emotionally with a viewer, branding a store or a product, or promoting a specific product or offer- are built on this single foundation. 

However, identifying the core function of a digital sign is quite a bit easier than actually executing that function. Why? Simply stated it is because digital signs exist in a media milieu that inundates, saturates and dominates the comings and goings of the public as it attends to its daily affairs. In other words, a digital sign has to compete with hundreds of other messages bombarding its audience throughout the day, cut through the noise and connect -even for one brief moment- with its audience just to deliver a few bits of information.

Granted, if that information is something a member of the intended audience is seeking out -such as directions or information to confirm what's going on in a specific conference room- making that connection will be much easier. But if the goal is to promote or advertise a service or product that passersby are only mildly interested in -or even worse- unaware of, making that connection to communicate becomes a more difficult challenge.

Fortunately, the tools and expertise to communicate with text, graphics, animation and video are widely available, relatively affordable and well understood. With 60-plus years of television under the nation's belt, both those imparting information with video and those receiving that communication have a long track record of communicating via TV.

Without question, digital signs aren't television, but they're about as close as one can get to TV without mounting an antenna to a tower and firing up a transmitter. As a result, digital signage communicators can use the common elements digital signs share with television to present their messages in a visual shorthand that anyone who watches TV understands.

It is worth mentioning, however, that the visual shorthand of television is in flux. The old nearly square picture tube that dominated the living rooms of America for the past six decades is giving way to the wider, clearer flat panel display that's capturing a growing share of the home TV market. In fact, that latest survey from Frank N. Magid Associates finds that 25 percent of U.S. television households now own HDTVs. That's 28 million dwellings in the United States where television viewing is done on a sharp, wide television screen.

The same survey found that the pace at which younger adults -ages 21 to 34- are buying HDTVs has quickened. It also found 28 percent of those buyers purchased an HDTV to connect the high definition set to a game console, such as a Sony PlayStation 3 or Microsoft Xbox 360.

The growth of U.S. HDTV households in general and the significant number of younger adults connecting them to a game console speaks to other side of the digital signage expectation equation: specifically what the digital signage audience expects.

Those responsible for digital signage content must take into account that their audience is developing an increasingly sophisticated visual appetite. Where standard definition video was once the cost of admission into the video game, high definition video will soon become the base line. Where organization of content on a relatively square, relatively low-resolution screen dominated TV, digital signage content increasingly will be organized into zones on a high-resolution, rectangular screen.

And finally, where rather artificial representations of reality once dominated TV  animation, true-to-life-looking animated elements are quickly becoming the norm. Given the Magid finding related to how many young adults are buying HDTVs to connect to a game console coupled with the stunning, life-like animation that's common in video games like Madden NFL 08 from EA Sports, it's clear the bar is being raised dramatically.

None of this is to say that digital signage content producers must hirer teams of digital cinematographers and 3-D artists. Rather, it's only a reminder of where the visual tastes of digital signage audiences in this country are headed. Keeping the viewer's expectations foremost in mind while creating digital signage content is the first step to realizing the only reasonable expectation a digital signage user can have: namely, to communicate.

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New flexible active matrix displays promise to change the shape of digital signage.

Research firm iSuppli boldly proclaimed last month that 2008 will be known as the year flexible active matrix displays coalesced into a global market.

According to the El Segundo, CA, -based market research group, market for flexible displays worldwide will climb from $80 million last year to $2.8 billion by 2013 -a whopping 35-times increase.

Applications for the flexible displays will range from the way-out-there clothes made out of wearable displays to more conventional display applications like digital signs, electronic display cards and digital shelf labels and end caps.

If you're not familiar with flexible active matrix technology, here's what they are in a nutshell. After much research and development, electronics giant Philips developed a technique for producing super-thin, rollable active matrix (i.e. pixel addressable) display that can be wrapped around objects --for example, a pillar in an airport concourse or a human body in a shirt.

Just this month, a paper in a nanotechnology journal laid out work of researchers at Purdue University in West Lafayette, IN, Northwestern University in Chicago and the University of Southern California who had successfully developed the first nanowire transistor-based active matrix display. The organic light emitting diode (OLED) display reportedly is every bit as bright as a flat LCD screen or CRT but has the added benefit of flexibility.

Think for a moment of the countless new applications there will be for digital signage based on this sort of flexible display. Architectural structures, such as pillars, supports and hand rails and even entire buildings; vehicles, such as tractor trailers and automobiles; personal items, such as apparel and umbrellas, all become potential homes for new flexible digital signage. While some surely will fail as appropriate homes form digital signage along the way, these sorts of applications are sure to contribute to the 35-fold growth iSuppli envisions.

As this technology matures so to will its performance characteristics. Tighter curves and smaller bends surely will follow with successive generations of these flexible displays. That in turn will lead to a whole new class of objects upon which the displays can be mounted. Eventually, it might even be possible to wrap a flexible active matrix display around a sphere to transform a ball into a globe displaying a computer graphic representation of the Earth -complete with landmasses and oceans. Or, 21^st century equivalents of sandwich-board men, could don head-to-toe body wear to display unique promotions and ads. Imagine how that approach could be used to advertise the popular, traveling museum exhibit of plasticized human bodies.

As these applications unfold, there will be a need to address the problem of mapping a two-dimensional image onto a 3-D surface. Here too technology can conquer the challenge. Software applications, such as X-WARP, exist today to correct for such geometric distortions. In fact, such software is being used today to correct geometric distortions created by projecting an image with a video projector onto oddly shaped objects.

However, for the time being it's enough to know that 2008 will be the year flexible active-matrix displays make it out of the lab and into the mainstream. If iSuppli is right, it's entirely possible that before the end of this year we all will have wrapped our heads around the notion that video, graphics and text no longer must be confined to a flat display technology. Where that leads will only be limited by our imaginations.

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A new report from research organization iSuppli identifies two significant hurdles it says must be cleared before digital signage ad networks get respect among advertisers and agencies. But maybe it's time to rethink the issue.

A new iSuppli report finds two significant obstacles remain before digital signage advertising can takes its place among other bona fide media buys by advertisers and ad agencies: a lack of variable audience measurement techniques, and a quandary on the part of ad agencies about how to get paid for placing digital signage ads.

The report, "Digital Signage Ecosystem Report," by Sanju Khatri, principal analyst for signage and professional displays for iSuppli, outlines the opportunities for digital signage networks as well as the challenges that must be transcended before they realize their potential.

In a press release promoting the study, iSuppli identifies the problems and how they are related. According to the research company, "advertising agencies are very comfortable in the traditional arena of mass media and print advertising, and are not compelled enough to insert digital signage into the plans of their clients. More importantly, these agencies don't necessarily know what their commission will be with digital signage."

iSuppli goes on to explain that without an effective way to determine the number of consumers being reached by digital signage networks there is "no effective means" to show advertisers that the dollars they are spending on the medium are reaping a quantifiable reward. In other words, determining the return an advertiser can expect from an investment in advertising via digital signage networks is currently impossible. This lack of a way to measure ROI impedes the growth of the medium.

According to iSuppli, those participating in the market have begun partnering with organizations like Nielson, Arbitron and POPAI to develop metrics to make determining ROI doable. However, there seems to be little agreement about what exactly must be measured.

While the lack of audience metrics and the difficulty ad agencies have in determining how to get paid shouldn't be underestimated, there seems to be an overarching issue at play here -one that if addressed could reshape the conversation. Specifically, the entire notion of jamming the digital signage ad network medium into the box used to define and sell other media -in particular television- seems a bit misguided and stifling.

Granted, there is an incredible temptation to lump TV and digital signage together. After all, on the face of it -literally- they look identical. But the differences quickly become apparent when you get past their physicality and begin to consider much less superficial issues, such as how an audience consumes messages each conveys, the types of information, entertainment and commercials each display, where each physically resides and how much time viewers spend with each.

Simply attempting to count noses in an effort to support an ROI model built on the 60-plus year history of commercial television, seems to miss the point. Digital signage advertising networks are a new, different medium. They deserve their own unique formulas for determining ROI.

One component of that equation has to be propensity of a digital signage ad network "viewer" to actually buy something. Isn't a smaller audience with dollars in its hands and a desire to buy something in the very near term more valuable to advertisers than home after home of passive TV viewers who increasingly are skipping through their commercials with a remote control and a DVR?

In terms of the comfort level of ad agencies when it comes digital signage ad networks, who cares? Look at what Google has done in a matter of a few short years to ad buys. Single-handedly Google may have done more to call into question advertising business as usual than anything that's happened in recent memory.

Perhaps decisions about ads on digital signage networks would be better left to corporate marketing folks with expertise in point-of-purchase promotional displays. Certainly, that business resource has vast experience in determining the ROI of promotional messaging at the point of purchase when compared to an agency concerned about television.

To a certain degree, digital signage ad networks may have themselves to blame for these hurdles. Selling something new is often difficult, so it's understandable that there's a powerful temptation to draw analogies with the familiar when making their pitch to agencies. When it comes to digital signage and advertising agencies, the familiar is naturally television. To extract itself from that limiting, stifling box will require digital signage advertising networks to do much more than address metrics and commissions. It will require taking control of defining the medium as it's own, distinct entity and value.

New high-gain screens make projection a practical solution for outdoor digital signs.

In cities all across America, digital billboards are springing up, bringing the benefits of instantly changeable digital graphics, images and text, to a medium where advertising contracts were traditionally sold for months or longer at a time.

As of January 2007, about 400 digital billboards populated the U.S. landscape, according to an article in The New York Times. Quoting a forecast from the Outdoor Advertising Association of America, OAAA, the article reported that about 4,000 digital billboards will be in use in 10 years.

A recent example of the use of a digital billboard probably encapsulates the reason why they're so appealing better than a 10,000-word treatise on them ever could. Digital billboard operators in Des Moines, Cedar Rapids, Dubuque and Waterloo, Iowa, teamed up Jan. 3 to deliver news from the Iowa presidential caucuses that was updated every seven to 10 minutes till the process was complete and Senator Barak Obama and former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee were declared the winners.

Having access to that sort of immediacy on such a scale in the outdoor advertising arena was unthinkable a few short years ago. What that translates to on a commercial basis is the same digital sign can be used to advertise hundreds and hundreds of products in the same day -not the same product for months on end.

To date, the dominant display technology responsible for these digital billboards is a particularly bright, particularly responsive light emitting diode -LED. Just as TVs -whether their LCD or plasma flat panels or old-fashioned cathode ray tube televisions- make pictures based on tiny discrete picture elements called pixels, light-emitting-diode-based billboards rely on an array of LEDs to display text, graphics and video. (Video is a major application in stadiums; it's more doubtful how useful or safe it would be if the intention was to communicate with drivers zipping down the interstate at 70 miles per hour.)

While highly effective, large LED signs are quite expensive and power-hungry. A Washington Post article last spring quoted an executive with CBS Outdoor, one of the three largest outdoor advertising companies in the world, as saying a 14-by-48-foot LED digital billboard costs about $450,000. With that sort of price tag, it's easy to understand why the OAAA forecasts their number to grow to only 4,000 in 10 years while there are about 450,000 billboards across America. It's also not too hard to imagine that full-on, high-quality video-, text- and graphic-based LED signage may be out of reach for literally hundreds of thousands of other outdoor signage applications.

However, there is an alternative. New high-gain projection screens, such as the XL-A-Vision screen from AccelerOptics in Carthage, Missouri, have the ability to reject enough ambient light -even the intense noonday sun- to make the use of video projectors a practical, affordable alternative. Depending on the type of configuration specified, this approach to outdoor digital signage can cost in the tens of thousands or dollars, not several hundred thousand dollars as with the LED-based approach.

Recently, the first major outdoor application of an XL-A-Vision screen went online in Grants Pass, Oregon, where the developer of a modern office complex installed a double-sided outdoor projection-based sign based on the high-gain screen. The 10.5-by-15-foot sign, which the building's owner has dubbed "The Paragon," offers all of the advantages one would expect of a digital sign, including the opportunity for ad sales to offset the cost of the display.

However, what really drives home the point of why this approach to outdoor digital signage is significant is the fact that the building's owner, Consolidated Financial, did not have the budget to pay for an LED-based digital sign. If projection-based signage made possible by a high-gain projection screen technology had not been available, the company would have abandoned the idea of installing an outdoor digital signage.

While the number of digital billboards using LED-technology will climb over the next 10 years, think of how many more applications for outdoor digital signage will be enabled by this revolutionary, affordable approach to projection screen technology. High-gain projection screens, like those used for The Paragon, may have as big of an impact on the outdoor advertising landscape -if not bigger- than LED-based approaches.

By finding the right digital signage partner, investing in content development and providing your people with the best training available, you can rest assured that your digital signage network will continue achieving the goals you set out for it far into the future.

It seems every day brings a new announcement in the digital signage arena -the release of a whiz-bang technology, a new vendor entering the market, some huge sale or formation of a new strategic business alliance.

While news of this sort is interesting and relevant, it can be a bit overwhelming. In fact, it can lead to a bit of paralysis in implementing a digital signage plan. Fear of premature obsolescence, or missing out on the next important development to come along, can retard progress and direct energy and attention away from the true mission, specifically, communicating effectively with clients, constituents or employees to advance the marketing or informational goal of the enterprise.

But rather than sitting on the sidelines waiting for some never-to-be-attained zenith of technological development to be realized before making the decision to proceed, wouldn't it be better to find a framework within which a digital signage deployment can be made that lets you respond and if necessary assimilate the changes that inevitably will come along?

Here are three handy rules to help you succeed with your digital signage deployment regardless of the changes that come along:

One: Don't just choose a digital signage vendor, select a digital signage partner. This is the crux of the matter. Technology continues to change at an ever-increasing rate. What must remain constant is an unwavering commitment on the part of your digital signage vendor to adapt existing solutions to meet your needs as they change. If that means writing new software, so be it. If it requires developing new drivers, new interfaces or taking any other steps needed to integrate "must-have" third-party components into the digital signage network, a true digital signage partner must be willing and capable of doing just that.

Two: Invest in your content. It's funny how many of the latest "earth-shattering" digital signage developments turn out to be small blips on the continuum of progress. What helps to inject a bit of reality into the latest whiz-bang announcement is the sense of security that your digital signage messaging is on target and accomplishing your desired goals. What does it matter if there's a new digital signage technology that will polish the shoes of people who approach a sign if no one ever stands there long enough to get it done because the content is so irrelevant?

Three: Invest in training your people. Whether they are in-house content creators, sales people securing advertising contracts or IT or AV managers tasked with monitoring the performance of the digital signage network, your people are your real assets. The better trained they are, the more productive your digital signage network will be.

There's nothing wrong with wanting the latest or greatest technology to be a part of your digital signage network. But you have to ask yourself just how important that is to accomplishing your real goal. If there's no other way to achieve your goal without adding that technology, by all means do so. However, nine times out of 10, if you take a moment to consider all of your options, you'll find that you can rely on creativity -whether it's in the realm of content creation, IT management or sales- to achieve the goal you desire.

By developing a partnership with a digital signage vendor, investing in training your personnel and devoting the resources necessary for content development, you'll position your digital signage deployment to best achieve the goals you've set for your network. You'll also have removed that element of paralysis that can set in when the fear that the digital signage network you're contemplating will become obsolete.

Determining the return on investment of a digital signage network isn't always easy.

Ask a savvy investor what's the five-year average return on the mutual fund he's using for his 401k investment, and he'll rattle off the answer quicker than the Fed can print money.

Ask a farmer how much a given fertilizer costs and how much bigger his crop yield is because of it, and he'll respond with more certitude than the rooster that crows at dawn.

Ask a digital signage network operator what's the return on investment (ROI) of his digital signage system, and the answer may be tinged with a degree of uncertainty and hesitation.     

Why? Because in many ways the factors that go into determining the ROI of digital signage can be a bit, for the lack of a better term, "squishy." Figuring out the ROI of digital signage can be like walking through a heavily rain soaked field. You know eventually you'll reach something firm on which to build your next step, but getting to that solid foundation can be a little tenuous.

Wouldn't it be great if it were as simple as looking at the cash spent to set up and maintain the network, measuring the cash generated or saved by the digital signage network, dividing the latter by the former and coming up with a return? While that might be practical in some digital signage applications, the "squishiness" of many others makes arriving at the return on investment of a digital signage network much more difficult.

To illustrate the difference, consider these two scenarios: a casino that's replacing all printed promotional signage with digital signage and a corporation setting up a digital signage network to communicate with employees.

In the casino scenario, the gaming facility typically spends $300,000 annually to print promotional signs and an additional $50,000 annually for the salaries of employees to replace old signs with new signs to update patrons on the constantly changing entertainment acts, restaurant specials and casino promotions.

By replacing the traditional signs with a digital signage network, the casino will have a one-time expense for the cost of the LCD or plasma panels, the digital signage media players, network cabling, routers, and ancillary hardware. Say $300,000, and throw in $50,000 annually to maintain the network.

For the sake of this scenario, the cost of creating content will be virtually the same. Graphic artists using Adobe Photoshop and InDesign to create print ads will now use Adobe Photoshop, Premiere and Flash to create content for the digital signage network.

Figuring out the five year return on this digital signage network is a snap: $1.75 million in printing and labor savings ($350,000 x 5) divided by $550,000 ($300,000 for the initial installation and $50,000 x 5 years for maintenance) = 318 percent return for five years, or about 64 percent annual return.

While there could be other factors impacting the total ROI of this system -like advertising revenue from allied businesses wishing to advertise on the network -this scenario illustrates that there can be a straightforward ROI assigned to some digital signage applications.

Squishy comes into play in scenario No. 2, the corporate digital signage network. A corporation installs a modest digital signage network that includes a sign to greet visitors in the lobby, several digital door cards to identify what's booked for various conference rooms and a digital sign in the corporate lunchroom.

The squishy factor in this scenario relates to identifying and measuring employee and visitor behavior as it relates to the digital signage network. Did a visitor to the company feel more welcomed when she saw a personal greeting on the sign in the lobby? Did that feeling translate in even the smallest of ways to a more productive meeting with the person she was there to meet? Did that translate into some monetary value?

Do the signs used as digital door cards inform the people of the right conference to attend? Do they reduce interruptions, help meetings to start and end on time, and in so doing improve productivity? Can that be measured? What's the monetary value?

Does the sign in the lunchroom create a degree of loyalty to the company by recognizing achievement? Does it improve the experience of employees by keeping them better informed of what's going on in and around the premises? Is there a monetary value that can be measured?

These sorts of benefits are much more difficult to reduce to a simple ROI equation because they're squishy. But just because they are squishy doesn't mean they are not important or real. Being squishy just means it's harder to identify the true ROI of the digital signage network, not that there is no ROI.

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More signs of the uncertain times ahead for traditional media in this country have emerged over the past few weeks.

Belo, which owns newspapers like the Dallas Morning News, the Providence Journal, and the Press Enterprise, as well as owns and operates 20 TV stations, said Oct. 1 it was splitting its holdings into two companies: The New A. H. Belo Corp., dedicated to the print properties, and Belo Corp., which will run the TV business.

Then E.W. Scripps said it would take a similar path Oct. 16 when it announced that it would break into two companies: E.W. Scripps Co., which will consist of about 20 newspapers and local television stations, and Scripps Networks Interactive, consisting of Home & Garden Television, the Food Network and Shopzilla.

At about the same time as the Scripps announcement, McClatchy Co., the third largest newspaper company in the United States, said its quarterly profits dropped 55 percent for the third quarter, a result of a weakening advertising market.

It's clear traditional media companies are suffering a significant decline in readership and advertising lineage. Many of the dollars once spent on newspaper ads are being redirected into emerging new media like the Internet as media consumers increasingly log on to online sources to catch up on their world. Hence, companies like Belo and Scripps are separating business units into stand alone companies to cordon off the drag on their revenue and sustain shareholder value and interest.

These are among the largest media companies in the nation. If they aren't impervious to the change brought on by new digital media, it's unlikely other traditional media companies will be able to continue down the same path they're on without making some course corrections along the way.

To be sure, Internet advertising is taking a sizeable bite out of the dollars once devoted to traditional newspaper, television, radio and magazine advertising. Another emerging digital media competing for its piece of the ad budget is out-of-home advertising, and more specifically out of home video advertising on digital signage networks.

In late January, the Out-of-Home Video Advertising Bureau (OVAB) formally launched with the mission of helping to provide standards and best practices for the newly emerging slice of the advertising industry. It was created by many of the largest out-of-home video advertising networks to remove impediments to the growth of the new ad medium.

One of the chief missions of the group is to help advertisers and those who run out-of-home video advertising networks work together "to plan, buy and evaluate the effectiveness of these mediums," said Mike DiFranza, president and general manager of Captivate Network, one of the 10 companies that founded the group.

The contrast couldn't be more apparent: On the one hand, many traditional media are scrambling to restructure so they can decouple business units with the potential to be profitable from those suffering from the re-allocation of advertising dollars to new digital media. On the other, a group like OVAB has emerged to help the fledgling medium of out-of-home video advertising build the advertising "street cred" that traditional media long ago mastered.

While it's a long shot, perhaps there's an opportunity for traditional media and emerging media, like out-of-home video advertising networks, to help each other. Why shouldn't traditional media integrate out-of-home advertising networks into their media offering? Certainly, they have the ability to generate content for the medium, they have the relationships with local businesses to both sell the advertising and secure locations for new signs on the network, and they have well-established market research resources to assist in building new audience measurement metrics. Conversely, why shouldn't emerging new advertising markets welcome the participation of tradition media, which can leverage its strengths to assist the new medium in its maturation?

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New figures from Austin, TX, based researcher DisplaySearch confirm the rise of LCD panels as the dominant display technology.

If there were any doubt left that flat panels have become the dominant display technology, replacing big, heavy cathode ray tube (CRT) technology, the latest findings and forecast from DisplaySearch in Austin, TX, should put those questions to rest.

In its Q3 '07 "Quarterly Worldwide Flat Panel Forecast Report," the display market research specialist reveals that CRTs will account for 5.5 percent of all display revenue in the quarter compared to TFT LCDs, which will generate 84.5 percent of all display revenue. In dollars that's $20.3 billion for LCD panels to $1.3 billion for CRTs worldwide.

Granted LCD technology finds homes in lots of applications far removed from digital signage -like mobile phone displays- so there is a bit of an apples-to-oranges comparison here. After all, how would you clip mobile phone with a CRT display to your belt?

Regardless, in the areas related to digital signage, LCD panels continue their skyrocket-like trajectory. Shipments of LCD TV panels rose 32 percent quarter over quarter and 64 percent year over year to 19.4 million units in the second quarter of this year, according to DisplaySearch. As might be expected, the average unit price for LCD panels fell three percent quarter over quarter and 16 percent year over year in the second quarter.

For those planning digital signage networks, that's an important point. LCD panel pricing continues to fall meaning a significant portion of the cost of their networks is declining. Those savings can translate in a variety of potential benefits, including:

Broader reach: For those contemplating expansive networks, lower panel prices can translate into greater reach. Savings can be spent on more panels to accomplish the network's primary mission or to fulfill secondary and tertiary goals. For instance, a digital signage network originally envisioned as an advertising play could be expanded with strategically placed signs to satisfy wayfinding needs or serve as reader boards for conference rooms.

Bigger signs: Rather than expand the number of signs in a network, savings can be used to acquire larger signs or multiple signs used in combination to create greater impact.

Better content: Savings resulting from lower panel prices also can be used to improve content played back on the network. Not only can the savings be used to improve the production quality of video, graphics and other visual elements, but they also can be used to add an entirely new dimension to the network's presentation. For example, the addition of weather instruments to sense temperature readings can be used to trigger weather-appropriate content. In a retail store, specific weather conditions could trigger the digital signage media server to playback sunscreen ads or ear muffs.

Not too long ago, TV sets connected to VCRs or DVD players dominated what was the precursor to today's digital signage market. However, as the DisplaySearch numbers reveal CRT sales are trailing off, replaced by what is quickly becoming the omnipresent LCD panel.

Consumers are voting everyday with their dollars for LCD TVs, and as they do are creating a mass market with mass market economies of scale that benefit those who are developing digital signage networks. Choosing wisely how to use those savings can take the success of their digital signage networks to new heights.

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A recent survey of marketing professionals revealed a general acknowledgement that their organizations need to get a better grip on what it takes to succeed in this emerging digital communications era. Here are a few tips on getting your interactive digital signage chops.

Fewer than 25 percent of respondents to a recent study of marketers, agencies and media companies said their organizations were "digitally savvy," while more than 90 percent reported they plan to increase what they spend on their digital marketing efforts.

That's an intriguing disparity and probably indicates a general recognition that the old methods of marketing must change to accommodate the potential digital media offer and at the same time an acknowledgement that new skills, tools and approaches must be acquired and adopted.

According to the study, "Marketing & Media Ecosystem 2010," a joint effort by the Association of National Advertisers, the Interactive Advertising Bureau, the American Association of Advertising Agencies and management consulting firm Booz, Allen, Hamilton, 51 percent of respondents identified limited experience with digital media as a significant as trouble spots on the horizon.

As Bob Liodice, president and CEO or the Association of National Advertisers put it: "The impact of new media is changing the way marketers interact, target and distribute their marketing message. As the marketplace shifts to a digital interactive environment, marketing organizations, agencies and media companies need to transform existing marketing agendas and capabilities to succeed."

While marketers retool for the new demands of the digital interactive, the natural tendency would be to focus entirely on the darling of the new media stage -the Internet. However, they shouldn't ignore other, new important members of the cast, including interactive digital signage.

To that end, marketers looking to retool for interactive digital signage should consider these five points:

• Repurpose expertise: Many of the creative skills, such as video editing and creation of graphics and animation, as well as strategic planning skills, like message development and demographic identification and targeting may already exist internally or as services from trusted vendors. Often, those skills can be redirected to exploit new opportunities presented in an interactive digital signage setting.
  
  
• Acquire new skill sets: Building interactive digital signage presentations may be new to you or your company, but the skills needed to do so have been around for at least 20 years. If your organization can't afford to take the time to learn these new skills, there is a sizable community of service providers who have been developing branching, interactive presentations for at least 20 years.
  
  
• Re-orient thinking about metrics: Interactive digital signage offers marketers instant access to consumer preferences and interests. Polling consumer interaction can provide valuable insight about which messages work, which don't and where to go next. Taking account of those statistics not only can help with tactical tweaking of an existing interactive digital signage presentation, it can also provide valuable audience metrics that can be used to build future strategic plans.
  
  
• Exploit opportunity for customer dialog: The thing that makes interactive digital signage interesting is the fact that it's interactive. Depending on the application, it may be entirely appropriate to collect user information and establish an ongoing dialog that extends beyond the first point of customer contact at the store. For example, one gardening center that's employed interactive digital signage collects user information that ultimately gets used to remind customers about fertilizer applications and other regular lawn and garden maintenance via mail as seasons and requirements change.
  
  
• Recognize and remember consumer behavior: The fact interactive digital signage is interactive means it's easier to keep track of consumer interest and respond with the right messages as needed.

Interactive digital signage presents marketers with many opportunities to advance their goals. But before they can be effective integrating interactive digital signage into their marketing mix, these professionals must absorb new skills and recognize the opportunities digital communications presents.

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The number of HDTV set in U.S. households is on the rise in the United States, so the time seems right for HD content on high-def digital signage networks outside the home.

HDTV is becoming a mainstay in U.S. homes. The Consumer Electronics Association said in June that it expects 16 million high definition televisions will be sold in the United States this year, raising the total number of HDTVs sold here to 52.5 million.

To put that into perspective, TV ratings specialist Nielsen Media Research estimated in August of last year that for the 2006-2007 television season there were 111.4 million television households in the United States. Even taking into account that some households own more than one HDTV set, it's clear that HDTV has transitioned from an interesting peculiarity to a mainstay of TV viewing. In fact, the CEA forecasts that by the end of the year 36 percent of U.S. households will have an HDTV.

Digital signs -many of which are based on the same sort of flat screen LCD and plasma technology as the HDTVs in U.S. homes- find themselves afloat in this growing sea of first-hand experience with high definition and a rising level of expectations.

Savvy marketers using digital signage networks will acknowledge the proliferation of high-def sets in the home and work to upgrade their networks and the content they display to high definition. Why? Because that's what their customers who own HDTVs say they want.

Last week, Nielsen Media Research released the findings of a poll of HDTV owners that revealed a wide chasm between their attitudes towards the quality of image they see on their screens and the amount of HDTV programming they can watch. Asked to rank their satisfaction on a scale of 1 to 5 (with "5" meaning "excellent" and "1" meaning "poor"), almost 48 percent of respondents said the quality of the image on their screens deserved a "5," while only 11.7 percent ranked their HD program selection at the same level.

Conversely, the ratings and research organization found only about 3 percent rated their HDTV picture quality as poor ("1") or below average ("2"), while more than 21 percent considered their HD programming selection to be a "1" or a "2."

I believe these findings reveal how critical it is for marketers to not only begin getting serious about upgrading their digital signage networks to HD, but also underscore how critical it is for them to play back high definition content on the HD displays that are part of those newly upgraded networks.

So much of marketing and advertising is intertwined with creating perceptions and feelings on the part of customers and prospects, that to ignore the increasing presence of high definition televisions in the homes of Americans is to risk being seen as passé, dated and out-of-step. In other words, if nearly 4 in 10 of the people looking at a digital signage network in a retail store this shopping season already have HDTVs in their homes, doesn't that mean as many as 40 percent of potential customers may wonder why the quality of the digital signage presentations they see  looks inferior to their home sets? How do such questions impact the perceptions those retailers wish to create?

And that's not all. The Nielsen Media study explicitly pointed out the level of dissatisfaction among HDTV owners with the amount of high definition programming available to them. The message for those responsible for digital signage networks is clear. It's not good enough just to have HD displays. The content played back on those display needs to be high-def, too.

To ignore the presence of HDTV in U.S. households and the desire to view actual HD programming is to turn a blind eye to the environment in which digital signage networks exist. Doing so could prove to be perilous.

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