Social Media/Networking and community attitudes in general are driving changes in the way people view advertising.  The old style based on interruption (eg TV commercials, pop ups etc) are now seen as annoying and something to avoid. The quality of ad content is another factor …people no longer accept being shouted at and treated as sheep that need to be driven to buy more.

The Internet is driving a change towards an expectation of being educated, engaged  and entertained. As such business needs to deliver valuable information if it expects to sell……not merely promotions.

Some recent research shows that businesses that use Social Media well spend 80% of their time on the 3 E’s and 20%  on promoting or selling.

At the same time people and business are more concerned about environment and community issues.  Business also craves credibility as they seek to develop their own consumer communities and develop brand advocates.

As such there are moves beyond old style sponsorship to leverage credibility from Sports, Charities etc to a much closer involvement between business and Not for Profits.

Governments also are seeing the need for closer alliances with business and the need to use new ways to raise money outside the normal Govt Budget process. A m,ajor State Govt Dept is about to  undertake a multi million dollar project with no budget.  They want to work with business to leverage expertise and fund with advertising.  As they say “we have assets and we am willing to trade”.

Then we add a new approach to the creative approach to advertising which sees products promoted within programs (eg MasterChef) which includes ad agencies now creating TV programs as a vehicle to sell their clients.

Online we see Branded Content rather than pop ups and click through,  where advertisers sponsor sites, pages etc where the independently produced content is relevant to the type of advertising.

What can we learn from this in terms of the expected rapid growth in Digital Out of Home Signage..

Not for Profits (incl Govt Agencies) can now “own” their own signage networks to display material important for them to Educate, Engage and Entertain (eg Smart Bus Stops) and at the same time use them to generate revenue.

Shopping centres and streets are used now for Charities to sell badges, raffles etc and seek donors and major companies love to make big donations to look good.

Lets take a quick example of the Heart Foundation which does all of the above and also uses Digital Signage now.Community Signage Networks

They also run a Tick program which delivers credibility to food etc manufacturers by providing an endorsement for healthy products.

They could now go to venues with Digital Screens and have them join the HF Community Info Network.  They would also go to advertisers (their current supporters) and sell them on paying to support branded content on the network.

As such the ads would be in sync with the community health messages ….  screens could be used to download Videos, Diets, BMI calculators, apps etc, which could include direct sales of “sponsors” products.

The times are right on many fronts as listed above to take a new approach to digital signage and this Community approach is definitely one way to do this.

Only 3 years ago digital signage meant high costs and static content with no consumer direct interaction, with most systems being totally advertising driven.

Today digital signage is delivered in a variety of formats including full HD motion video, static images and live, real time, RSS media News feeds etc via the web direct to the consumer – IBUL-Media’s Platform I-Connect and I-Engage can deliver accessibility, localisation, personalisation and accountability for all types of content today.

There is now a New World of consumer driven communications where Mobile, Web (social media) and digital signage combine to provide a real-time retail environment anywhere with instant information access – the consumer today is now in charge and expects this instant information.

Today it is about media convergence using the web (social media), Mobile interactivity applications, and digital signage to reach the consumer anywhere to deliver services and products including direct online sales and home delivery.

There is now a vast opportunity to leverage culture, strategy, and technology to engage with consumers and increase brand and marketing share and in any vertical market.

IBUL-Media with its I-Connect and I-Engage platform applications provides a number of features that deliver smart signage to venues it links including:

• Digital Branded Content – Content & advertising in sync to increase dwell time (with metrics)
• Online shopping (a unique complete branded shopping channel)
• IPTV to Out of Home (dwell time audience with in home services)
• Music (Music, Videos, Radio, download and news)
• Back office (Business intelligence, CRM)
• Mobile (Coupon, QR Codes, Bluetooth and locational based services)
• Web (Social Media)

Other integrated services across channels

• Web – Loyalty and promotions
• Mobile – loyalty and lookup • In store signage and check-out or online sale and home delivery

QR creation and tracking

• QR code tags for product as well a coupons
• QR Code tags are unique to site and product enabling measurement of sales
• Can be linked to website to enable other service

Social Media Integration

• Campaigns can target the brand’s public facing presence
• Consumers can share their interest in a product with friends using Facebook, Twitter etc.

IBUL-Media digital platform I-Connect and I-Engage applications include:

• Fully developed software and hardware technology
• Unique WiFi poster application
• Full managed global service Broadband and hosting
• Mobile applications and interactions including location based loyalty programs
• Mobile vouchers and QR Code tags
• Bluetooth Proximity marketing applications
• Online shopping service
• Global content partners

There has been a tremendous uptake of digital signage within the education over the last few years with schools and universities deploying multi-site ‘school information systems’ to keep visitors, pupils and teachers informed of the many and varied activities. IBUL-Media working with SLTV is the platform of choice for many schools, colleges and universities in the Yorkshire area that looking for a simple, yet powerful solution for managing a wide range of connected players from a single display in a reception area, through to PC screensavers to keep students informed of school activities.

Only 3 years ago digital signage meant high costs and static content with no consumer direct� interaction, with most systems being totally advertising driven.

Today digital signage is delivered in a variety of formats including full HD motion video, static images and live, real time, RSS media News feeds etc via the web direct to the consumer – IBUL-Media’s Platform I-Connect and I-Engage can deliver accessibility, localisation, personalisation and accountability for all types of content today.

There is now a New World of consumer driven communications where Mobile, Web (social media) and digital signage combine to provide a real-time retail environment anywhere with instant information access – the consumer today is now in charge and expects this instant information.

Today it is about media convergence using the web (social media), Mobile interactivity applications, and digital signage to reach the consumer anywhere to deliver services and products including direct online sales and home delivery.

There is now a vast opportunity to leverage culture, strategy, and technology to engage with consumers and increase brand and marketing share and in any vertical market.

IBUL-Media with its I-Connect and I-Engage platform applications provides a number of features that deliver smart signage to venues it links including:

• Digital Branded Content – Content & advertising in sync to increase dwell time (with metrics)
• Online shopping (a unique complete branded shopping channel)
• IPTV to Out of Home (dwell time audience with in home services)
• Music (Music, Videos, Radio, download and news)
• Back office (Business intelligence, CRM)
• Mobile (Coupon, QR Codes, Bluetooth and locational based services)
• Web (Social Media)

Other integrated services across channels

• Web – Loyalty and promotions
• Mobile – loyalty and lookup
• In store signage and check-out� or online sale and home delivery

QR creation and tracking

• QR code tags for product as well a coupons
• QR Code tags are unique to site and product enabling measurement of sales
• Can be linked to website to enable other service

Social Media Integration

• Campaigns can target the brand’s public facing presence
• Consumers can share their interest in a product with friends using Facebook, Twitter etc..

IBUL-Media digital platform I-Connect and I-Engage applications include:-

• Fully developed software and hardware technology
• Unique WiFi poster application
• Full managed global service Broadband and hosting
• Mobile applications and interactions including location based loyalty programs
• Mobile vouchers and QR Code tags
• Bluetooth Proximity marketing applications
• Online shopping service
• Global content partners

The IBUL-Media Platform is unique in it’s cost effective approach to product deliver and back up services as follows:

1)� � � � � � Implementation can now be incredibly fast and cheap compared to Original DOOH – say $1500 to $5000 and installed within 30 days compared to $20,000 – $80,000 for the old big out door stuff. This means low risk and fast ROI

2)� � � � � � All screens now connected directly to the internet which means up to date content.� All content can be changed within 30 minutes from anywhere in the world, which means the message to market is relevant, up to date and in sync with the audience at the time. It also means there are no longer overheads including sending people or disks, usb sticks etc to the venue to manually up date the content. So low cost of ownership and real time updates.

3)� � � � � � Venue Owners can add their own content to the screens as simply as adding an image of Facebook. This means venue owners have as much control as they want over control and can easily use the screens for their own daily marketing messages. In the past they had no say or control over content and never really benefitted from having the screens in place.

4)� � � � � � Integration with mobile devices and technologies means that marketing shown on screen can now prompt a call to action (e.g. process the sale) and reach consumers up to 1000 metres away. In the past signage marketing was just blasting out brand images and hoping for response. We now provide ways to encourage a response at the point where the advertisement is seen and that response can now be easily measured.

5)� � � � � � The open approach of our infrastructure means 3^rd party content providers and advertiser can change their own images or videos without coming anywhere near our I-Connect management systems. The content is automatically sucked through to our system and immediately shown on screen. This reduces many costs associated with content creation, content management, content scheduling and content deployment to end screens.

6)� � � � � � For brand advertisers this means instant access to a targeted crowd at any time on any day. Brand advertisers have never had this level of access to consumers at this speed and with this much targeted accuracy. i.e. they know who is viewing. Changing the messages when and where they want every 30 minutes. Now that is very powerful and so we can charge a premium price to the brand advertisers using it.

7)� � � � � � For venue owners and advertisers the creation and display of new marketing comes at almost zero cost. The artwork can leave the designers pc and once approved can be on any screen in seconds. For agencies and business owners used to spending hundreds if not thousands on printing cost this will be very attractive alternative option.

The industry is in flux. A seismic shift in consumer behaviour is pulling at the fabric of how individuals communicate, broadcast messages, share content, and interact with businesses and brands.

IBUL-Media provides the education, training, infrastructure and management so that a business can utilise all the advantages of consumer centric communicaitons without having to worry about the how.