By Gerard Bucas, CEO, Scala
Digital Signs and digital signage are often associated with so‐called "In‐Store media" screens (aka "Retail TV") that are used to promote and re‐enforce branding and advertise specific products and/or promote special offers, etc in a retail store environment. Within the industry these type of digital signs are generally referred to as "customer facing" digital signs.
Although the potential for "Retail TV" digital signage is huge and generally regarded as the "holy grail" of Digital Signage, today there are probably as many (if not more!) digital signs deployed in so‐called "employee facing" applications. These type of digital signage networks are also known as "Employee TV" or "Corporate Communications" networks. This is an important medium used by large corporations to communicate with their employees, especially to those employees who do not working in front of a computer all day, for example employees working on a car assembly line, etc. As corporations expand (especially through M&A) or even streamline (through restructuring), there is an ever increasing need to better communicate with their employees so that the "mission statement" can be re‐enforced and the company’s growing employee‐friendly benefits and initiatives can be continuously communicated to all employees. In other words these networks are used to give all employees a more "warm and fuzzy" feeling about the company they work for. Even things like a regular (e.g: quarterly) "state of the union" addresses by the CEO are possible when a company‐wide Corporate Communications or Employee TV network of Digital Signs is employed throughout a corporation. Digital Signs, (large, flat screen displays) are generally mounted in the cafeteria (canteen), in assembly areas like coffee machines or water coolers, elevator hallways and even inside elevators. In other words anywhere where employees are likely to spend a few minutes of their day. In addition the same network can be used for lobby signage (e.g: “welcome to..” and “what’s on today”, etc) as well as conference room signage, clearly indicating which meetings are taking place where, etc. Of course such "Employee TV" or Corporate Communications networks can also be used for training of employees and this is often another reason why they are so widely deployed today.
So there is more to Digital Signage than simply advertising and/or brand reinforcing in retail environments!
To view a nice example of a customer facing example of a digital signage
project, see this youtube video: