Digital signage has recently been a hot topic. A recent DD piece reported on the growth forecast by DisplaySearch for large-screen (32" and larger) signage displays of 44% Y/Y 2008 - 2009 and an overall 2008 - 2013 CAGR of 31%. According to DisplaySearch, virtually all of the growth will be in LCD not PDP, with 4.1M LCD and 765K PDP forecast for this market for 2013.

Matt Brennesholtz
Insight Media Analyst

This is big business. For example, there will be over 150 exhibitors at the upcoming Digital Signage Expo in Las Vegas on February 24-26, co-located with the related Interactive Technology Expo and the Out-of-Home Network Show. This is up from 120 exhibitors last year.

Advertising is the key to this sort of digital signage and for this sort of growth to be achieved and maintained it is necessary for the advertising to work. Does it? Lets look at a case study at Volkswagen Group (UK) Ltd, as reported in Digital Signage Magazine.

As a test, last year they conducted a trial at seven VW dealers over a six-month period, using signage to promote MP3 and GPS navigation system upgrades. The dealers experienced a four-fold increase in sales of these upgrades as compared with other Volkswagen dealers. These eyebrow-raising results spurred Volkswagen to begin rolling out its national multimedia network in December, with all 230 dealers probably on-line now.

Each dealer has a 42-inch LCD screen in the customer service area and some dealers installed a second screen and/or rear projection display in the sales area. The Volkswagen TV (VTV) content is different in the service and sales areas, with the sales area screen displaying the latest vehicle images and videos together with news about Volkswagen events and local dealer offers.

VTV content is managed from the Volkswagen head office in Milton Keynes, UK. Connectvision software developed by Saturn Communications Group is used to add, schedule and distribute content to all screens in the network. A sample of the content is on-line at the Connectvision website.

To reduce IT security and network capacity issues at each dealership, the LCD screens are supplied with a dedicated PC, which provides the on-screen content and is updated on-line by Volkswagen’s marketing team. The screen layout is split into three areas to show car video images, Volkswagen news and special promotional offers as text at the bottom of the screen.

Insight Media agrees with DisplaySearch: the digital signage market is hot and going to get hotter. Results like Volkswagen’s can, and will, drive the whole industry.

Note: For ongoing news in the digital signage and other large screen markets, you can subscribe to Insight Media’s Large Display Report. For specific information on the emerging 3D digital signage market, see the Insight Media 2009 Autostereoscopic 3D Displays in Signage and Professional Applications report.