Mounting signs in display cases, and then changing them periodically, will soon be a quaint, rather than a routine, practice. Computer sign design has now resulted in a new advertising realm. Remove the printer from the picture, replace it with a dedicated network of video displays and -- voila! -- the result is direct-market advertising via electronic digital signage (EDS).

This is being demonstrated by EDS designers, who are exploring various network infrastructures, comprising computers; video-playback screens (featuring plasma, CRT, LED or LCD technologies); and various distribution methods via the Internet, a T1/T3 line, a digital service line (DSL) or a wireless (WiFi) approach to establishing various electronic advertising display networks.

However, EDS networks may redefine the process by providing a new marketing spin and delivery options. One EDS provider, Kevin Comora, (president) of Vizicast Multimedia Solutions (San Francisco), sees EDS redefining how businesses market to their customers.

"Retailers and other businesses that use electronic signage can now offer their customers electronic signage that allows their business content to have more immediacy and relevancy," Comora said. "Through this medium, businesses can offer sign content as 'changeable messaging' that can be updated to adjust for time of day, season, audience demographics and just breaking news."

Setting up an electronic-display network requires computer hardware and software that features content creation, scheduling and distribution. Like any other sales challenge, selling a suitable electronic-media solution involves insight into the customer's strategy: What kind of content will the company create, and how and where will it deploy the message?

How display messages are transmitted through Scala's (Exton, PA) media network. Starting with Designer3, the message is created and sent to Network Manager, which deploys the message to retail sites for display. Credit: Scala.

Next, the salesperson must know the potential customer's goals. Is the company trying to increase its brand recognition? Is it increasing its sales or enhancing customer service? How many display screens will be allocated to each site, and where will they be located?

After the hardware has been chosen, and the advertising message created, the next step is choosing a display-scheduling package that determines the sequence of advertising spots (known as a "loop"), how many times the loop repeats and time adjustments that maximize the messages for specific audiences. A full-service, software package integrates all digital-content management, including network distribution, and monitoring and reporting the advertising schedule for client feedback.

Companies considering EDS typically "kick the tires" to test which scheduling software can match their particular needs and applications. Only the company itself can truly judge what's best for its needs. Two electronic media providers, AdSpace Network (Burlingame, CA), distributors of CoolSign software, and SCALA (Exton, PA), providers of Info Channel software, describe their journey to this new paradigm.

AdSpace Network builds digital-display networks. The company develops, licenses and supports CoolSign^®, an innovative, proprietary software (launched in 1999) that combines still and full-motion graphics with high-speed networks to display compelling advertising in public spaces. AdSpace also deploys and sells advertising as a separate business unit for the CoolSign Media Network, a nationwide network of digital displays located in high-traffic venues that are available to local, regional and national audiences.

Company co-founder Lou Giaclone described AdSpace's CoolSign software as a software package that encompasses several, sub-component programs (including display-content creation, and control and display features) that are "contiguous in passing the content from its creation as a single message to its transformation into a sign channel and final, on-site deployment via local and wide-area network distribution."

Mandalay Bay, a Las Vegas hotel/casino, is home to one the biggest installations of the AdSpace Network's CoolSign. One scheduling system controls 60 plasma-display screens carefully distributed around the resort. One location (right) is at the hotel gift shop. The same software also controls a full-motion videoscreen on the hotel's streetside pylon and manages the hotel's in-room television channel that promotes daily hotel events and activities. Photo credit: AdSpace Network.

The CoolSign package allows the client to use third-party, graphic-design software (such as Adobe PhotoShop® or MacroMedia Director) to create images. When working with different file formats, CoolSign versatility allows such disparate files as MPEG2 clips, Flash animations, TIFFs, JPEGs and text to co-exist in a single CoolSign file. Each individual, completed message is imported into a CoolSign schedule format known as a "channel."

Within the channel, each message is assigned individual instructions (known as "schedule-item properties") concerning its "channel behavior," such as the message's length, how it fades in and out, and whether the text and sales-price information incorporates into the immediate creative or is presented as a dramatic fade-in to increase aesthetic appeal. Other instructions organize each message's order of appearance in the channel and what time of day it will appear.

"Once the display channel is ready for presentation," Giaclone said, "it's just a matter of deciding where and when you want the content to play. This is where the control aspects of CoolSign come together, determining how and when the sign channel will be deployed."

Once a channel is completed, the final content is distributed to a client's retail site via a local or wide-area systems group, which places the various electronic displays into strategic, high-traffic locations throughout a store. Within AdSpace Network's varied customer base, more than 1,000 CoolSign displays have been installed in department stores, movie theaters, casinos, chain stores and shopping malls.

Electronic-sign designers may want to review a different opportunity via Scala's InfoChannel network. Scala is a manufacturer and provider of InfoChannel, a display-scheduling and management system founded in 1987. The company's software products are available to such media broadcast markets as corporate TV networks, interactive multimedia, cable TV and other EDS systems.

Because traditional broadcast models are enhanced by digital capabilities, the company created its InfoChannel EDS system to create and distribute out-of-home, private-advertising channels.

Outdoor electronic media was installed by Vizicast at San Francisco's Pier 39 tourist destination. An electronic billboard displays both advertising and public- service announcements. Photo credit: Vizicast.

Scala describes InfoChannel as a complete, end-to-end solution for digital signage. It covers content creation, management, distribution and content display. The product line is divided into three software packages:

* DESIGNER3, a multimedia authoring and scheduling program that offers custom design or templates to create finished, ready-to-display signage;

* NETWORK MANAGER3, a server-based application that can schedule Scala-based multimedia content to multiple display monitors or video screens; and

* InfoChannel PLAYER3 software, which receives the customer content for dedicated playback on a customer's site.

One distributor of Scala-based media networks is Vizicast Multimedia Solutions, a multimedia company specializing in the design, operation and maintenance of private-network, digital-display systems. The company provides complete turnkey multimedia entertainment and information systems to such vertical markets as hospitality, retail, universities, hospitals and cable TV companies.

"Our systems are used to present our clients' multimedia content to their specific audiences on a continuing basis," said Comora, whose company has installed more than 40 electronic-display systems currently in operation.

Comora said that Scala's InfoChannel software functions as an integrated software package that allows the created display content to travel seamlessly from creation to display. In its design stage (Designer3), its content creation allows users to combine TIFF, JPEG, BMP, GIF, PCX, WAV, MIDI, MPEG1, MPEG2 or QuickTime movie-image files into one script. Messages are compiled into loops, which are then distributed by the Network Manager and sent to the "Players" (CRT, LED, LCD or plasma screens).

Details -- such as how long the script runs, and where, when and how often it repeats itself -- can also be modified in the Network Manager, which will distribute the content to the client's site(s) or players.

Vizicast Multimedia Solutions represents Scala products as a value-added reseller and provides turnkey, digital-network systems, through either leasing or direct-sale opportunities. "Most customers who acquire Vizicast Multimedia Solutions systems operate it themselves," Comora said, "and they usually have a department within the company [it may be marketing, internal communications or the media group] to handle it, or they form one to do so."

Vizicast also offers training, which is two or three days of intensive, hands-on instruction that allows a user to proficiently operate the system. Or, Vizicast will operate the entire system on behalf of the display's owners.

Vizicast (San Francisco) has established a closed-circuit television channel for Seton Medical Center, a San Francisco Bay area hospital (Daly City, CA). Supporting three different media channels, Vizicast dedicated a separate media screen for each channel, one for the medical staff and two others for hospital visitors.

Comora said his business's general growth has increased other companies' awareness of electronic signage's benefits as a component of outdoor and indoor advertising - and how necessary it is to adopt the technology in order to provide competitive service. In addition, clients can readily see how they can directly reach their potential customers.

"Not only is outdoor doing well," Comora said, "but we think the next big electronic-signage explosion will be indoor displays within companies, to expand contact with their customers [fast-food restaurants, banks and public transit] and also to be in better contact with their employees."

Giaclone noted that, from a year ago to this business quarter, "business for AdSpace Network has grown almost 100% as the digital-media marketplace begins to define itself with a specific interest and need for in-store and outdoor electronic advertising."

If you're considering which scheduling system is best, all the usual contingencies are built into the decisionmaking process: What kind of budget is available? What are the actual applications? Who will manage it (you or a third-party media agency)? How often will content change? And what is the level of customer support and maintenance? The process involves many questions, tire kicking and perhaps a few sleepless nights, but it's no different than buying any other important piece of equipment. So, welcome to the future.