Get a free copy of the ultimate digital signage primer, "Lighting up the Aisle"

According to an email I just got from POPAI, if you register for their At-Retail Media (ARM) conference by tomorrow at 3PM you'll get a free copy of Laura Davis-Taylor and Adrian Wiedman's digital signage primer "Lighting up the Aisle". I actually just posted a mini-review of the this great digital signage primer over at the WireSpring digital signage blog, so I can tell you that it's a must-read for anybody thinking about getting started with digital signage or interactive retail media. It also offers some great insights and much-needed perspective for those of us a bit more familiar with the subject matter, so it's by no means a "for dummies" book.

If you're interested in registering, click here to register or view a roster of speakers and a schedule.


For what it's worth, I went to the ARM conference last year and it was a really good, solid experience. This event is a one-day seminar that draws speakers from multiple different (but complementary) industries and managed to present both practical and theoretical information. Since my biggest complaint about these kinds of seminars is that they often stray too far into theoretical territory and provide precious little "take-home" knowledge, as far as I'm concerned ARM Expo 2006 gave POPAI real digital signage street cred.

While this year's conference features many of the usual suspects, Steve Yetsko's presentation on how to tell if in-store media is working could be the one to beat. Here's the synopsis:

Traffic counts and point of sale data only tell part of the At-Retail Media story. The book has yet to be written on what content mix makes digital signage advertising most effective. By utilizing video mining, Digital signage networks can become real world test labs to find out what content can attract, engage and motivate.

Plan on going?

Tags: At-Retail Media, ARM, POPAI, digital signage

Making an emotional appeal with in-store media

Note: I've cross-posted this to the In-Store and Retail Media News blog, since the subscriberships seem to be somewhat different (and unrelated).

Institutions spend too much time focusing on the science of shopping, rather than the art of shopping. So says The Integer Group's Meg Kinney in her article "The Art of Shopping," featured in the November/December issue of HUB Magazine. While that sentence might not appear to make a lot of sense on the surface (since when is shopping an art or a science, anyhow?), Kinney looks at the growing number of retailers who are focusing on ways to enhance the in-store experience, and comes to some interesting conclusions about what needs to be done to bring in-store media up to snuff in today's experiential retail environment.... Read the full article: Making an emotional appeal with in-store media

Tags: in-store media, at-retail media, digital signage, out-of-home advertising,

Impart Media Group Releases Web Portal Content

This is kind of interesting, depending on how they actually expect to sell it:

Impart(TM) Media Group, Inc. announced today the formal release of Impart IQ Streams(TM), an easy-to-use, web portal media source and library of premiere infotainment content for digital signage and interactive kiosks networks or applications. As of the launch today, Impart IQ Streams(TM) delivers sports, news, finance, entertainment, music, and weather in motion video, still graphic, flash animation, text, or IPTV formats to media players or to virtually any device via open standard, XML protocols.

Theoretically, that could mean that Impart would sell content to networks that they don't operate or manage, or that the content could appear on devices totally unlike the digital signage systems that are currently their focus. While there are relatively few good (and accessible) sources of content out there for syndication, I don't know if I'm totally comfortable with having a competitor sitting so close to my deals. On the other hand, we know that Impart has been looking for other business to bolster their financials, so it could be a legitimate attempt to enter another portion of the market in a non-competitive way.

Tags: Impart, digital signage, in-store media, at-retail media