Coming attractions

For the media buyer, digital signage presents a host of new ad placement opportunities. The list of possible new advertisement locations made possible by digital signage is lengthy, and constantly growing: airport television networks, digital billboards, ATM toppers, web-enabled phones, PDAs, retail kiosks. Anywhere a screen exists - or could exist - advertisers are finding ways to serve their content to that screen.

Behind the scenes of these digital networks, complex software tracks ad rotation, logs day/time of ad display, specifies which ads get served to which media, and more. The software makes sure that the proper ads gets delivered to the proper screens at the proper times. Such software, as one can imagine, can be bewilderingly complex.

Scala, Inc.,

"It's extremely robust multimedia software that's been in the kiosk business for over nine years now, primarily beginning in Europe," said Michael J. Smith, former director of communications for Scala who continues to handle the company's public relations efforts.

Scala, founded in Oslo, Norway, built its business through sales to hotel chains and banks. Six years ago, the company moved its headquarters to Exton, Pa., though it keeps an office in Oslo. The company operates offices in California, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. Its customers include public kiosk developers and ATM deployers.

The field of broadcast multimedia software is currently narrow; Scala has few competitors. According to vice president of marketing Dennis Rizzuto, Scala's roots in cable television make it unique.

"[The] main strength that differentiates us is that we come from the cable industry," Rizzuto said. "All our products are connected to it. They're made for 24 hour, seven-day TV applications and must be able to do everything by user log, by scripts, and how often the message is delivered to your audience. It makes this a legitimate media for kiosks and ATMs. The software permits linkage to the systems adapted by the advertising industry. We are not reinventing the wheel Â… advertisers already depend on known play logs and proof of viewing."

RBuzz Inc., a firm that provides media management, has used Scala's products. RBuzz is attempting to form a global advertising delivery network that delivers advertising messages to digital displays around the world - everything from ATM screens to kiosks to Web-enabled cell phones and PDAs. One of the first challenges RBuzz faced was finding the right software for its deployments - the right media player to reside on each of these devices and deliver content.

"We looked at about four of the major packages," said Chantal Vaillancourt, president of RBuzz. "And we even started developing our own player when we were looking at the other products. It was a matter of two things - product and vision. The other companies just didn't have the same vision that we had. They were a boxed solution. But when we talked to [Scala CEO] Jeff Porter, these guys knew the network-centric deployment we were going after."

RBuzz is a young company - it has been in business for just under two years - and is still working at putting its infrastructure in place.

"What we've been doing is aggregating existing networks," Vaillancourt said. "We're deploying a network of 5,000 units in North America ourselves, and we've got folks with 10,000 and 20,000 units on their networks that they'll be adding to that."

Scala's Rizzuto said RBuzz is expanding its offering in the right way.

"Look at RBuzz, they are putting displays together that build on their existing technology but now help ATM manufacturers with messages," said Rizzuto. "We started with simple cueing systems in the banks but now have moved to ATM locations. The most compelling thing is that they are putting a display device over the top of an ATM machine. These are logically placed for the location - and they have your attention for the time it takes to make this transaction."

Scala's InfoChannel is priced at $3,000-$5,000 for the "master," and additional site licenses must be purchased for the kiosks the software will be delivered to.

"What we like about Scala is that it's got flexibility - it's scalable, and it really works well with other products that we're interfacing into with other customers," said Vaillancourt. "It's our product of choice for new customers, new networks."

"Electronic signage is the new thrust, but our kiosk manufacturers have always been the customer base for Scala," said Rizzuto. "Retail is starting to emerge for us Â… the stores and marketers in those stores see a value."