KioskCom: Digital signage and kiosk content show & tell with Mickey Mouse

The seminar showed the variety of digital signage content, and the variegated ways of creating it. SapientNitro's Cobb discussed his agency's work creating a new user interface for a Samsung smart phone, and its work translating that interface into a demo kiosk for retail locations. Noventri's Conklin showed how his company, which isn't an ad agency but a digital signage solution provider that also provides content, developed a digital menu board for a train station coffee shop in Philadelphia.

Lenger's agency was the one that ran into problems with Disney, when it tried to put an image of Mickey Mouse in the same screen as the word "blood." Not surprisingly, Mickey did not end up appearing in the final version of the ad.

Siemens USA contracted with Show+Tell to promo a new allergy test for children on the ABC SuperSign in Times Square; the conglomerate already had partnered with Disney to come up with a storybook featuring Mickey Mouse and a giant named Kachoo to introduce the test. The creative brief from Siemens about the direction of the ad consisted primarily of a copy of the storybook, Lenger said.

The SuperSign, with its triptych format, presents a unique challenge for content designers. The sign has a left field consisting of a stack of several long horizontal screens; a mid-field that is one larger screen; and a smaller right field that curves around the side of the building marquee. Making sure the content works in each of the three areas is a big part of making sure the ad works as a whole.

But when Show+Tell sent back a first take of a proposed ad, Disney execs nixed Mickey Mouse appearing in the same field as text that talked about the test, which is a blood test.

Bringing in design director Lisa Kwon via Skype, Lenger went over how the ad agency revamped its content to just feature the giant, and showed the ad as it appeared on the famous ABC Times Square sign.

Show+Tell's Kwon discussed the finished Siemens ad for the ABC SuperSign

"Cooking up Content" was a serial lesson in how digital signage and digital out-of-home content can show up anywhere and in any size, from a nearly-600-square-foot screen in Times Square to a four-inch display in the palm of someone's hand — and in how to decide what content is right for which screen.

The three-part session started with Part One on day one of the show, and the final two parts bookended the last day of the two-day show. It also highlighted how the next big area of development for digital signage is content, which still has to catch up to the screens and technology displaying it.

"There needs to be more of a dialogue between the technical and the creative," Cobb said between sessions. "The people who supply the hardware need to wrap their heads around the idea that the content is what makes it engaging."

And while the content makes DOOH engaging, the creative people developing the content also need to keep in mind what they're creating it for, Cobb says, whether it's a cross-channel promotion or for a kiosk application: "It's a relationship."

But what he's seeing in the ad world bodes well for digital place-based media, he adds, whether it's on a digital billboard or a smart phone.

"I don't see how any ad agency could develop a campaign today without considering those things," Cobb said.

This marked the second year that KioskCom organizers included the Cooking up Content series, and the participation of heavy hitting ad agencies like Show+Tell and SapientNitro in this year's show could be an indication that the industry is starting to move toward improving the content on DOOH networks to match the hardware already out there – especially when considered with to the ad agency reps who attended the co-located Digital Signage Content Strategies Summit over the two days immediately prior to the show.

From ad agency specialists to information technology architects to signage hardware and software specialists who also craft content, the digital place-based media industry has room for a spectrum of content providers – and apparently needs them all.

"It's the content that delivers on the promise of kiosks and digital signage," seminar moderator Bunn said. "It's what delivers the value of those deployments."