The Revolution: Less BS
Note: this is a bit of a long rant…I tried to highlight the important parts. UPDATE 5/29/09: Also, I’m really not trying to offend anyone, although I already have. What I’m talking about here are more systemic, industry-wide issues that result from being a young industry headed up our growth curve, I don’t have personal issues with anyone in any of the organizations I talk about.
Continuing in my series about the ongoing (up and coming?) digital sign revolution: less BS. But first, I should better define what I mean by revolution. Or better yet, I’ll let someone else do it. Here’s Steve Gurley of Symon Communications take on the revolution, from the latest edition of rAVe Digital Signage:
Current trends clearly demonstrate that we are undergoing a revolution in the way people get information and interact with one another. It is clear that people have been abandoning traditional print media (newspapers, magazines and TV) in favor of information delivered via mobile technologies and the Internet. Text messaging, instant messaging and multimedia messaging have been replacing traditional voice communications as a primary means of rapid, distance-based personal interactions. Business professionals and consumers alike are increasingly presenting and taking-in concepts/ information via video, as witnessed by the rise of YouTube and similar video sharing sites and technologies.
So what does this revolution mean? It means that employees and consumers are immersed in technologies and media that are out of reach of employers or businesses. It means that employers and businesses must do something different to capture employee/consumer attention in order to influence their behavior. It means that employers and businesses must communicate with employees and consumers in a way that is fast, visible, highly graphical, up-to-date and to the point. Digital signage is the medium that companies are rapidly embracing to achieve these goals.
Simply put, “the revolution” is about more information-control in the hands of the information consumers. It’s been going on for years, thanks to things like the printing press, the media, telephones, cell phones, txting, IMing, social networks, the iPhone, etc. As Steve puts it, the challenge is reaching the consumers of information and one solution is digital signage.
However, a basic hurdle arises the more the consumers of information get control: they filter out the BS. It’s a waste of their time and they now can filter it out so they do. There are tons of choices/sources for information now, no consumer is locked into one information source unless they’re in North Korea or Cuba.
There’s been a discussion going on in the digital sign blog-o-sphere the past week or so which connects to my whole point. This is from a note that Digital Signage Universe sent out (hat tip: sixteen:nine blog):
While we expect a certain amount of embellishment in a press release, we also expect that it will be accurate. It seems that some companies have been pushing the envelope on their facts in an effort to gain attention and market share. At a time when we are all looking to raise the profile of the industry, none of us can afford to have our credibility damaged. Credibility matters—yours and ours.
We recently carried a release on our site (which has now been removed) that marked a new low for distortions of fact. We understand that this release had a significant amount of “blow back” for the parties involved, and so Digital Signage Universe will now be vetting releases more carefully from this point forward.
Digital Signage Universe is slowing down the process to make sure that the information we receive is indeed accurate, and that credit is given where credit is due. We ask that other industry news sites to do the same. Posting company news is rarely mission-critical, and accuracy matters more than speed.
Ouch! It’s unfortunately very true though, the digital sign industry is full of BS.
Culprit #1: Biased information presented as unbiased “news” (pay-to-play)
Several sources of digital sign information present themselves as unbiased, resources, presenting helpful, totally biased information to the digital sign researcher. To name names (please read the disclaimers further down before you judge me for being rude):
- The Digital Signage Group and Digital Signage Magazine, with other connections elsewhere, paid content is difficult to distinguish from journalistic content (NOTE: revised 6/3/09 due to my wrong impression of connections between entities, see, it’s confusing to even me!)
- DigitalSignageToday is directly connected to the Digital Signage Association, which is essentially a scheme to pay $1,000 a year to mask whitepapers and press releases as unbiased news reports
Think about it — if your paycheck comes from the company you’re writing about, is that a conflict of interest? Of course! I’m not trying to ruffle any feathers here, RedPost has gotten coverage/PR reprints by both the DSG and DST with no money exchanging hands, however, it’s simply disingenuous to present information as unbiased that’s totally, 100% biased.
Culprit #2: Press Releases
I am a big fan of PR/free press, however, unless someone actually writes a story on you based on your press release, they’re not worth much reprinted as is. Most of the industry’s PR is highly exaggerated or just made up. Fortunately, press releases are often so dense that, even though they’re full of BS, no one reads them (case in point). Take this recent claim from Scala that they sold their 100,000th software player, which, when pursued by Adrian at DailyDOOH, he was unable to independently verify their number:
15,000 in the four and half months of this year seems VERY high – yes they won the Sprint retail stores (1,300 licenses) and ECE Flatmedia but who else to get such a high number? Scala declined to comment on the makeup of the numbers which is stupid when you have just released a press release about them. Back up the numbers with fact or shut up!!
Good work Adrian. The blogosphere is great at cutting through the crap and keeping us all honest.
Culprit #3: Poorly designed content, aka tickers/split screens
This is a different kind of BS but something the digital sign industry is addicted to: split screens and tickers. Remember how Steve Gurley was talking about capturing attention? Split screens and tickers do not do this. They cause people to look away. Especially the younger demographics. Treat an information device like Headline News, and your viewers will treat it like headline news. Digital sign content needs to be simple, contextual, easily digestable and worth something to the viewer or it’s just a waste of money. And the more crappy content that’s out there, the more consumers become conditioned to filter it out.
Disclaimers
I must step down off my soap box now. Blame commenters Ross and Shirley for asking for more rants. Disclaimers:
- The digital sign industry is by no means the only industry experiencing these sorts of BS problems, the tech world has struggled with it for years and the journalism world is going through a huge upheaval right now with paid journalism jobs scant.
- I do embelish some in RedPost press releases, but I try to keep it pretty honest and I feel that the blog helps me do so.
- If I had the money to spend and the pay-to-play schemes were the best use of my marketing dollars, I’d pay-to-play. I haven’t made that call yet as I don’t have the money, so it’s easy to claim the moral high ground.
- I’ve spoken with/emailed the folks at the outlets mentioned here (DigitalSignageToday, DailyDOOH, others) often over the past 2 years and they’ve all been helpful, receptive, and friendly. I’m not bashing anyone personally, I’m bashing conflicts of interest which they individually have no control over.
My parting thought: As I see it, more BS in the industry means more opportunity for RedPost to thrive with a low-to-no-BS solution. So keep those press release/pay-to-play schemes going!
