Digital Signage Group

Digital Signage Group hosted three one day forums in Sydney, Melbourne and Auckland in May 2011.  The events were aimed at inspiring and educating local industries (advertising, marketing, brand management, retail and digital signage suppliers) to the power and benefits of Digital Signage in retail environments.

Andrew McIntosh, one of the directors of DSG, attended Digital Signage Expo in Las Vegas in February 2010 and realised that he learnt more from 3 days attendance at a conference in the USA than he had in 5 years within the industry in Australia.  Off the back of this he approached three inspiring operators: The Imperative Group, Dynamic Retailing and Locamoda to participate in a series of forums down-under, knowing that by exposing the local market to the experiences of colleagues in the UK and USA the whole market in Australia would gain a leg-up in the learning curves of the emerging Digital Signage industry in Australia and New Zealand.

And it was a resounding success.  McDonald’s Australia commented that it was “the best conference they had ever attended”.

All major aspects of Digital Signage usage were covered: from the importance of planning a network rollout and KPIs to place on it; to learnings from the pitfalls of a failed network; to understanding the content strategy behind an in-store campaign and the shopper behaviour it influences; to inspiration and learning from the success of the Wallmart network now with xxxx viewers per week; and, finally, to the power of integrating smartphone, social and place-based-media to a network for maximum reach of target audiences.  Attendees received an overview of all of this in the morning and then elected to attend specific, highly targeted and intimate afternoon sessions with presenters from whom they could gain the most learning.

Being able to impart knowledge from independent international industry operators was key to n.gage’s success.  There was no sales-pitch angle, just pure learnings imparted for the betterment of an industry which finds itself 2-5 years behind its overseas counterparts.  Australians and Kiwis were given “red-hot” information without bias for the pure benefit, improvement and advancement of the industry and attendees of n.gage realised the benefit of this impartial advice.

There is no point re-inventing the wheel, and n.gage has been the first step in the process to construct a wagon for the marketing, retail and digital signage industries in Australia and New Zealand.  A wagon that will ride a path of knowledge instead of learning (and experiencing bumps along the way).

This may well be the beginnings of a regular forum, a place where advertisers, brand managers, retailers and digital signage operators can unite and discuss common industry issues, be addressed by international industry consultants and drive the wagon forward on a smoother path for all industry participants in the years to come.