Why Traditional Sign Companies Should Care About Digital Signage

As the newly elected chairman of the Digital Signage Federation (DSF), I am taken aback by those who ask, "Why should traditional sign companies care about digital signage?”

My immediate response is “for survival.” Why wouldn’t business people be interested in industry advancements and how it might impact their livelihoods?

More concretely, the first reason to seriously consider expansion into the digital-signage sector is that there is a lot of money to be made – a great way to counter the relatively slow growth and increasing competitiveness in the traditional sign industry. The ISA in partnership with Roland DGA produced a white paper on this subject entitled, “Dynamic Digital Signage Opportunities for Sign Companies,” which said:

"Given that signage customers, in general, are prime candidates to embrace dynamic digital, it only makes sense for sign shops to offer it. It goes without saying that, as a signshop owner, you want your customers to buy any and all signs from you. If you require them to go elsewhere to purchase dynamic digital signage you are potentially giving a competitor a foot in the door. Adding dynamic digital signage into your product portfolio will both increase your revenue potential and protect the customer relationships you’ve cultivated."

Not everyone recognizes new business opportunities; most business people are engrossed in their own company and are comfortable doing what they already know and do well. For example, what do you really know about technologies such as OLED, graphene or carbon nanotubes and the inroads they are making in the marketplace? One of these could make your profession obsolete in the near future.

Yet embracing opportunity often means evolving out of that comfortable space, investing time and resources to expand in a new direction before the market forces your hand.

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Any number of traditional sign shops have expanded into digital signage for this very reason. In spring of 2013, Carrolton, TX-based FastSigns partnered with Samsung Electronics America. FastSigns quickly made the company’s digital signage solutions available to their 450 franchise locations nationwide.

Historically, when technological advances have portended change in other industries, there were always those who ignored them, only to find, later, that the market had moved forward without them.

The clearest recent example is Blockbuster, a company that had it all: our loyalty, our credit card numbers, our addresses, our habits. They should have had us as customers for years to come. But they failed to embrace new technology and, more importantly, recognize how it was changing the industry they had once all but owned. Instead, Blockbuster filed for bankruptcy during fall of 2010. Most of their customers had chosen to do business with the company’s online rivals.

My company runs the largest digital signage infrastructure in our industry and, in my 30-year career, I have never been more excited about what lies over the horizon. We know our digital signage platform works, and we’re just beginning to scratch the surface on its potential. I know my colleagues on the DSF board can support similar claims, and the verticals that reside within their core businesses.

Yes, we all hear about big data and analytics, but I can verify it’s starting to take hold. Don’t get too comfortable with technology you believe will be permanent. I once owned a record player, Walkman, VCR, typewriter, Zip drive and, yes, a Newton.

Randy Dearborn is 2016 chairman of the Digital Signage Federation and vice president of media technology for MGM Resorts Intl. in Las Vegas. In his 23 years with MGM, he has developed, deployed and supported of one of largest digital media platforms in the industry.

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