Johannesburg, 12 Jul 2022
Most South Africans will be familiar with the large outdoor digital signage displays alongside main roads, as well as the smaller versions found in airports, malls and providing the menus in fast food outlets. While the outdoor market has traditionally been the domain of large-scale marketing companies who work for corporate customers, there is definitely a market for systems that are suitable for smaller businesses that need a flexible, quick-changing digital canvas they can manage and control with ease.
Andre Smit, Business Development Manager for New Technologies at Kemtek Imaging Systems, points out that there is definitely a place for a small and flexible system that can easily be deployed and managed by an SME to enable it to control its own digital marketing campaigns.
“There are now solutions available that offer a software suite along with a media player that can plug into an HDMI screen, provides network and wireless connections and is able to store content for those times when there is no connectivity,” he says.
“These solutions proved enormously beneficial during the pandemic, as they opened a new channel to communicate with the public around critical information like reminders to wear masks, to wash hands and assistance in finding vaccination sites. Furthermore, the ability to enable the quick change and customisation of content remotely was also enormously beneficial.”
He notes that solutions geared towards smaller businesses need to also be priced for them, so a solution-in-a-box – with only a once-off licence fee cost – is perfect for the SME space.
“The other key aspect of such a solution is that it needs to be simple enough for an average IT literate person to operate the system and schedule content. A software-based solution is ideal, as it means that it is a simple matter to deliver region-exclusive content to multiple screens in different regions, from a centralised server.
“The content uploaded can be anything too: from videos and documents to PowerPoint presentations, images or live feeds from RSS or Twitter, and the uploading process must also be flexible and easy to use – essentially, it should be plug, drag and play.”
He adds that software-based solutions mean the technology can also support smart technologies. In other words, he explains, a camera can be mounted on the screen to capture the images of those looking at it. In this way, it can automatically tailor the content to suit the audience in front of it. This demonstrates that it is not just a dumb terminal providing information, but rather an intelligent solution that can deliver specifically-tailored content.
“Thus, it becomes possible to not only deliver a message, but to tweak it in a smart fashion to suit a specific audience. With these solutions, pushing new content is controlled by the central management software, allowing customised campaigns to be run for specific time periods and then changed to new content automatically.”
Smit suggests the beauty of these types of technologies is that all an SME needs is one person with basic IT skills and one with some marketing experience to run an entire campaign. This is because everything can be controlled from a single dashboard that delivers a simple green/red on/off display, so it is easy to see exactly what is going on across the various sign boards.
“There is no doubt that the SME sector has been crying out for an affordable signage solution that will enable it to save on advertising costs while accessing new digital technologies that allow for the accurate control and display of digital information.
“Kemtek certainly sees the value of a solution that is quick to install, simple to operate and that makes it easy to sort and display content without needing the skills of a graphic designer. We recommend a solution with a once-off licence fee that delivers the kind of affordable price structure that opens a level of access to digital signage that was simply not possible until now for SMEs,” he concludes.
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