Selling the dream...

So, what’s it all about then, this digital signage and screen media networks scenario? Simple! It’s about selling the dream, or more to the point selling the dream that sells the dream, with ‘selling’ the operative word.

Digital screen technology is simply brilliant, it’s right at the sharp end and littered with wow and pzazz, the potential to deliver a new experience in selling the dream. It’s got subliminal and direct selling all rolled into its ‘potential’ portfolio with everything about putting more into a straight sell than has ever been available before. MercedesBenz World, the new Audi digital showrooms and such theatre are all testament to that.

Digital signage and screen media technology offer a dream like no other can. But take a look under the surface of our world and it’s almost like those involved in the technology side of things, the hardware manufacturers, the integrators, the software developers and more, just don’t believe in the very concept they are themselves part and parcel of!

Marks & Spencer didn’t get where it is today without the power of advertising is the mantra that still rolls around advertising agencies. Mantra? Truism, more like! So, getting back to looking beneath the surface, our industry is a plethora of smaller companies all doing great things, as Barnaby Page says, there are big names in the industry but great things are coming from the smaller unknowns.

In my time in this industry, I have seen a multitude of small companies all promising great things. Financial climate aside, where are they now? Who knows? Why? They simply did not promote their wares and in that they did not build the confidence that they were solid, stayers, companies that did not practise what they preached with their kit to provide the means to a sell. New industry, new technology, new mindset maybe but some old values still work well in this world. In order to sell the dream and stay alive, you have to be seen to live the dream too!

John Taylor, Editor