New digital signage solutions

At Viscom, the international trade fair for visual communication on 1-3 October 2009 in Düsseldorf 10,900 visitors saw the products and services of 310 companies. Hans–Joachim Erbel, the managing director f the organising company Reed Exhibitions Deutschland GmbH told at the opening press conference: visual communication originally concentrated on signmaking, later trends focused on digital printing, outdoor advertising, displays and textile advertising, and now digital signage and professional ink-jet printing are in the centre of attention. In line with this, at the Viscom wide-format printers, especially digital ink-jet devices, foils and latest digital signage solutions dominated. Viscom’s event director, Petra Lassahn pointed out that digital signage is built on three pillars: retail, guiding (railway stations, bus stops, hotels) and informing. Since 2007, Viscom has tried to promote the development of digital signage by organising competitions for the best applications in 5 categories: Retail Signage, Guide Signage, Information Signage, Content for Digital Signage and Interactive Signage. Three projects were nominated in each category and outstandingly innovative projects were awarded special prizes. Three very interesting projects were nominated in the retail signage category: Online Software AG – Multimedia price and advertising communication in the Dodenhof shopping centre; marketing displays GmbH & Co. KG – Information column for the BMW Mini campaign’s multimedia card holders; K.U.L.T Objekt – Digital pace arrangement for Jürgensen Intersport in Flensburg. The winner was Online Software AG with its project involving 12 video walls, 58 independent displays, 18 double display scales and a digital consumer information system, with which they touched consumers emotionally, entertained them, increased their shopping willingness and positioned Dodenhof as a modern, consumer-oriented company.