The thing that I enjoy most about shows like DSE is connecting with industry contemporaries and those who I have established connections with via online communication platforms. Having the opportunity to meet face-to-face with industry friends I have made through this blog, Twitter, Linkedin, and other social media channels is something that I cherish. At DSE, it’s the people you meet and the conversations that you have which make the event unforgettable. I always welcome the opportunity to meet new folks and share interesting conversations with people who exude passion for digital signage, retail customer experience, emerging communication platforms, etc.

I shared conversations with a wealth of uber-smart individuals on topics such as location-based mobile services, real-time news, the future of digital out-of-home media, social media pollination across the enterprise, using digital technologies to enhance internal communications, digital signage as a brand/customer experience gateway, emerging mobile platforms, etc. It’s in these conversations that industry participants and I waxed analytical on digital signage’s role in our communications ecosystem and the technology’s advertising future. To those who I shared conversations with, thank you. To those who I didn’t get a chance to connect with, please feel free to reach out if you would like to talk (best way to reach me is via email: david.weinfeld@presetgroup.com). I am always happy to talk and help out in any way that I can.

Thoughts from the Show Floor

I don’t think that a single person who attended the show would argue that the technology on the event floor wasn’t impressive. As you entered the expo hall floor, it was like a treat for your eyes. Digital signs stretched as far as the eye could see. From thin screens to video walls and outdoor displays, the technical side of the industry was more than well represented. If you love digital signage (I assume that you have at least a passing interest in the technology if you’re reading this blog), your feelings about the environment would run parallel to my own.

The technology that powers the digital signage and digital out-of-home media industries was front and center on the show floor. While screens, media players, and interactive elements stretched across every square foot of the Las Vegas Convention Center, such a setup ran counter to the goal of educating newcomers and longtime attendees about digital signage and future industry developments. For anyone that was new to the digital signage industry, they likely left the show floor with more questions than answers.

An enormous focus was placed on digital signage technology at the detriment of featuring solutions that solve real business problems. The show floor lacked balance between the hardware/software side of the industry and the experiences that the technology powers. Too much emphasis was placed on the physical boundaries of the technology. Many missed the chance to feature digital signage as a gateway to expansive customer and brand experiences. The technology, and all of the bells and whistles, are great to look at it, but the sheen of these objects fade if they aren’t framed within the greater context of digital signage’s far reaching impact.

Many people I spoke with described the show floor as “cluttered” or “difficult to navigate.” For some, it felt like a summer camp reunion, drawing the conclusion based on a limited number of attendees outside of the digital signage and technology industries. If you got a nickel for every agency or brand rep. that was at the show, you would barely be able to afford a fast food combo meal.

One industry friend who is extremely knowledgeable on digital signage technology even admitted that he dreaded walking the show floor. This sentiment came from someone who loves digital out-of-home media. I can understand why he felt this way. For anyone who was new to digital signage, these end users were met with software companies all appearing to do the same thing (some claiming they could do more, others claiming best-in-class solutions, and none willing to admit that a potential customer would be better suited speaking to one of their competitors).

One of the few advertising agency reps. in attendance equated the expo to a “picks and shovels show.” He found the show lacking in relevance to his specific discipline. He commented that his agency colleagues don’t have anywhere near the same interest in technology as he does. They just want to know that it works.

A screen is a screen, but a true digital signage solution is an experience. This is an ethos that needs to be shared across the industry and, most importantly, carried throughout the Digital Signage Expo.

Damn near everyone is using the same sales pitch.

I am talking suppliers. And I am talking operators.

When you manage to escape from the bubble that is your company, or the larger bubble that is your general technology or media proposition, you start to realize the sales and marketing pitch – those bullet points that people use to excite prospects – is pretty much the same one the next guys are using. And the next guys. And the next guys.

Everyone is the industry leader. What they do is the next generation. They’re the best in class. The audience is premium. Their medium is highly targeted.

My work now gives me the blissful perspective of looking from the outside in at the industry, functioning as a smarty-pants consultant and communications specialist. I get asked now to help companies pull together their marketing copy and strategy, and enable them to stand out from the many other companies that offer variations on essentially the same products, services or audience.

The problem is … most companies are so busy getting everything else done — to organize, launch and run a technology or media company — that the actual time spent developing a compelling set of marketing messages is minimal. It’s one of those, “Oh crap, we need a sell sheet and some stuff for the Website!” situations, that usually involves someone who shouldn’t be doing marketing pulling together a few points during spare moments.

I have done a couple of competitive analyses for technology companies lately, and what really struck me was how similar the value propositions are between technology companies. Go through 15 company sites and you will find most of them highlighting the things that everybody else is highlighting, like flexibility and scalability and support for most media formats.

Ad network operators are not as bad, but the same issues apply.

Volkswagen markets itself on statements like “The art of rocket science.” It does not plaster signs on its windows reading, “Tires on our cars are filled with air!”

So why, when I go to many Websites for vendors, do I read excited bullet points about Day-part scheduling!!!

Well, woohoo! Peddling features and benefits that just about all your prospective customers already assume you have is not the path to glory.

There are clear indications much of what gets written and trumpeted is a variation on what a competitor has on its site. Chances are, that copy was ‘inspired’ by another competitor’s copy. And so on. Companies need to spend more time thinking about how they set themselves apart from the mob, and far less worrying about how their competitors market themselves.

What is it that you guys do, or have, that makes you different? Are you particularly strong in a vertical market? Does your technology have some whiz-bang component that’s rare or unique? Is there something you are doing that others can’t touch?

There are companies I won’t name who market themselves on technology offers that aren’t even unique, but they’ve nonetheless made that gadgetry their own. They’re the guys who do (insert not terribly unique thing here) and they let people know. Compare that to what most companies go out with, which is essentially: “We’re one of countless industry leaders and we offer the same dynamic, flexible and cost-effective stuff for digital signage networks that you’ll find on the next 14 sites you browse and sell sheets you read!!!”

Try this exercise: Print off your main Web pages and sell sheets and grab some Hi-Liter pens. Underline in yellow those phrases and features you’ll admit are common across many companies, and in another colour highlight those features that are unique or more compelling than common. If there’s a lot of yellow, you need to get to work.

There are many, many reasons why a company might prosper or fail, but a really strong predictor for failure is a company that can’t put into words how it is different and why that matters. The same disciplined work that goes into product development, budgets and staffing needs to also go into how your company goes to market and sets itself apart.

If you can’t differentiate, you perish.

Zen and the art of the elevator pitch

There’s more to success, of course, than merely honing and delivering the perfect elevator pitch. But that pitch can go a long way toward getting the relationship off to a great start. Or killing it before it ever gets started. Walking the floor at the DSE in Las Vegas, you couldn’t avoid it. The pitching was pervasive. Every single one of us played one of two roles — the pitch-er or the pitch-ee — in a numbing yet necessary exercise, kind of like the business version of speed dating.

Some found it to be exhausting. They peeled off to take haven in either Starbucks or that mediocre cafeteria with the unfortunate combination of long lines and inflated prices. But none of us schlepped all the way to Vegas just to drink coffee or eat pricey, mediocre food. We were there to fact find. With all of the industry players back-to-back and booth-to-booth, fact finding should have been no problem, right? Not exactly — at least not for me. The DSE show floor (and virtually any trade show floor, for that matter) comes off like a sea of sameness. The challenge for exhibitors: how do you make your pitch stand out? The challenge for attendees: how do you cut through the crap?

Stories from the floor

Jennifer Nye leads the in-store digital marketing solution program for Harley-Davidson dealerships. In other words, she’s a retailer. And at DSE, retailers are coveted. Highly coveted. Like gold. “I don’t even listen to elevator pitches,” Jennifer says. Pity the rookie retailers walking the show floor for the first time who might not know what they’re in for. In my days with Nike, I quickly learned to play defense. I flipped my badge backward to maintain anonymity. Jennifer agrees. She employs a proactive strategy at DSE and all trade shows. She does her homework, pre-screening specific exhibitors who have products and services relevant to her business. She’ll seek out those exhibitors, and only those exhibitors, limiting her exposure to the pack. “I like the way the DSE floor is organized but I won’t walk it (the floor),” Jennifer says. “Everyone’s software will do everything. They all tell you what they think you want to hear.”

When people like Stuart Armstrong and Rebecca Walt hear comments like those, they recoil. And they sense opportunity. Stu, President of EnQii North America, and Rebecca, VP Professional Services at Reflect Systems, take a completely different tact. For them, it’s not what they say, but what their clients say that matters most. “We provide solutions,” notes Rebecca, “and you can’t provide solutions unless you listen to the problems and goals of the client. How big is their network? What are they trying to accomplish? How do they want to speak to their audience?” Of course, Rebecca still has a pitch. Stu does too. But they both know when to weave it in and when to hold back. Experience has taught them to avoid leading with a cookie-cutter “our widget is better than their widget” approach. That comes much later, if at all. “I have no problem in telling a prospect,” Stu says, “that if our solution isn’t appropriate for them, I will recommend one of our competitors.”

When your reputation doesn’t precede you

Reflect Systems and EnQii, along with a mere handful of others, are proven players with solid track records. And when you’re proven, the first impression precedes you — the elevator pitch is not do-or-die, as it might be with newcomers to this space. Or as the great philosopher Yogi Berra might put it, “If you need a good elevator pitch, you probably don’t have one. And if you have one, you probably don’t need one.” But what are those newer companies that might lack a positive reputation, track record and client list to do? How about those like, well, like me, Pat Hellberg, and my newly-formed Kaicon Consulting group? In the space of three days at DSE, I delivered a couple dozen variations on my own pitch. Each time, I tried to adjust to the audience, zigging and zagging according to the tell-tale signs: body language, eye contact and verbal interaction. Each time, there was a personal post mortem, ranging from “I nailed that one” to “I didn’t really say that, did I?”

We always think we can improve. Our distinguished blog host, Bill Gerba, has been in the digital signage game for nine years and says he’s still fine tuning his own elevator pitch. As for me, I’m also more than ready to admit that my own pitch is a work in progress, and probably will be forever. But combining some tips from the pros (there are literally hundreds of books and web sites chuck full of tips, like The Closet Entrepreneur, Twitpitch and TechCrunch Elevator Pitches) with my own personal experience (what has resonated vs. what has fallen flat), my working draft reads something like this:

Clients fall in love with the technology. They buy the hardware and the software. They hang the screens and turn ‘em on. The clients have the first three days covered for content. But they don’t know what they’re going to do for the next 362 days and beyond.

It’s like buying a great new car but only having enough left over for half a tank of gas.

I use the experience and expertise I gained in running Nike’s network to help clients craft a sustainable content strategy at a reasonable cost. And I have the resources to help them produce the content if needed.

A DS network represents a serious investment. A sustainable content strategy will ensure that the investment pays off.

By elevator ride standards that’s about 14 floors worth, depending on whether I’ve had any coffee.

A pitch that maybe we all can agree on

Take the idea of the pitch and expand it to the entire digital signage/DOOH industry. Ultimately, our business is all about grabbing someone’s attention in a small amount of time, and then providing content that engages and motivates them. When they leave our tiny sphere of influence, hopefully we’ve left them with an impression, a few small, memorable tidbits. In a way, all DOOH content is essentially thousands upon thousands of elevator pitches.

Having said that, it will serve us well to continue to evolve the pitch about ourselves, about our companies, and about the business in general. We still lack a meta-pitch that’s suitable for the industry as a whole. Are we in advertising? Storytelling? Information exchange? A killer pitch can be an important tool as we move this industry forward, even as more people outside our circle of “in the know” experts become familiar with what digital signage and DOOH really are.

Or we can hold out for a magic lamp.