This is a terrific way to get people engaged with a brand. And Kraft and MonsterMedia took the essence of the product – the elbow macaroni – and created a fun and engaging interactive. Very well done.

But here’s the problem. This doesn’t sell Mac and Cheese. That’s the point. Right?

These interactive screens were placed around the country (Chicago, New York, LA) in high traffic areas. And it looks like it got a lot of audience engagement. But did it sell any Mac and Cheese? Here are three reasons why this is a challenge:

Where Can I Buy? One of the most important tenets with digital engagement is the viewer’s ability to act upon what she has just experienced. The takeaway here is not the smile, it’s the brand impression. She needs to move that impression forward on the path to purchase. But if she can’t, the impression is lost as soon as the next bright, shiny object enters her field of view.

There Is No Takeaway. Unlike the Smile Happy Ice Cream campaign that Unilever created, this doesn’t give the viewer any takeaway, like the product, or a coupon, or a QR code for their mobile device to really open the gates of communication. With an immediate return, the customer connects the impression with the result – the product or access to it. This creates an indelible mark on the viewer’s mindset, and provides marketers with real data on the success of the device.

Using a Shotgun When You Need a Sniper Rifle. These were placed in high traffic areas to get viewer engagement, but I’m willing to bet that a large percentage of the people who interacted with it aren’t really Mac and Cheese fans. Sure, you’ll get a massive amount of people who will try it, making the numbers sexy, but if those viewers are not customers of Kraft or Mac and Cheese, it’s an inefficient execution. The value of each impression is much lower because of the high traffic strategy.

In the end, someone has to pay for this (yes, I know it’s the customer, but bear with me). As these devices become more prevalent in our culture, so too will the need to justify the expense on the marketing budget to create and deploy them. This is advertising, and advertising is made to get people to buy. If they don’t buy, these devices are no more than costly wet noodles.

Ba dum dum.

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The more I learn about the retailer and the customer, the better experience I can help create. Perspective is indispensable. When James Bickers asked me to be a part of the Retail Customer Excellence Summit Advisory Board, I didn’t even think about it. Yep. I’m in.

The summit took place last week in Chicago, and was terrific. The collection of attendees and speakers was a solid mix of perspective and best practices. At one table I saw a toy retailer with a eyewear retailer. Another table saw a giant mobile retailer sitting with a day spa owner. The eclectic mix allowed for an intimate exchange of ideas.

So, in customary fashion with other conferences I have attended, here are some of the things I learned.

OMG. Can’t Bleev no stores uzn mob tech 2 ngage custs!
A group of us toured the the Woodfield Mall on Sunday afternoon, one of the largest malls in the country. I know that because a) they told me, and b) I sat down in my hotel room and passed out for an hour from walking the entire mall. Retailers continue to jump on the social media bandwagon, but we discovered very little in practice at the mall. I didn’t peek into every single store, but saw only one that was using Twitter prominently: Metropark. They had their Twitter feed on big 36” widescreen TVs hanging in the store and facing the mall. Very effective. James Bickers noticed that out of over 275 stores, only two (TWO!) were using FourSquare. OMG indeed.

My shoes before the store walk, and three hours later.

The Best Perspective Came From Outside Retail
PGA Player Chip Beck, Consultant Mark Levy, Jim Knight from Hard Rock International, and Ed Rensi, former CEO/President of McDonald’s Corporation, gave easily the most spirited talk of the day with plenty of perspective that can be implemented at retail. Mr. Beck provided some of the best insight, saying that it’s his goal to make the people feel more comfortable when playing with him in pro-am tournaments. When he’s with a group, he makes it a point to walk at least one hole with each participant so that he can get to know them better. From a retail perspective, building relationships with customers creates a better buying environment and experience. He ended by saying that he has built a reputation on the tour as a very approachable player, and it has allowed him to participate in pro-ams a lot. (Translation: Building better relationships with your customers means loyalty and return business.)

Knows more about retail than I do. Can golf WAAAAAY better than I do. Well played, sir.

Awareness Is Not Engagement
Just because people know about you doesn’t mean they’re buying. You have to do more than shout from the rooftops. Every message has to ‘leave them wanting more.’ Mike Wittenstein showed how good first impressions have four phases: Attraction, Engagement, Information, and Persuasion, with the goal to get the customer to the next phase of the buying process. He emphasized this by saying that customers don’t care about what you tell them, they care about what they can tell their friends. Can your impressions do that?

Your Culture Creates The Experience
Bill Cusick led a great panel of retailers to talk about how the brand culture is the driver for a great experience. By personifying the brand (think Apple vs. Mac), your brand can come to life at retail. For example, Kari Blankenship from Cabela’s talked about their brand promise – “To inspire others to participate and be passionate about the outdoors” – as their essence for the in-store experience. No one remembers the purchase transaction, but everyone remembers the experience.

But People Are There To Buy Stuff
Bob Phibbs told us why customers visit a store: To buy stuff. While we all talk about a great experience, the goal should be to sell a product. Bob noted that price doesn’t make a difference, people do, and that presentation is everything, but somewhere in there some people have forgotten that you need to engage the customer to get them to actually buy.

Brands That Exceed Expectations Grow
Walter Kurlin, Business Programs Facilitator from The Disney Institute, stressed how exceeding a customer’s expectation is the goal; those are the memories in the customer’s head.

He explained how little Johnny could have a great experience in an otherwise negative situation. If the Disney ride requires Johnny to be 40 inches but he’s just under that, he would be most unhappy. Disney provides a certificate to Johnny, saying that when he reaches 40 inches, he can come back to the park and will be moved up to the front of the line immediately if he presents the ticket. Johnny goes home and puts that on the refrigerator, and has his mom measure him every day. When he hits 40 inches, everyone knows where Johnny will be. We never forget that Disney is for profit, so they get the return visitors, but Disney created a good memory and a lasting impression.

But What Are Those Expectations?
That’s the billion-dollar question to many. What are the expectations of your brand? What are the expectations of your retail experience? Chip Beck mentioned in his talk how golfers learn to accept their limitations and play within their means. I think that’s great advice because it helps brands understand where to set the bar and hopefully always be able to follow the axiom of “under promise, over deliver.” Always make sure those expectations are authentic and achievable. If you set unrealistic expectations, you’ll suffer.

The Most Valuable Guest
Target’s Chris Borek gave tremendous insight into the multi-channel customer. He explained that the most valuable customer (or as Target call them, “Guest”) is one that engages Target through more than one channel, meaning she does research online, then goes into the store, and may even use her mobile Target app while there. Those customers yield higher revenue than single channel customers. Judging by what I saw, most of Woodfield Mall would have benefitted from Chris’s talk alone.

I Won Sumthin!
There was a contest for retweeting (no…not a drinking game…darn) and I was the top retweeter of the day. My prize was the Stores and Retail Spaces 11 book, chock full of imagery of outstanding retail design. My review:

I like it. A lot. Chocolates, plz.

The 2011 Summit will be held on August 8-9, 2011 in Minneapolis, and should be on your calendar to attend. If you can make it, bring your notebook and your walking shoes. I’m sure a trip to Mall of America will be in order.

Me. 37 seconds after walking the MOA.

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Is Digital Signage an industry? No.

Okay, there. I said it.

I’m sure you’ll find reasons to argue with me, whether you agree or not. But being the one who asked in the first place, it would be a cop-out to sit on the fence. So here we go.

I think we try hard to act like one, but we are a cog in the mighty wheel of cultural communication.

Insert cliché photo here. Aaaaand there we are!

I have a few reasons why I believe we are not an industry. By no means is this exhaustive, but to me, these are the core reasons we are (and should) consider ourselves part of something much bigger:

We are a Variation on a Theme.
There is very little architecture in digital signage that is truly endemic or original to digital signage. We use TV screens, software, computers, and wires to do essentially what TV screens, software, computers, and wires do, that is to provide _________ (fill in the blank with your own term here: information, education, advertising, entertainment, etc.) to a viewer/user. And we’re doing the same thing with these devices that several other channels were doing before us.

Media platforms, while having a distinct purpose with native widgets, are built on the general proposition of playing media in any given situation. I agree with Tim Pixley, that many of these platforms are variations on previous programming for applications like the internet. There is no argument that our sector of communication has provided new workflows of expertise and execution, but the core purpose was there a long time ago. In 2004, while working in baseball, the still store machine for the video board broke down. I patched PowerPoint into the system and no one knew the difference. PowerPoint is still used today in some cases. (Gasp! I know.)

The ROI Orgy.
We are in business for the exact same reason as all the other channels: To send a message that results in a return on the investment. Whether we start the conversation or we continue it on the path to purchase, we are trying to get that viewer to do something. Because of this, it benefits us to adapt to the best practices of viewer engagement across these other channels. Sometimes we try to write the rules instead of simply understanding the playbook. Without question, the best education I get on how to do this well comes from other sectors of communication.

Agencies Buy Audiences, Not Channels.
Ask any agency or brand executive, and they consider us only part of a multi-channel opportunity to distribute the message; agencies never buy just one channel anymore. They go where the eyeballs are: TV, computer, mobile devices, and Out-of-Home. No executive or buyer wants five different rate cards on her desk. She wants one sheet with all the options that she can select and deliver.

A typical day at the agency, going through the rate cards for digital signage networks.

In the eyes of media planners, the distinction between digital signage/OOH and other forms of communication lies in the measurement of those eyeballs. DPAA? Nielsen? Arbitron? Someday, a common metric equation will apply to all channels. At that point, can we truly consider ourselves distinct?

To this end, it benefits us to work toward a common goal, not away from it. The harder we make it for people to buy time on our networks, the easier it will be for them to ignore us.

Mobile: The Force that Binds Us Together
If possible, you use your mobile device to interact with other forms of technology. Every channel of communication (print, TV, computers, etc) encourages interaction with mobility via Quick Response (QR) codes and SMS capability. Mobile devices continue to grow into the ubiquitous remote control of our lives, giving us autonomy over our environment, and in particular, the electronic messaging systems around us. If we, like all channels, encourage mobile interaction, it binds us with the other channels in a seamless and effective engagement.

Use the Force to find my cell phone, I will.

As a caveat to this discussion, I often use the term “industry” to describe the overall area of my profession, but I am careful not to confuse the label with a trade.

There you go. Thoughts?

Next week we’ll find the Lost City of Atlantis and discuss whether or not digital signage tickers would have saved Pompeii. (I’m guessing only scroll versions, not crawl versions, would have helped.)

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Most good news is shared only by those responsible. Bad news is shared by everyone. Speculation is easy, and bad news is always the biggest target. Walmart is the perfect example. When they do something good, they talk about it. When they do something bad, everyone else talks about it.

Three of the larger business setbacks in our industry revolve around Technicolor/PRN, CBS/SignStorey, and Wireless Ronin and its IPO. The trouble is that these are three of the largest business deals concerning our industry, and they are three  of the biggest business disappointments. For reasons both public and private, these did not work, and millions of dollars in value was tossed to the curb.

Instead of writing about what went wrong, I want to focus on what we can learn from this, specifically CBS and Technicolor.

Last Tuesday night, I watched Charlie Rose, and I learned.

Charlie interviewed Jonathan Nelson, the CEO and Founder of Providence Equity Partners, a $22 billion firm that invests in media companies around the world, including heavyweights like Hulu.com, Kabel Deutschland (Germany’s largest broadband service provider), and the Yankees Entertainment and Sports Network – George Steinbrenner’s media outlet.

Jonathan Nelson. Smart man. Very smart man.

Mr. Nelson is well known for avoiding the limelight and publicity in all its forms. In light of CBS’s troubles with Outernet and Technicolor’s management of PRN, Mr. Nelson’s appearance was ideal.

Mr. Nelson described some of his philosophies with the media business. They stem from his history of working in China. His firm recently invested in Baidu, the ‘Google’ of China. Baidu is huge over there, really huge, owning around 75% of the market. Charlie mentioned that Google had recently backed out of China and asked Mr. Nelson what he knew that Google didn’t. Without hesitation, Mr. Nelson said, “Patience,” explaining that one of the big lessons he learned while working in China was the virtue of Patience. This theme of patience runs through the interview, providing the foundation for his business practices. What is amazingly ironic is that he invests in companies that move and grow (and sometimes explode) at the speed of light. Yet he continues to build incredible wealth with smart investments and partnerships.

When Mr. Nelson began to talk about his investment in Hulu.com as an aggregator of content for multiple content providers, Charlie asked him why these content providers don’t simply create their own portals for their own content. Mr. Nelson believes that Hulu.com can provide a higher probability of success because of what he had observed in traditional media companies:

“What we have observed is that when traditional media companies try to do what Hulu is doing, in other words breaking the old model, when they try to do it in-house, generally it doesn’t work. It doesn’t work for a number of reasons. It doesn’t work because they usually promote someone on the traditional media side to run it. The silos that are embedded in those organizations. . .generally. . .it is viewed as not something they want to help. In fact it hurts them. Its success comes out of their old model. And you don’t get the best talent because, what entrepreneur is going to join General Electric? Great company, but not really the place to spawn new companies.”

Mr. Nelson continues:

[Talking about Jason Kilar, the CEO of Hulu.com] “He didn’t come from media. He came from online, from amazon.com. He understood online rather than media. It’s less important, in fact it may even be an advantage, not to come from the world of television but to come from online retail, and understand what does it mean to deliver an acceptable customer experience.”

He is saying that new media models clash with the old media conglomerates, and that the cultural clash leads to the death of entrepreneurship when these conglomerates try to do it themselves, either by taking it on as a new silo, or hiring outside people to do it. Ultimately, that results in the demise of the new media company itself.

Looking at the Technicolor (nee Thompson)/PRN and CBS/SignStorey models, you see two old and rich companies (Thompson was founded in 1893, CBS 1941) taking on new ventures for entry into a new market. Within a few years, you see their acquisitions floundering.

So what can we learn from this? I believe we can learn a couple of things that are crucial for our industry:

First, we can learn that entrepreneurship is still alive and kicking, and must continue for the industry as a whole to grow. Companies will be bought and sold, and some will make or lose millions. But the entrepreneurial spirit of competitive greatness will continue to drive the growth. The digital out-of-home industry, in all sectors, feels a bit like the wild west. I don’t have a big problem with that. It’s what’s keeping all of us on our toes.

Second, and perhaps most importantly, is that large conglomerates are in this industry now, and will continue to build market share. What we can hope from them is that when they do acquire new media companies, that they foster the growth that made that particular company so attractive in the first place, or that if they hire away these passionate leaders, that they will loosen the reins on the old business models and enable these leaders to continue to drive not only the growth of the big companies, but the growth of the industry as well. Google made big news last week with their introduction of Google TV. Their history of fostering creativity and entrepreneurship can be directly related to their growth. Take this article on Yahoo! Finance from the 18th, in which we learn that the most compelling competency that CEO’s look for in their people is creativity. You can easily note that creativity is a key component of entrepreneurship.

Toward the end of the interview, Mr. Nelson explains part of his firm’s criteria for investing in media companies:

“Our track record. . .it’s good because we back the right people. I don’t know much, but the people we back do.”

Notice he didn’t say “companies.”

How’s that for 22 billion dollars in growth?

You can find Mr. Nelson’s interview on charlierose.com. I highly recommend you watch it.

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We are in a constant race to grab that which continues to stay ahead of us. But we have not yet mastered what’s around us today.

He who say smart things write blog. Or so I've heard.

The future is coming, I have no doubt. I have no doubt we’ll argue about what kind of acronym to give it.

But I have just spent several million dollars to update my environment with 42” high-definition screens networked into server designed to play the right content in the right place at the right time. I have no idea if it’s really playing the right content in the right place at the right time because I still cannot measure it. I was told putting in this network would provide a substantial return on my investment.

Where’s my money?

And don't make me yell.

The holy grail of ROI (Return On Investment) is the proof that a message compels a viewer to act in such a way that benefits the provider. Or, someone bought that one thing because we talked about it on a screen. This ROI has not happened yet. I don’t know if I’m getting out of this what I put into it.

Everyone is telling me what I should be doing tomorrow, and not helping figure out how to leverage what I have today. Because what I have today is going to pay for my future.

Budgets are under closer scrutiny than ever now. You can’t get your cap ex money by simply saying, “Everyone else is doing it,” or even “Because they said I could make money off that.” You can’t chase bad money with good money any longer.

Yes. I did. I did because Jimmy did.

We spend much of our eyesight on what’s coming down the road, and we lose sight of what we need to manage today. Everyone (myself included, sometimes) gets caught up in the “art of the possible,” but buyers and users out there need to justify what they have already done before they can look that far.

This isn’t about measurement, this is about making sure that future is attainable by those who want to be a part of it. Networks everywhere would love the interactive experience that we tout at all the shows and on all the websites. But, it seems we are forgetting that someone needs to pay for this, that the money for this doesn’t come from the vendors, it comes from the buyers.

Part of the “path to purchase” is the purchase itself, and we need to track whether or not we have impact on that. If we do, then the future is going to come a lot faster and easier. If we don’t, then perhaps we need to stop for second and think about today as well as tomorrow. The future will always be there. I’m sure we’ll meet it.

Let’s just make sure that we’re ready when it arrives.

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