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Digital Signs in a Bind

Monday, May 4, 2015

By Michael Nelson, Sr. Systems Engineer, Intel at Tech Data

I was recently contacted by a customer from one of our large reseller accounts whose customer (end user) needed advice on how to proceed with a project concerning digital signs. The end user is the owner of 20 convenience stores with five televisions in each store displaying ads and specials. Content was played directly from a USB stick—which had to be manually updated—and he needed a way to remotely manage and update content automatically that didn’t involve driving to each store and/or adding a proprietary media player to each display.

I was able to recommend a hardware and software solution that met these needs. The hardware consisted of a workstation with a discreet 4-port display adapter, enabling him to connect a local display and one sign to the onboard display ports and the other four signs to the discreet adapter. Each workstation is connected to the internet behind a secure firewall. The software component handles the content management and is provided by the Intel Retail Client Manager (RCM) suite.

Intel RCM has three components: a player, a manager, and the Intel RCM cloud. The player gets installed on the workstation at each store, requiring 20 annual licenses. Within the player, a channel is assigned to each display. Setting up the RCM player takes less than a minute once you know what you are doing.

The manager is installed at the customer’s primary location and does not require a license. The customer can now create content for each store and schedule “time of day” relevant content to play throughout the day. Once an advertising campaign is published to the Intel RCM cloud, the players automatically download and execute it following the defined criteria.

The Intel RCM cloud also collects campaign and content statistics so proof of performance reports can be easily generated.

The end user is also testing out an advanced feature called Audience Analytics (AA). AA requires a USB or IP connected camera mounted above a given display. The AA software then performs analytics on individuals that look at the display (only people that look directly at the display are analyzed). Demographic information, such as gender and age, and viewer counts are collected. This information can be used in real-time to trigger specific advertisements and is also added to the reports available on the Intel RCM cloud.

This solution met the end user’s requirements of managing, automating, and standardizing IT components—and overachieves by providing actionable data that can be used to improve his business.

To learn more about Digital Signage opportunities, contact Michael Nelson or any other member of Tech Data’s Intel team at teamintel@techdata.com or call (800) 237-8931, ext. 85087.