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It's show-and-tell time, digital signage
LG Electronics USA recently opened its new Chicago Business Innovation Center, a comprehensive technology hub and educational center for LG's commercial displays and business solutions in the U.S. More facilities like it are needed across the industry.
February 11, 2016 by Christopher Hall — w, t
It's show-and-tell time, digital signage.
LG Electronics USA recently opened its new Chicago Business Innovation Center, a comprehensive technology hub and educational center for LG's commercial displays and business solutions in the U.S. The BIC is intended to serve as a showroom/training center for LG's B2B business, leaning but not focusing solely on digital signage tech.
The opening, while great for LG itself, speaks also to two key realities for the greater digital signage industry as a whole:
1) Major global brands obviously continue to push digital signage as a key spoke in their B2B strategies; and
2) If a major digital signage company doesn't have something similar to this facility yet, it probably should strongly consider it soon.
Located within the U.S. headquarters for LG Business Solutions in Lincolnshire, Illinois, the new facility is among the first in a series of innovation center openings in major cities across the globe, according to LG. Its purpose is to give business owners, integrators and contractors a chance to engage with and see, firsthand and in a hands-on fashion, how LG's line of commercial solutions can contribute to their bottom line.
LG isn't first or even alone in offering this kind of experience for potential digital signage deployers; digital signage distributor Avnet Techology Solutions several years ago turned one of its distribution facilities into a working digital signage tour with installed proofs of concept showing how the technology can work in the real world. And other display manufacturers either use their lobbies as de facto corporate communications showrooms (Planar Systems Inc.) or use offsite showcases for similar purposes and are planning their own on-campus showcase facilities (NEC Display Solutions). LG of course also has had its own traveling roadshow showcasing its wares in a variety of locales before now as well. There are doubtless more.
"Going into 2016, we feel that this is a new LG, and we really encourage people to take a look at us," LG USA Vice President of Sales Clark Brown said in an interview at the facility's grand opening. "Being able to bring the technology to customers is very important to us, because seeing is believing. For people to actually be able to see it makes a huge difference."
On hand for the ceremony was Raffi Vartian, the CMO for cloud-based digital signage technology supplier Signagelive, which is heavily invested in LG's webOS system-on-chip digital signage technology. Signagelive also has put up a similar kind of showcase, and everyone else needs to, Vartian said.
"I think everyone has to do this," he said. "You can't sell this stuff from a PowerPoint presentation."
"The Business Innovation Center exemplifies LG's commitment to 'innovation for a better business' in the U.S. commercial market," LG Electronics USA President and CEO William Cho said in a press release announcing the new facility and display. "In addition to showcasing LG's extensive portfolio of innovative solutions across various vertical markets … this center will provide the ideal venue in the heartland of America for LG to hold training sessions and executive briefings for current and future customers, further expanding our B2B footprint in the U.S."
The BIC features a far-reaching cross-section of various industry zones, designed to bring its commercial solutions to life in real-to-life application settings. These include display solutions for retail and quick-serve restaurants, hospitality and health care zones, as well as commercial energy and air solutions. And LG B2B Senior Director of Marketing Garry Wicka stressed several times during the grand opening that the showcase and displays would be very fluid in the future, changing and adapting to new technology trends.
In conjunction with the facility's grand opening, LG Business Solutions also launched a new digital signage display format, the 86-inch LG Ultra Stretch Signage display, optimized for dynamic digital content display.
The new Chicago LG Business Innovation Center in Lincolnshire joins ranks with the just-opened Atlanta LG Business Innovation Center, which is situated in the company's newly expanded U.S. Air Conditioning Systems Headquarters in Alpharetta, Georgia. These two LG centers are the first of their kind in the U.S., the company said, and two of only nine such centers around the world. Other locations are in Amsterdam; London; Sao Paulo; Moscow; Ho Chi Minh City; Hanoi; and Dubai.
The B2B segment in general, and digital signage in particular, is "a very important initiative to LG globally," Brown said "There is an initiative to invest in our particular segment of the marketplace, bringing out newer technologies, and so you're seeing that happen around the world."
At the grand opening, Cho echoed those comments and stressed the importance of digital signage in the brand's overarching strategy. "In fact digital signage is one of our strategy pillars for us to grow in the B2B arena," he said in an interview. Cho noted that, while static signage remains prevalent in the marketplace, change is coming. "It is the time for us to drive digital signage as an innovative display technology and a vehicle, and we are very committed to that technology."
About Christopher Hall
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