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Scala Connected Signage Conference
Attendees learn about digital signage and ad management solutions.
September 21, 2008
PHILADELPHIA — Scala has been making headlines all year in the digital signage industry, and used its Connected Signage Conference this week to involve its partners and customers in the company growth. The conference was held Sept. 15-16, 2008 in Philadelphia, in the days leading up to Digital Signage Expo East. Scala conference participants were given passes to the Expo, where Scala was one of the featured exhibitors.
The conference gave Scala partners and customers a chance to interact with the 35 Scala employees present, learn about how to optimize the use of Scala's Ad Manager and InfoChannel products and find out what the company has in store for 2009.
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Scala's conference was also an opportunity for its vendor partners to network with partners and other attendees. A small tradeshow and networking area featured screen providers such as LG and Samsung, as well as connectivity and content providers Magenta Research, Minicom and Accuweather.com.
As Scala president Robert Koolen said in his opening remarks, the purpose of the conference was to "usher in a new era for digital signage and advertising management." With the acquisition of MISC and its Ad Manager product in April, Scala has been working to expand its digital signage software capabilities to include scheduling content management for both traditional and print signage.The result is what Scala calls "connected signage," a term that encompasses all forms of signage and dynamic media in the out-of-home environment.
"With the acquisition of MISC, we can bring together the best of the static world and the dynamic world into a single management platform for managing content on your network," said Jeff Porter, EVP of Scala.
Ad Manager joins Scala's existing InfoChannel 5 software in the company's lineup of product offerings. All of the software programs are designed to work hand-in-hand as one system.
"It's not just about digital," Koolen said. "Customers have many systems they want to manage and they don't want two different programs to do that."
A good year
For Scala, the numbers tell the story of the past year. According to Koolen, Scala saw a 69 percent sales growth in U.S. sales in 2007. While digital signage industry sales have been growing at a 20 percent CAGR over the past year, Scala's global sales have grown at a 40 percent CAGR.
In December 2007, Frost and Sullivan highlighted Scala as one of the standout digital signage software companies and said that the company held a 35.4 percent market share of global digital signage software.
The integration of Ad Manager and InfoChannel is part of Scala's 2009 goal to simplify the digital signage ad-buying process for media buyers.
"The biggest challenge is financing rollouts," Porter said. "The goal is to connect all of the dots for media buyers — they're screaming for solutions."
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