Article
Xbox, NCAAs point to digital signage
Cisco signage sees product placement in TV and video games.
March 25, 2008
Last week I found myself probably way too excited to be playing the latest video game in Tom Clancy's series, Rainbow Six Vegas 2 for Xbox. My brother and I sat down to get our mission briefing from our virtual commander, which to my surprise was brought to us via a "Cisco Digital Signage" screen.
Later that night I was again in front of the TV, but watching one of the many games of the NCAA Tournament. When the game cut to a commercial break, the first ad featured a woman being greeted by an interactive digital sign on the street, and another man passing by an interactive shop window. The tagline at the end: "Cisco – Welcome to the human network."
It's not just thatCiscoseems to be showing up in all kinds of entertainment mediums. It's that Cisco is bringing digital signage to the forefront when advertising or doing product placement in those mediums.
My guess is that most people who have left their houses in the past year have encountered digital signage at some point. Ask someone if they've seen screen ads in airport terminals and they will shake their head "yes," but tell them you're in the "digital signage" industry and you'll probably get raised eye brows.
For those of us involved in the industry "digital signage" is a term we hear every day. But the greater public has not yet accepted it as a term for out-of-home advertising.
This will change in the future. Think back to a few years ago when flatscreen TVs became popular. They were known simply as flat panels or flatscreens to most people. Now ask someone about their next TV purchase and they'll ramble off the differences in LCD vs. plasma, 1080i vs. 720p and HDMI vs. RGB.
As digital signage proliferates into the mainstream, familiarity with the nuances of the medium among the public will grow, as it did with flatscreen TVs.
At this point, Cisco seems to be pushing that process along nicely. In addition to the digital signage placement in Rainbow Six Vegas 2, Cisco is also work closely with major networks such as CBS, FOX and NBC to integrate its products into TV shows, such as "Heroes" and "CSI." Clickhereto see video from Cisco on CBS.
On the virtual front, Cisco is responsible for incorporating digital signage into the popular online role-playing game Second Life. Cisco digital signage and the company's TelePresence product are located on CSI Island, where Second Life players can solve crimes in the same fashion as the TV show.
While industry members know the list of "big hitters" in digital signage, Cisco's product placement strategy and advertising plan is positioning them as one of the top dogs for digital signage in the eyes of the public.
"Cisco is illustrating that they 'get it' in terms of the advancement of digital signage and its place in ad display spending," said Lyle Bunn, strategy architect with Bunn Co. "Digital signage allows for better message targeting, which will increasingly be based on dynamic ad provisioning. This is the domain of enabling technologies. Internet cookies, cable TV viewing history and cognitive recognition for digital signage all have the same objectives, and each is based on technology supporting target marketing. Message targeting is becoming a back-office technology where ads are pulled from storage and displayed based on pre-set 'if-then' display rules. This is a domain of practice that Cisco understands well and will help advance aggressively."
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