March 19, 2009

Who Designated YOU King or Queen of Digital Signage? I BET it was YOU…

I find it so interesting that in this day and age, EVERYONE has the power to brand — or rebrand (or completely invent for that matter) — themselves via social media. It’s a trippy experience to get to know someone solely on spurts of 140 characters or less — trippy, but wonderful. I mean, what are the odds in the real world capacity that we would have the opportunity to visit, converse, and in a sense, really get to know individuals from the Twitter universe?

That being said, I must admit I am also intrigued how social media defines a new industry. Take for example, digital signage and CANs — a relatively new industry that seems to evolve by the second in both a technological and philosophical sense. Social media, has on many levels, shaped this industry. It (and I mean “us” collectively — weird concept thinking of “us” as an “it,” huh?) has dictated what is cool, what works, what doesn’t work and what will work.

So, although it shouldn’t have really surprised me yesterday while perusing through the Daily DOOH (which I love, by the way) to learn that CANs had died, but then come back, I was nonetheless, a bit perplexed to find that they had, in fact, met an early demise but had thankfully been recently resurrected (just in time for Easter, too!).

I say “thankfully” because CAN’s have not died, in fact, I know one CAN who is alive and well — ours. Furthermore, I believe this is where digital advertising will indeed take off, since CANs lend themselves very well to a “traditional” television model — except for two big pluses — audiences can’t skip through the commercials and they are “captive.” (And yes, right now I deem myself the “queen of digital signage” — if only for :15 seconds:).

Thanks to Daily DOOH contributer Chris Heap for bringing to life (all pun intended) this very serious issue of CAN extinction and how it really isn’t the end, but just the beginning. And, it may seem like I’m punking Heap, but I’m not — he offers great perspectives about the industry (and excellent headlines) in an entertaining and informative way.

For all of you other social media brand whores out there looking for their 15 minutes of fame (me included!), keep it going. We’re not only changing and industry, we’re changing the whole collective — powerful, scary and exciting.

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