Images courtesy X2O Media
By David Wilkins
The digital signage industry has a proven history of enabling the delivery of real-time content to screens of different types and sizes. Now, the content creation workflow concepts that have been developed and the best practices learned over the years are being incorporated into management tools for other applications, including those geared to mobile phones and tablet computers. In this way, some of the visual communications technology of digital signage is facilitating new ways to push content out to a variety of platforms.
While a number of applications have recently been developed to span these platforms, content creation for successful multi-screen delivery will depend on users understanding how to plan creatively, how to use existing digital assets to reduce additional costs and how to achieve branding and messaging consistency across different channels.
Optimizing use
To maximize the value of content, it is important to start with the strategic production of that content to ensure it can be used across multiple platforms. Another key strategy is to be creative in repurposing existing content.
With some advance planning, a digital signage provider’s client can achieve consistent branding across multiple digital platforms, reduce content creation costs, engage its own customers with impactful messaging and thus improve its return on investment (ROI).
In a cross-platform content creation workflow, the fundamental processes remain consistent and unified, regardless of whether the content will be published to digital signage displays, desktop players, online portals, smart phones or tablet computers. Ideally, the workflow also supports a variety of data sources, both internal (e.g. databases) and external (e.g. social media networks), allowing the delivery of this data to various screens in an appropriate format.
With a ‘create once, use many times’ approach, the same content is distributed across multiple platforms with minor or no modifications. This has obvious shortcomings, such as when video ends up overly stretched or shrunk to fit a screen or when content is mismatched to the audience’s realistic dwell time.
During the 2011 Rogers Cup tennis tournament in Toronto and Montreal, digital signage content was made available in hospitality suites using Research in Motion’s (RIM’s) BlackBerry PlayBook tablet computers.
Given such problems, a ‘create many times, use once’ approach is often used instead. In this model, roughly the same amount of work is dedicated to each channel or platform. Content creators are given the most freedom to customize the ideal creative materials for each target screen. With regard to efficiency, however, this approach requires more time and adds significant expense.
So, content producers need to find a healthy balance between the two approaches. This can be achieved with a compelling and appropriate production process for each type of screen, so long as it can be handled at an acceptable level of cost.
The role of technology
Optimizing the workflow depends not only on how content is being created and distributed, of course, but also on which technology is being used to support it. A variety of options can facilitate the content creation process in this respect.
When selecting software and systems, digital signage content creators need to focus on how they can best streamline various aspects of their operations. Automated video format conversion for different screens according to preset rules, for example, is one way the application of technology can help minimize tedious, time-consuming work for staff members who should be contributing their time and talent to the creative process.
