The digital signage advertising model seems to have no limits. Companies have put them in bars, malls, bathrooms, and everywhere in between. Now comes along a company that has decided to put a bet on installing digital signage in the lift lines at ski resorts across North America and beyond. That company is called Sitour.
When I first saw this article I had no idea who Sitour was. It turns out that they are a multinational company involved in selling advertising at over 1,000 resorts in 14 countries. Wow. Oh yeah, they've been around since the 1960's too.
Now I've seen a lot of advertising models based on digital signage over the last few years (uhh umm, I'm guilty of trying it as well...) and most of them have failed or are floundering. If you've read my blog before, I have repeated the fatal flaw of advertising business models. That flaw in my opinion is lack of scale and reach offered by fragmented network operators. Without the scale of many hundred displays it is not possible to offer the reach required by large advertisers which is where the real money is. From the looks of Sitour, we may have a player beyond Walmart and Captivate Networks that can give some solidity to digital signage as an advertising medium.
For now I'm happy to sit on the sidelines and watch how the advertising model develops. I'm convinced it is here to stay but I do think further maturation is necessary before we see a true convergence. This is certainly a step in the right direction.
The article I came across on this subject was Media Life Magazine and can be found here.
