DailyDOOH

CBS Outdoor UK has launched what it claims is the largest digital retail outdoor advertising portfolio in the UK, at Europe’s biggest urban mall, Westfield Stratford City.

The new shopping mall, located near the millennium stadium, and building even more excitement for the 2012 Olympics, will be the stage for key brands including Canon and Dewynters launching their digital outdoor campaigns at the opening.

The grand opening in September 13^th saw Westfield Stratford City boosting 100 digital LCD screens alongside four large format, iconic digital screens.

The campaigns will be hosted on CBS Outdoor UK’s portfolio of LED and LCD video walls and internal and external totem screens across the centre, in form of the Stratford Skyline screen, the Four Dials, Meridian Square and North Star.

The location and huge scale of the four screens, ranging from 5.2m x 4.0m in Meridian Square to the impressive 18.36m x 6.9m at the Stratford Skyline will create high impact, flexible, bespoke content targeting a diverse audience of shoppers entering through all exits from Stratford station.

Lauren Port, Media Manager from PHD comments: “As an imaging company, the quality of digital OOH screens is very important to Canon. Their new campaign showcases the IXUS 220 HS and its inbuilt High Sensitivity system – which shows consumers that there is more to image quality than just megapixels. The new screens at Westfield Stratford City were perfect for this campaign as they allowed Canon to showcase the camera in a premium environment, with the added bonus of having several key retailers in proximity. “

CBS Outdoor UK already holds the digital outdoor advertising contract for Westfield London in White City. Jason Cotterrell, Country Director for CBS Outdoor UK comments: “We have with the Westfield team delivered on time and on budget the largest investment in digital advertising displays this year to date.

“Our selected suppliers have also been fantastic providing high quality products and support. Our screens and software will offer interactive, dynamic and flexible digital advertising solutions. We have ensured that these screens set a new benchmark in design and reliability.”

CBS Outdoor UK worked with contractors dZine and BF Technology on the installation of the screens with manufacturers Samsung, Conrac, GDS and Daktronics.

Gerard Bucas announced his retirement as of Oct. 31, 2011, after nine years in the position, with Tom Nix taking over as CEO. He’s currently head of US sales.

Tom Nix

Bucas was the longest serving CEO at Scala in the company’s 20+ year’s history.

More to come a little later from both.

We’re expecting a new CEO for Scala to be announced momentarily as the Scala EMEA conference begins.

I managed to actually confirm a rumour before our editor-in-chief posted it as rumour and not fact. We had heard earlier this week from a trusted source that Richard Fisher was all set to leave PRN.

Well we have confirmation that Richard Fisher, president and CEO of Premier Retail Networks, will be leaving the organization he joined back in 2008 this October.

More details to follow.

I arrived okay and on time in Amsterdam from London City airport but Adrian was Mr Grumpy after a two hour delay when his BA flight from LHR broke down (probably due to the extra weight it was carrying up front).

Say after me “breathe in for that team photo”…

Anyway, we all received a very warm welcome when we arrived at the #Scalaconf. Here’s us (above) with Scala Marketing Director Harry Horn watching all of the exhibitors hard at work during pre-build.

Sanitas, a leading healthcare services provider in Spain, is now using Scala, ASVideo and Logopost Dinamic to bring local health product and service information to its customers in real-time.

The versatility and robustness of Scala’s digital signage content management tools has enabled Sanitas to enhance the experience for visitors and patients at its hospitals or medical centres. The innovative information screens were initially installed at Sanitas Millennium, Sanitas´ Attention Offices, in Madrid, Zaragoza, Seville, and Valencia, and will be rolled out to another 22 offices in the main cities across Spain throughout 2011.

Sanitas’ aim was to provide superior content to show product and services information both inside and outside the Sanitas Millennium offices, 24/7. This has been achieved with the installation of 55” Hyundai transflective touchscreen displays, selected for their performance in high-brightness semi-outdoor conditions. When not in use, the screens display product and promotional information. When a customer interacts with the screen, information such as specific promotions, Sanitas´ health products, and useful local information of medical centres and open pharmacies in the area is presented.

The content and system is managed by Scala Certified Partner ASVideo from its facilities in Madrid, in which a dedicated Scala content manager is available for the project.

Logopost Dinamic was brought in to develop high quality interactive content that would complement the look and feel of the Sanitas centres as well as replicating the printed promotions. The content is in both, Spanish and Catalan, enabling users at the Sanitas Millennium Centres in Catalonia to opt for their local language from the main menu.

In other Scala news, the AMD Embedded solutions partner Mdina Media has now joined Scala as a Scala Certified Partner.

Another big Westfield shopping mall opens today in London and Esprit Digital it seems have been busy. Below is one of their double-sided 17m x 2m video walls…

They have we understand installed something like 395 screens; some making up massive video walls and some stand alone wafer units.

The biggest display uses 102 individual displays. They also have ten bulkhead screens (4×3) and 2 screens for the Marks&Spencer end of the mall (54 screens) and some other units scattered around.

We need to plan a trip to see all this once we get Amsterdam, Munich out of the way.

He’s been (most recently) EMEA Digital Signage GTM Business Development Manager at Hewlett-Packard and before that Sales Director Europe at BroadSign, European Business Development Manager at ViewSonic and AV Sales Manager at Computers Unlimited but now it seems that Paul Farrow‘s latest job is as Director, Europe for Four Winds Interactive (FWi).

Four Winds wayfinding

Robert told us, “I’m thrilled to have joined FWi at this period in time. We’ve seen sales growth of 482% over the past three years, and our international expansion efforts can piggyback the successful foundation that FWi has built in the U.S. We’ll be looking to work closely with partners while continuing to support and learn from our customers, as has been our model in the U.S.”

We have been incredibly impressed by what we have seen of FWi in North America and there’s definitely a gap in Europe with what they offer. Done correctly in the vertical sectors they focus on, they could make a huge impact and for sure make lots of money but personally we don’t think that either of these hires is the best way to go about that.

From what we heard, Robert was a great consultant to Scala but not such a good operations / management / employee sort-of-guy. Paul Farrow has had more jobs than we’ve had hot dinners.

US companies need to realise when recruiting folks for expansion into Europe that they are mad to recruit Brits who speak only one language when they could have any continental European who will speak two or three.

The UK itself (sad to say as I live there) is not the best place to base your people either if you are serious about Europe as a whole.

What FWi needed to do was recruit a multilingual person with casino, hospitality or general leisure industry experience. We figured that David Levin, President, Four Winds Interactive was smarter than this.

This is happening in Dubai on 13th February 2012

These are a few of the LED Screens that caught our eye at Plasa 11 in London today.