Digital Signage Journal on Ulitzer

Toronto, Montreal and the Kitchener-Waterloo region (home to BlackBerries) have a lopsided amount of the activity going on in the digital signage sector, but there's absolutely stuff shaking elsewhere.

If you subscribe to Google Alerts you see the daily release from PEI-based ScreenScape --- nice product but enough with the carpet-bombing PR, guys. Anyway, there are other things shaking down east, as well, including news of a rollout in an Atlantic Canada drug chain called Pharmasave.

Says the release: Halifax/Dartmouth-based Innovative Properties Inc. through its wholly-owned subsidiary DIME - Dynamic Integrated Marketing Enterprises Inc. - has done a deal with Pharmasave Drugs (Atlantic) Ltd. of Dartmouth, NS to out a screen network called "LIVE WELL WITH PHARMASAVE" into its 73 stores throughout Atlantic Canada.

"We chose DIME because of their experience supporting similar networks for other major customers and their focus on the healthcare segment in their Digital Signage products" said Greg van den Hoogen, Pharmasave Atlantic's General Manager. "DIME's network will compliment our current branding initiatives including an enhanced website and new advertising flyer and enable us to deliver valuable information to our customers."

"We're delighted that Pharmasave Atlantic has taken this leadership position in the retail pharmacy segment selecting this new media to provide healthy lifestyle messaging to its customers as part of its LIVE WELL WITH PHARMASAVE vision", commented Gordon Neal, President of INR and DIME. "Digital Signage is gaining popularity as a cost effective means of communicating your branding and messaging."

DIME will derive revenues from implementing hardware and software, network support, and content delivery for the system.
Innovative Properties Inc. is a publicly traded Canadian corporation involved in property management related services and technologies. DIME provides Digital Signage products for property management, retail, and other sectors.

I know the CTO at DIME a little and this project has been in the works for a few months. He put me on to his boss, Gordon Neal, who kindly zipped back quick answers to my questions.

Can you fill me in a bit more about what you are doing in store, number of screens, where in store, strategy, content look, and so on? The network is "LIVE WELL WITH PHARMASAVE" which picks up on their branding and marketing approach. Were deploying 1 to 5 screens per store, and in adjacent medical clinics. Some stores will have project on glass screens in windows. Screens are located in high dwell areas - near pharmacy drop-off pick up areas and waiting areas for people waiting for scripts. Content is all healthy lifestyle stuff we created - text over photos and video. The intent is to provide useful information to customers while they wait with an opportunity for advertisers to reach customers.

As well, is this a fee for service deal or are you splitting costs with the retailer?
It's a combination of fee for service and ad-revenue sharing.

Is it already operating and if so, how many sites?
First installation will begin next week. Expect to roll out at or near one store per day?

Pix?
We'll have a few on installation of first stores. This has some promise because the retailer is directly involved, has skin in the game, and has a clear objective for programming with its healthy lifestyle message. The store count may seem small but that's a strong footprint throughout a region that's not all that heavily populated. For you speed-dialing software sales guys, DIME has done that stuff for a few years and has it in hand. I think they still use a European platform. I assume the hardware is long since sorted if the roll is about to start.

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