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Times OOH Media selected ASUS products to deliver a premium-quality digital signage solution for India’s largest airports and expand the reach of their advertising.

 

The digital revolution in India continues to gather pace, with the digital advertising market expected to reach 190 billion Indian Rupee (Rs 19,000 Crore) by 2020, according to a recent report. This meteoric rise is largely driven by increasing smartphone penetration and the rollout of 4G (with lower costs for data). But the seismic shift towards digital is not limited to mobile platforms. In fact, Digital out-of-home (DOOH) advertising is one of the hottest sectors, expected to grow 20-25% over the next five years to four times its market size in 2018. Established in 2005, Times OOH is the undisputed leader in the organised Indian out-of-home market, with a presence in all segments, including street furniture, transit, large formats and digital. Their locations include the two largest airports in India (Delhi & Mumbai), which service almost 50% of air travellers in India. Check out these five tips for displaying motion content on the digital signage To capitalise on these premium audiences, Times OOH needed a digital signage player that was flexible enough to operate in a wide-range of environments, including areas where network infrastructure was poor, and had the performance to deliver the premium-quality 4K brand advertising experience that its clients demand. The opportunity Times OOH had a number of key requirements for a digital signage product but finding a solution that met all of these requirements, while being flexible enough to operate in a wide range of locations, proved challenging.

 

A major hurdle was finding a solution that could operate in locations where network or WiFi infrastructure was unable to reliably stream content to a player. In these cases, a signage solution that was able to integrate a DVD player while maintaining a slimline form factor was an essential requirement. A key advantage of digital OOH is the quality of content it is able to deliver, and so to provide the level of brand impact that Times OOH required, the signage solution needed to have a powerful CPU, capable of driving two signage displays at 4K / UHD resolution simultaneously. This was something that many signage products based on older or low-end platforms could not support. Finally, digital OOH is only effective when it is working, so minimizing downtime due to hardware faults was essential. And, in the unlikely event of a product failure, Times OOH needed a partner with unparalleled support, who they could trust to ensure a high-quality of service so that any issues were rectified quickly and to their satisfaction. Furthermore, they needed a partner with the capability to customise a product to their specific needs. Want to build a digital signage wall for maximum impact? Here's how you do it The solution ASUS quickly came to the fore as the brand that was able to meet the demanding criteria set out by Times OOH, and the ASUS VivoMini VC66 mini PC - part of an extensive range of Mini-PC business products from ASUS - was selected as the chosen signage player. “The ASUS VC66 is a perfect high-end digital signage hardware solution for playing 4K content in OOH environments like airports and transit stations,” said Vijay Mane, Group Manager of Times OOH. “As a globally-recognised brand, with a reputation for quality and innovation, ASUS was the obvious choice as a partner for this project.” As a compact mini PC with only a two-litre chassis, the ASUS VC66 is ideally-suited for installation in a wide variety of locations, where space is often at a premium. However, thanks to the use of desktop-grade Intel Core processors and high-performance DDR4 memory, it delivered the performance required for driving multiple 4K signage screens. The VC66 also offers versatile storage options, thanks to a modular design that supports the addition of a slimline optical drive. This met the key requirement of Times OOH for a signage player that can use physical media to play content in locations where the network infrastructure is insufficient. Finally, ASUS was able to offer the quality of service that Times OOH demanded, including the capability to deliver comprehensive service in more than fifty locations spread across India. However, the service ASUS offered went beyond technical support as they were able to work with Times OOH to create a customized BIOS that includes a function that can automatically wake up the machine after the player is shut down. Overall, ASUS was able to not only meet, but exceed the requirements of Times OOH, and deliver a signage solution that is perfectly tailored to their needs, together with unmatched service and support.