Author: LG

Martin Oberli

Sr Marketing Intelligence Manager

LG Electronics USA, Inc. Commercial Displays Division

 

 

Last year around this time I blogged about the question: How much does bad data cost LG Commercial Displays? Even though over the year we have made good headway in this regard, most of the work still targets the same objective: Gathering and consolidating information about customers and leads in order to learn about their behavior and use this information to do more direct, effective and economically efficient marketing.

The task has been more extensive and complex than expected given the nature of the business. On one hand there are several verticals (Hospitality, Signage and Small Monitors), each with multiple sub-verticals, combined with sales that can go directly to end users, resellers or distributers. Most of this activity is managed by several sales teams.

Over the last year most of the customer, lead and new target company information has been organized in such a way that today it is possible to specifically target any combination of these for marketing or sales purposes. This work prepared the company for the latest marketing trend known as Account-Based Marketing (ABM).

Wikipedia defines ABM this way: “Account-based marketing (ABM), also known as key account marketing, is a strategic approach to business marketing based on account awareness in which an organization considers and communicates with individual prospect or customer accounts as markets of one.”

In more tangible words, ABM is the product of an increasing overlap between marketing and sales enhanced by customer relationship management (CRM) software and technology. The digitalization of business is changing the B2B buying process. In the past marketing focused on top-of-funnel and sales took the leads and tried to close them. Today sellers are acting more like marketers, relying on data and analytics to first make meaningful connections and eventually increase sales.

No doubt good headway has been made over the last year from a marketing data organization perspective and now LG Commercial Displays can strive for the ABM implementation. The latter is certainly quite an undertaking as well, requiring close collaboration between marketing and sales for training purposes on mass emailing, qualifying/disqualifying leads, preparation of email templates, reporting, etc.

There are still additional aspects to consider on an ABM strategy, such as complementing the target companies with relevant marketing content in a coordinated programmatic media action. However, this might be enough material for the next blog.

In any case, marketing analytics at LG Commercial Displays is progressing toward its objective of more effective and economically efficient marketing.

It can pack more functionality, use considerably less power and cost only a fraction of a central processing unit (CPU). And it can be found in smartphones, tablets, some laptops, and most commercial displays.

It’s called System on Chip (SoC). And it’s working hard to lower the cost of digital signage deployments.

A digital signage display installation usually requires an external content source such as a PC or other media player to be connected to the display with cables. With SoC displays, however, the playback device and its connecting cables are eliminated. Instead, an integrated circuit puts all the typical components of a computer on a single chip, which is embedded inside the display itself.

By using commercial displays with SoC, signage network operators can eliminate the hardware cost and complexity of a separate media player and its related cables and mounting accessories. SoC streamlines installations by consolidating everything needed for a digital signage network inside the display, requiring just a single power cable connected in the rear and a Wi-Fi connection.

LG and a number of other display manufacturers offer commercial displays with embedded SoC, and hundreds of CMS software companies are offering solutions that fully run on SoC.

LG commercial displays with embedded SoC, running LG’s webOS 3.0 for signage operating system, have the multimedia capabilities and critical management tools to address enterprise-class requirements. The CMS partner eco-system for webOS for signage is growing, with more than a dozen CMS companies in North America and more than 100 globally, adding more and more capabilities to digital signage with SoC.

Beyond providing customized and functional solutions for business owners and systems integrators, webOS for signage offers business owners a host of customer experience upgrades, cloud-based solutions, mobile accessibility, screen control and multi-touch solutions, thanks to LG’s expanded solution partners:

Systems integrators can download useful content and develop customized applications that fit their exact needs, and update it simply and quickly via a smartphone or tablet.

Depending on the application, digital signage with SoC may be the perfect solution. It will save both time and costs, and equip your signage network with attention-grabbing content that is easily created, updated and managed in real time from a central location.

There’s more to know, and Dave Haynes of Sixteen:Nine has written a deep dive into SoC, reflecting his own observations and the opinions of dozens of industry people. It’s an excellent resource to download and keep for reference even if you’re not considering a SoC digital signage deployment just yet.

Click on Dave Haynes’ report above and download it now.

 

In medicine, the smallest things can often make the difference between blindness and sight, mobility and paralysis, life and death. Medical professionals of every kind understand this, and the tireless pursuit of ever finer details guides everything they do. This is where LG Business Solutions can help.

LG offers a newly expanded lineup of extremely accurate, DICOM Part 14 compliant medical imaging displays for patient care from registration to examination, to diagnosis and treatment. The full line will be showcased at the HIMSS18 (Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society) Conference & Exhibition, LG booth #10910 (Level 1 Hall G), March 5-9, at the Venetian – Palazzo – Sands Expo Center in Las Vegas.

LG has leveraged years of industry-leading flat-panel technology expertise in the design of these displays. All models feature LG’s renowned IPS (In Plane Switching) technology, which provides a true 178-degree wide viewing angle. IPS makes it possible for multiple medical professionals to view the same display from different angles and see the image with crisp clarity and minimal color shift.

Each display is engineered to deliver peak performance in its category.

LG’s new 3MP Diagnostic Monitor is the first product in the diagnosis category for LG. Its 21.3-inch, 3MP (1536 x 2048) IPS screen is capable of impressive brightness levels up to 1,000 nits, and a built-in calibrator checks which colors need to be adjusted.

LG’s new 1.3MP Clinical Review Monitor features a 19-inch, 1.3MP (1280 x 1024) IPS screen with a 5:4 aspect ratio and can seamlessly connect to existing hospital equipment while maximizing space.

LG’s 8MP Clinical Review Monitor is a 27-inch IPS monitor with 3840 x 2160 resolution designed to increase hospital staff efficiency by enabling streamlined workflows and multitasking.

LG’s 8MP Surgical Monitor delivers unparalleled clarity with a 27-inch, IPS 8MP UHD screen. It covers over 99 percent of the RGB color space with additional space dedicated to the deep red spectrum, enabling doctors to more easily distinguish between different types of tissue and blood vessels. High luminance of up to 800 nits makes it ideally suited for bright operating rooms. The front panel is IP35 rated and the back panel is IP32 rated, protecting against dust, water or fluids. The flat surface allows for easy sanitization of the panel and control buttons.

All LG medical imaging displays are compliant with DICOM Part 14, which means that grayscale tones are measured and set on the production line to maintain image accuracy and consistency over time. The displays also come equipped with backlight stabilization technology to maintain stable luminance levels across the entire screen, and are finely calibrated to ensure consistency across multiple devices. Dynamic Sync Mode reduces input lag and provides a rapid response time, ensuring precise imaging with diagnostic scans and surgical procedures. Flicker Safe and Reader Mode settings help minimize the eye strain often experienced by doctors and nurses working long shifts.

No matter how you look at it, you’re going to like what you see at LG booth #10910.

Resellers and systems integrators know the importance of providing total hardware solutions for their clients. Let’s say you just completed a large install and your client’s displays are all up and running perfectly. Great job!

But have you spoken with them about content? Specifically, who’s going to do the art and copy to ensure customers are attracted to the displays and hopefully take action based on the message? And who will do the programming and manage the content from day to day?

In the world of digital signage, content (with strategy) is king.

Consider this. When digital signage first came on the scene years ago, customers saw those large format displays and were wowed by the big pictures. Many at that time wished that one day they could have a TV that big.

Fast forward to now. Many people do have TVs that big. They’ve become accustomed to seeing big, beautiful pictures, right at home. And they can change the channel anytime they want.

It’s something to think about. An effective digital signage deployment shouldn’t get stale. The content should be refreshed periodically. Elements changed. Messaging tweaked. This way, the digital signage maintains its attraction. The last thing a business owner needs is to have their digital signage ignored due to familiarity. If customers walk past a video wall and are looking only at their smartphones, something is wrong.

Content creation and management aren’t things to simply hand off to a staff member unless it’s a dedicated digital creative staff member. For maximum effectiveness, there’s a lot to the job.

Are you partnered with an ad agency or marketing company that offers digital media creation and management services for digital signage deployments? This is a major value-add to offer your clients with every sale. And the bigger the business, the greater the need can be for such a service. Content as a service can also bring in a nice chunk of change for an ad agency or marketing company looking to expand their offerings. It’s an exciting new frontier to launch into as the demand for digital signage just keeps growing.

Taking a consultative approach, a content partner can work with your client to develop top-quality digital media content to impress their customers/visitors, enhance the look and feel of the business and increase revenue. A content partner can work closely with them to ensure an accurate and consistent brand image. And a content partner will use best practices in design and layout, taking into consideration the types of displays, the location of displays and the viewing distance from the displays.

Digital signage content creation teams know how to make the most of:

• Attention-grabbing layouts
• Dynamic motion graphics, unique videos, images and live data feeds
• Interactive elements
• Personalization content (via NFC, smartphone apps, beacons, IoT)
• Ongoing campaigns and more
• Customizable templates for plug-and-play content creation

As we look into 2018 and think about ways to offer more and better solutions to our clients, let’s always keep an eye on what’s in the big picture.

Following the introduction of its commercial robots in 2017, LG Electronics is pushing the envelope with the three new work robot concepts. The new concepts, specifically developed for commercial use at hotels, airports and supermarkets, reflect LG’s commitment to expanding its position as the leader in development of products utilizing artificial intelligence (AI) through deep learning. The concept prototypes were unveiled at CES 2018.

Under LG’s new “CLOi” (pronounced KLO-ee) robot brand, the CLOi serving robot, CLOi porter robot and CLOi shopping cart robot follow in the footsteps of the CLOi airport guide robot and the CLOi airport cleaning robot. The airport robots are already deployed in a trial at South Korea’s Incheon International Airport, and they will take on the thousands of visitors that travel through Seoul on their way to Pyeongchang. Also part of the expanding CLOi family is the CLOi lawn mowing robot, and the CLOi hub robot which recently participated in a trial at one of Korea’s largest financial institutions by providing information and servicing customers at the bank’s branches.

At Your Service

The CLOi serving robot will deliver food and beverages to guests of hotels and visitors to airport lounges quickly and efficiently. Customers will experience intuitive interaction with the robot as they remove their items from the robot’s built-in sliding tray. When the delivery is confirmed, the serving robot will make its way back to the kitchen on its own.

Easy Come, Easy Go

The CLOi porter robot will help minimize inconvenience for travelers by reducing slow service and long wait times at hotels. This robot can facilitate express check-in and check-out service by handling payment and even delivering luggage to a guest’s room or waiting vehicle.

Speed Shop

The CLOi shopping cart robot includes a barcode reader that customers can use to scan items and view product prices as they’re placed within the robot’s bin. The robot’s “face” will also display all items on the shopping list and through a smartphone app will guide the customer through the store via the most efficient route.

Your Future Business Trip

Just imagine. After being served your lunch in the airport lounge by an LG robot, you arrive at your favorite business travel hotel and are greeted by an LG robot that checks you in quickly and carries your suitcase up to your room. You turn on your room TV, an LG Pro:Centric model, and order room service directly from the TV. A short time later, an LG robot arrives at your door and delivers your order. When your trip is over, an LG robot in the hotel lobby assists you with express check-out and also carries your suitcase to the car waiting outside. Finally, you arrive at home and see that you need a few grocery items for dinner. You go to the supermarket where you are escorted by an LG robot that speeds your shopping experience and carries your items so you don’t have to push a cart.

No tips required (how would you tip a robot anyway?). Life’s Good with LG.

Scott Kelley

Sr. Product Marketing Manager

Commercial Displays Division | LG Electronics USA, Inc.

 

 

It is difficult to describe how one feels when seeing the LG 38” UltraWide® curved display on someone’s desk, shining in all its IPS glory. When I first saw one, I thought I heard angels singing, but that turned out to be the two 10-watt stereo speakers inside this display. The one thing people typically say when they see one of these is, “Wow!” But these monitors are more than just a 3840×1600 gamer’s paradise. These represent the future of office productivity.

Workbench Tools Versus Computers

When you purchase a monitor, it’s more like buying a workbench tool than buying the computer that usually comes with it. Think about it – people don’t typically get rid of old tools, even if the tools are mediocre. It’s just not in our nature to throw away a “perfectly good” Phillips screwdriver (even if it’s a bit chewed-up). The same paradigm fits old monitors. We tend to keep them forever – past the life cycles of several computers. It’s tough for us to justify throwing away a “perfectly good” 15-inch monitor even if it is ancient and only has a single VGA input connection. So we string together multiple old, small monitors (sometimes of different sizes) to cobble together viewing spaces large enough to run the multiple windows we need at a reasonable size for us to be productive. So with multiple power cords and data cables, we unleash our inner nerd to create our own home-grown version of a NASA command center at our desks. Add to that multiple data connectors of various types (VGA, DVI, HDMI) and trying to drive them with one computer and the “desktop” settings in Windows become a nightmare. And if you have two laptops – say a Macbook Pro and a Surface Pro – you need to use a separate mouse and keyboard for each. Your workspace becomes a cluttered mess that is no longer productive, it’s distracting.

Screen Space, Windows and Multiple Sources

Screen space is needed in today’s workplace now more than ever to increase productivity. We have multiple windows open at the same time to assist us in receiving and processing information. In the past, taking advantage of a large monitor was more difficult, but with free LG On Screen Control software this is no longer an issue. This software allows you to split the screen quickly and easily so that you don’t spend all your time resizing Windows where you want them. Check out a demonstration of this at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-jqqQdRRzI. When you purchase LG UltraWide® monitors for your workspace, make sure that every employee is shown the basics of LG On Screen Control so they do not become frustrated resizing windows trying to maximize their workspaces.

Now on to the most amazing part – controlling two computers with one monitor, keyboard and mouse via a single LG UltraWide® curved display. With the free LG Dual Controller Software, you can easily connect your Macbook Pro AND your Windows Surface Pro to the same UltraWide® monitor and use one mouse and keyboard to control BOTH computers simultaneously on one LG display. So you can sit in the sweet spot of your curved display and work productively and seamlessly on both devices at the same time. Check out a demonstration of the capability here and here.

 

Future Proofing

So when you invest in an UltraWide® curved monitor of any size, you are investing in the productivity of your team members going forward. Why? You give them the screen real estate they need with a clean desktop, amazing sound and the ability to run two computers at one time on the same display. This efficiency will last for several generations of computers as your team members work on state-of-the-art displays designed to maximize productivity. Plus, you’ve got to admit they are incredibly cool looking in the office!

 

You know about LG OLED’s perfect black. Did you know LG also strives for excellent Green?

At CES 2018 the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) honored LG Electronics USA with the Product Champion Award for LG OLED TVs. This cites LG’s significant environmental, social and economic outcomes that go above and beyond the requirements of the EPA’s Sustainable Materials Management (SMM) Electronics Challenge.

LG OLED TVs are designed to reduce environmental impact and to be easier to disassemble and recycle. The Product Champion Award recognizes LG’s “leadership in innovating processes and products that focus on environmentally responsible material use throughout its entire life cycle,” according to the EPA.

Specifically, the EPA is recognizing LG for its “vision in continually replacing and reducing use of hazardous materials in electronics products by developing OLED TVs that are mercury-free, use PVC-free internal cables and BFR-free housing and stand parts, and greatly reduce the potential harm to humans and the environment.”

This achievement raises the sales appeal of LG OLED commercial displays even higher. If you’re a commercial display reseller, systems integrator or a business with an eye on the future, the fact that LG OLED is designed to reduce environmental impact speaks volumes about the kinds of partnerships you choose.

Additional Awards and Certification

LG also took home the EPA’s Silver Tier Award. This was in recognition of LG’s significant contributions to the EPA’s SMM Electronics Challenge goals by collecting a considerable amount of used electronics for reuse and recycle, sending 100 percent of used electronics to certified third-party recyclers, and publicly sharing detailed information about its electronic management practices.

What’s more, LG OLED TVs earned the Design for Recycling^® Award from the world’s leading recycling industry group, the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries. ISRI’s highest honor recognized LG for developing OLED and LED TVs with greener features designed to reduce the environmental load at every stage of the product lifecycle.

LG OLED models were also the first TVs to earn UL “GREENGUARD” Certification that helps create healthier indoor environments. UL Environment’s rigorous GREENGUARD testing confirmed low chemical and formaldehyde emissions from LG OLED TVs.

Supporting its commitment to responsible recycling, LG Electronics Inc. is the world’s first “Global e-Stewards Enterprise.” The e-Stewards standard, developed by the Basel Action Network, is the world’s most rigorous certification program for electronics recyclers. It prevents the export and dumping of toxic electronic waste in developing countries and calls for safeguards to protect private data and ensure that recycling plant workers are not exposed to toxic materials.

William Cho, president and CEO, LG Electronics USA, said, “Sustainability is a core business principle at LG Electronics, and we believe LG has a shared responsibility to protect the environment by reducing our environmental impact while enhancing the quality of life for consumers. We call this ‘Innovation for a Better Life,’ and it means both responsible recycling and developing innovative products with the environment in mind.”

Read the full story here.

If you weren’t at CES last week, you missed the opportunity to walk through a winding 92-foot-long LG OLED Canyon leading to the LG booth. The immersive installation featured 246, 55-inch LG Open Frame OLED displays—90 concave and 156 convex 4K UHD screens—giving tens of thousands of visitors a one-of-a-kind experience of the earth’s natural wonders, courtesy of two billion self-lighting pixels. The jaw-dropping exhibit was further enhanced by Dolby Atmos surround sound technology and took 5-1/2 days to construct.

LG OLED technology uses self-lighting pixels so the display doesn’t require backlighting or edge lighting. Why is this important? It means that the display can be extremely lightweight, thin and flexible. LG OLED Open Frame displays bend concave and convex either horizontally or vertically, and can be mounted that way. It’s a whole new level of customizability that is both a breathtaking work of art and a functional signage display.

Last year at CES we created an LG OLED tunnel. This year it was a 30-yard canyon. We’re looking forward to the years ahead, where we’ll be showcasing more innovations for commercial display technology. We have some very exciting things in the works, and that’s good reason for you to check back often.

Have a look at this AVS Forum video of the LG OLED Canyon experience at CES 2018.

Check out last year’s tunnel.

 

We’re all familiar with LED (light emitting diode) displays. Even on the consumer side, we’ve seen today’s LED TVs in the stores and probably have them at home. But the digital signage industry indicates that a technology known as Direct View LED has become increasingly popular and is poised to be a big deal this year.

Direct View LED? What’s the difference?

First of all, the LED displays or TVs we see these days are actually LCD (liquid crystal display) panels that are backlit or edge-lit by LEDs. Ever since LEDs replaced the CCFL (cold cathode fluorescent lamps) as the display lighting source the LED descriptor has been used.

Direct View LED, however, is an entirely different animal. Direct View LED eliminates the LCD layer, and instead, uses a vast array of tiny LEDs to create the picture. These individual LEDs are remarkably bright, and arranged into clusters that serve as red/green/blue-producing pixels. So when you look at the image, you are viewing the LEDs directly. No additional lighting source is needed.

Direct View LED is prized for bright pictures, wide viewing angles, high color uniformity and a long, reliable life. And LG offers a broad range of them. LG’s LAP Series Premium Finepitch Indoor Direct View LED displays, for example, deliver stunning images that can attract, engage and inform any audience. The LAP Series is ideal for the most demanding venues; from automotive and retail to museums and galleries to control rooms, boardrooms and broadcast studios.

With 1,000/1,200-nit brightness the LAP Series displays ensure a striking presentation of content. A 6,000:1 contrast ratio makes images truly pop, even more so with LG’s exclusive dynamic contrast algorithm for vivid, consistent color across the entire screen.

LAP Series displays also deliver excellent off-axis viewing, so the outstanding color and contrast remain consistent even across a big room or for everyone in a large crowd.

What about image clarity?

Here’s where things get interesting. Direct View LED displays are classified by pixel pitch, which indicates in millimeters how close the LED pixels are to each other. Viewing distance is a key factor when choosing the proper pixel pitch, and the right display for a particular job. The smaller the pitch, the closer viewers can get to the display before they start to discern the individual pixels making up the image. A general layman’s rule of thumb says the minimum viewing distance is roughly three times in feet what the pixel pitch is in millimeters.

The LAP Series offers pixel pitches in 1.00, 1.50 and 2.00 mm, for beautifully clear, sharp and captivating pictures. The series consists of three models: the top-of-the-line LAP010BL2 in addition to LAP015BL2 and LAP020BL4. With their varying sizes of pixel pitch, these displays can suit virtually every environment and use-case scenario. The LAP020BL2, for example, has a pixel pitch of 1.00 mm and a 1,000,000 pixels/m² physical pixel density for an incredibly crisp, lifelike image even when viewed up close.

What do you get with the LAP Series?

Each model in the LAP Series is an individual module, sold in packages of 2 x 2. They can be assembled into nearly limitless arrays to create immense video walls, with a bezel-less design that enables virtually seamless viewing on the giant screens.

LG webOS 3.0 control manager software, a web-based solution supporting virtually effortless control and monitoring via PC or mobile device, is included free of charge. All models work seamlessly with the LCLG001 LED Controller (sold separately). This off-board controller relocates the system power supply and other electronic hardware—traditionally a part of the display itself—outside and away from the video wall. The controller houses multiple in/out and control ports, as well as a built-in media player and scaler for greater convenience. The LAP Series also provides easy rear access to the LED panels for simplified maintenance.

LG’s unique power module design enables high luminance with efficient power consumption, and is combined with an LG power-saving algorithm. Advanced auto module protection monitors and controls system temperature for reliable performance and longevity.

The LG LAP Series Premium Finepitch Indoor Direct View LED displays offer a bold, clean style worthy of the most prestigious installations with the stellar performance that can both empower employees as well as dazzle guests and potential customers.

(BTW, LG custom builds Premium Outdoor Direct View LED displays, too. But that’s another post.)

Have a look at the LAP Series here.

One of the things that rank high on our list is meeting people at roadshows or tradeshows and answering questions about LG commercial displays and their applications.

Maybe it’s healthcare, hospitality or transportation. Retail, QSR or government. Or education. And certainly there are loads of uses for digital signage in public venues.

Which areas are you interested in?

Commercial displays have come a long, long way. Today’s form factors enable installations in places that previously wouldn’t even have been considered for displays. LG OLED, for example, can transform any business environment, and even create one-of-a-kind attractions that can make a business stand out from the competition. Combine all this with the latest software advancements and the Internet of Things and the possibilities will be virtually limitless.

If you’re a regular reader of this blog you know that we touch on many different topics. But we want to know your thoughts. There’s no need to wait for a show to bring us your concerns; you can connect with us any time via our social channels and start a conversation.

What content would you like to see here? What questions would you like to have answered? Tell us and we’ll do our best to give you the information you’re looking for about LG commercial displays and the amazing ways to use them.