Digital signage case study: Solara360

August 8, 2013

Photos courtesy Keywest Technology

Vancouver-based Solara360 recently saw the 12th franchisee sign up and install its digital signage technology, continuing the digital out-of-home (DOOH) advertising company’s upward trajectory since switching to a franchise business model.

Dorn Beattie founded Solara360 eight years ago with the goal of building a DOOH network for sports bars throughout North America. His original business model involved offering displays, media players, cabling and gear to the bars for free and then populating some of the on-screen space with local ads. Rather than retransmit the bars’ popular sports programming, the system would ‘frame’ it with the advertising content in an L-shaped field above and beside it.

Within weeks of offering the system, Beattie signed 32 contracts directly with bar owners, but then a major recession hit and his funding dried up. He explored other ways to bring the concept to market and settled on a franchising business model, whereby each individual franchisee would purchase the right to roll out the digital signage network in 10 bars within a defined territory. The franchisees would buy all of the equipment and then begin selling ads to generate revenue.

Since these franchisees might have only limited technical experience, however, it was essential for Solara360’s system to become easier to install and remotely controllable, with minimal need for on-premise intervention. Beattie revised his plan accordingly, such that each bar would be outfitted with a single Keywest Technology MediaZone Pro media player and a content distribution amplifier. He also prepared an easy-to-follow manual for his franchisees.

Once a bar’s media player and amplifier are turned on, the local system reports via the Internet to Solara360’s head office, indicating it is in service and ready for use. Then, as the franchisee sells ads, they are pulled into a playlist generated at the head office and sent back through the Internet to the bar for on-site playback.

Also, to ensure sports programming could run on the screens without being processed through the media players, Beattie developed proprietary digital signs based on Samsung liquid crystal display (LCD) glass, which can bring in a high-definition television (HDTV) signal through one video input and the L-shaped ad content through another. The picture-in-picture (PIP) displays leave sports broadcasts untouched and uninterrupted.

Beattie envisions Solara360 reaching 500 sports bars in the near future, at which point the network should be able to attract national ads, too. In the meantime, the focus is strictly on local ads.

“We are offering small-business owners TV-style advertising with a captive audience of 100,000 viewers per month for the same price as a black-and-white ad in a community newspaper,” says Beattie.

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