Association is understood as the union of individuals or organizations with a specific purpose.
Agustín Becerra*
Being Digital Signage an emerging industry in the world, with no more than 15 years of established in the global market, no more than 10 years in Latin America and growing by leaps and bounds, with annual growth rates that are around 20% compared to the previous year, with large international brands involved and budgets that in Colombia by the end of 2017 were around 16 million dollars in annual sales, It would be worth understanding why it has been so complicated to make companies see in the figure of the association an opportunity to formalize, standardize, professionalize, massify and commercialize, among other things, digital signage.
Understanding that there are international players, suppliers, integrators, multinational companies. I believe that a partnership could contribute to the development of the industry by consolidating all market players in one place. Let's place ourselves in the scenario that a brand arrives in the country looking for who represents it, or a multinational looking for who can support them in the implementation of a project, or any of us as a company looking for support to install, produce content, or manage a network of screens. The most practical way should be to go to the association and thus be able to support its requirement, as José Avalos of Intel once told me, "if the cake is bigger, the larger the portion will be for each one".
I understand that throughout Latin America it has been a complicated task to make this work model work. In Colombia, with the help of Roí Iglesias, current Associate Director for Altabox, former CEO for Neoadvertising, one of the most important European digital signage companies, we visited in September 2013 the IAB in Colombia, and with the full support of Olga Britto, its director in the country, we created the Digital Signage Committee in Colombia, replicating the work that the IAB had developed in Spain, where it was not only sought to generate an academic space to professionalize the industry but in turn was going to generate studies regarding the participation and growth that Digital Signage had in the country.
4 of the main companies in the country were part of this committee. We had a couple of meetings that were difficult to schedule, due to the availability of each one, and we could not advance in trying to structure a coordinated work path, Olga, seeking to give continuity to the great support of the IAB, generated through the Jorge Tadeo Lozano University in Colombia a space in the Diploma of Online Advertising where the Digital Signage module was opened, and I was chosen to dictate this chair, during 5 versions of the diploma that go until today, that academic space has been maintained where we talk about the industry, its growth, its key factors and examples of successful cases of implementations in the world.
Through AVIXA we have sought to generate academic spaces by giving webinars and conferences and finally the Digital Signage Association of Latin America through Karla León also opened a space in the latest version of InfoComm Colombia to teach about the industry.
You might think that although all companies in Colombia have good disposition and their managers are very friendly, each one is focused on the growth of their company, each one has a different vision of how they can take better share in the market and each one is currently based on their objectives.
Perhaps due to the immaturity of the market, it has not yet been time for the opportunity to consolidate this model of partnership. The important thing is that the market grows more and more every day, every time it is more mature in the country, we have already gone from simply putting screens that in many cases was a simple television with a USB to demanding a professional CMS software, to companies understanding the importance of using industrial technology, to be much more attentive, which in my opinion is the axis of the projects, in the communication through those screens.
It will dawn and we will see. This grows every day, particularly this 2019 started with very good expectations, there is still a lot of work to be done for Digital Signage in Colombia and there is no longer only talk of screens for advertising or events, also in corporate sectors, retail, banking, insurance, transport, health and others that are the consumers of this industry in the world.
*Agustín Becerra is the regional CEO of Pixel Media Group.
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