Winning Airport Business Just Got Harder For Pure-Play Digital Signage Companies

December 3, 2013 by Dave Haynes

We see new guys coming into the digital signage sector all the time, from all angles.

Some tend to make you think, “Oh Jeez.” Others generate an “Oh Really?” Put this in the latter camp.

A very large, well established engineering company that’s part of a $180B asset management company, is now doing digital signage and has car rental giant Hertz as a client.

Says a release:

Hertz (NYSE:HTZ), the world’s largest car rental company, and ARINC Incorporated announced today that Hertz has selected ARINC‘s microFIDS digital signage solution to provide up-to-the minute access to flight information at its San Diego Airport location. The microFIDS units are part of Hertz’s re-branding effort that harness the latest in technology to re-invent the car rental experience and provide customers with a new and improved way to rent cars.

“Hertz is reinventing the car rental experience with a goal to make our customer’s travel experience as easy as possible,” said Hertz Chief Information Officer, David Trimm. “With microFIDS, we have found a cost-effective way of giving customers the information they need, right when they need it. Customers at our San Diego location have complimented the system and Hertz for making important flight information available as they plan their return trip to the airport terminal.”

Hertz has redesigned its San Diego Airport facility to provide technology that makes the car-rental process faster, easier and more flexible. With microFIDS from ARINC, Hertz is deploying up-to-the minute flight, weather and destination information outside the rental office so passengers can see critical travel-related information while on-the-go.

“Hertz is employing a number of key technologies to improve its customers’ travel experience,” said Christopher Forrest, Managing Director at ARINC Managed Services. “By using ARINC’s digital signage solution to provide important information, Hertz is taking one more to step to make their customers’ travel easier and less stressful.”

microFIDS have rugged outdoor screens and can be placed outside of rental offices or in parking areas. For travelers arriving at the airport, microFIDS provide the first opportunity to see their flight status. The units can display content in addition to flight information, such as advertising and airport information. microFIDS offer a unique advantage over other digital signage solutions because the ease of installation and user-friendly interface makes content updates simple to implement. “Deploying microFIDS is very straightforward and because everything is web-based, it’s up and running immediately after installation,” adds Forrest.

It looks like this company has been in this space for a while and has an almost crazy list of capabilities – digital signage, kiosks and digital wayfinding among them. Doing a FIDS screen used to be kinda sorta exotic, but showing live data feeds is now something just anyone can put together.

Companies like this, that already have well-established hooks into sectors like mass transport, are a problem for pure-play signage companies chasing deals in spaces like airports and government infrastructure. Their products might not have all the bells and whistles of a full CMS, but often those bells and whistles aren’t needed. What they have in their favor is other systems already in place and all the experience, approvals and paperwork needed to work in these kinds of environments.