DSA Announces Awards Of Excellence, 2nd Awards In Four Months

March 13, 2014 by Dave Haynes

The Digital Screenmedia Association has pushed out a news release announcing the winners of its 2014 Awards Of Excellence.

These are not the same awards as the ones – called the DSA Crown Awards – that the DSA handed out a little over four months ago in New York, ahead of what’s now called CEW.

This confuses the heck out of me. I had to check and see if this was a bit like how politicians keep re-announcing hospitals and highways, but the winners are indeed different.

Here goes:

The Digital Screenmedia Association has announced the winners of its annual DSA Industry Excellence Awards, which honors the best digital signage, mobile and self-service kiosk technology deployments across all vertical market segments.

The 2014 winners are:

Best Corporate Communications Digital Signage 
Project: Four Winds Enterprise Interactive Experience
Client: Four Winds Interactive
Submitted by: Four Winds Interactive

Best Corporate Communications Self-Service/Interactive Kiosk 
Project: Performance Court Videowall
Client: Morguard
Submitted by: Cineplex Digital Solutions

Best Cultural Digital Signage 
Project: Dallas Arboretum – Rory Meyers Children’s Adventure Garden
Client: Dallas Arboretum
Submitted by: Reflect Systems

Best Digital Out-of-Home Digital Signage 
Project: HTC Interactive DOOH Campaign
Client: HTC
Submitted by: Aerva, Inc.

Best Entertainment/Gaming Digital Signage 
Project: Art Alive Crayola Experience by GestureTek
Client: Crayola Experience
Submitted by: GestureTek

Best Financial Services Digital Signage 
Project: Jyske Bank TV
Client: Jyske Bank
Submitted by: Scala, Inc.

Best Government/Education/Non-Profit Digital Signage 
Project: Montréal Convention Centre
Client: Palais des congrès de Montréal (Montréal Convention Centre)
Submitted by: Arsenal Media, Inc.

Best Healthcare Digital Signage 
Project: Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital
Client: Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital
Submitted by: ComQi, Inc.

Best Healthcare Self-Service/Interactive Kiosk 
Project: Digital Wayfinding Solution for Gold Coast University Hospital
Client: Command Australia
Submitted By: 22 Miles, Inc.

Best Retail Digital Signage 
Project: TELUS Digital Signage – SportChek West Edmonton Mall
Client: FGL Sports Ltd.
Submitted by: TELUS

Best Retail Digital Self-Service/Interactive Kiosk 
Project: The Home Depot Appliance Finder
Client: Home Depot
Submitted by: Image Manufacturing Group

Best Travel/Hospitality Digital Signage 
Project: Interactive wayfinding: navigating a path to success at Dubai Airports
Client: Dubai Airports
Submitted by: NCR Corporation

Best Travel/Hospitality Self-Service/Interactive Kiosk 
Project: New York City MTA On-the-Go Kiosk
Client: New York Metropolitan Transit Authority
Submitted by: Control Group

Best Screenmedia Integration Award 
Project: @Cafe Social Media Headquarters
Client: San Francisco Giants Major League Baseball Club
Submitted by: Array Interactive

“This was truly one of the best sets of entries we have ever seen,” said Paul Flanigan, Executive Director of the DSA. “We received entries from all over the world, including Denmark, Australia, Taiwan, Dubai, and Canada as well as outstanding entries from the United States. So many of the entries and winners are branching out beyond one channel of consumer engagement. Many used two or three channels, including digital signage, mobile, and kiosks. It’s clear that multi-channel interactivity is beginning to dominate the consumer experience in every vertical.”

The entries were sorted and judged by 15 industry folks, some usual suspects but also several end-users.

As Flanigan notes, there’s a lot of good work in there. I’d worry, a little, that these awards get lost in the shuffle. The DSE awards were just a month ago and there was some strange DOOHDAS awards thingie in the last week or two. And I think the hyper rAVePubs bunch has some Pro AV awards thing going. There were the DIGI awards in December. DailyDOOH has its UK/Euro-tilted awards last fall. And so on.

I’m not in the association or trade show or trade publishing business, so I don’t know all the thinking and machinations of awards. I know what I think, though, and I think there’s too many.

There’s a pile of Hollywood movie awards, but the only ones people universally care about are the Oscars.  This industry is big enough now that something should and needs to emerge as the big one the companies and end-users want to win. The DSE awards are arguably the closest to that, but the organizers aren’t exactly inundated by entries.

I think those that do religiously enter awards contests are smart because most end-users don’t have the background and context to see past “award-winning.” ButI’d love to see some awards emerge as the ones you really want to win because of who is judging and how winning is regarded in the broader industry. Even better, I’d love to see a panel of real judges – like the best creative guys, the best integrators, and so on – take a global view and nominate stuff, instead of waiting for and sifting through whatever comes in.

Maybe one day… All that stated, big hat tip to the winners.