When Doing Good Is As Simple As Doing A Good Job
July 13, 2022 by guest author, Mitch Leathers
GUEST POST: MITCH LEATHERS, SNA DISPLAYS
There’s no question the purpose of digital signage is often to capture attention and provide a positive, persuasive experience. For most folks in the business of making digital signage, there’s an understanding that there’s typically a commercial element to the products they provide: advertising, corporate branding, retail – all very common uses of digital signage. And while those are worthwhile applications that largely make the industry go and allow us to work with the people we do, there’s a special satisfaction when your products align well with the best of causes.
I was reminded of this during a recent visit with Ryan Elwell, an information technology manager with Seattle Children’s Hospital. Ryan was instrumental in the implementation of a small, 3-screen digital signage network SNA Displays recently completed at a clinic within Seattle Children’s healthcare network. This, the second of Odessa Brown Children’s Clinic (OBCC) facilities, is located in a diverse, low-income neighborhood of Seattle’s Rainier Valley. The OBCC is a donor-funded program whose mission is to provide wholistic healthcare to underserved families at low or no cost.
Relatively speaking, the LED displays were of modest sizes: a roughly 9-foot-high x 12-foot-wide lobby video wall and two 7′ x 4′ screens in other areas of the clinic. Not the massive, show-stopping LED mega-spectaculars we tend to hang our hats on.
Hospitals can be dull, visually sterile, and altogether foreign places. Of course, children’s hospitals make many conscientious decisions to provide warmer, more engaging environments than your everyday hospital. And according to Ryan, one of Seattle Children’s objectives throughout its clinics is to provide a more optimistic environment for their patients.
“Our goal is to plant the seeds of hope for children who have learned to associate hospitals with pain.”
In today’s digital video age, the digital canvas is an obvious and versatile tool for creating positive, hopeful experiences. Cartoons, television shows, interactivity, animated infographics, calm nature scenes, moving digital art, all on the menu of digital signage options. Right now, the clinic is showing calming nature scenes and biophilic content.
“By beautifying the space with LED-based artwork, we can make visitors feel more at home and provide meaningful content that makes people stop and pay attention.”
And Ryan says there’s more in store for content on the displays in service of the hospital’s mission.
“[We will] expand beyond nature scenes with content that will continue to set us apart from other clinics, get people excited about the hospital’s mission, pull in more donors, and share important stories. We also want to communicate health information in a more fun and memorable way.”
Induce excitement. Attract interest. Share stories. Communicate in a memorable way. These of course are the underpinnings of everything we purport to sell in the digital signage industry. But in the context of wonderful causes like those of Seattle Children’s, Give Kids The World, Infinite Love for Kids Fighting Cancer, and other objectively good endeavors, those underpinnings are much more real and meaningful.
And a pleasant surprise for those of us in the B2B world is that making a positive and rewarding difference in the lives of people is sometimes as simple as a job well done.
Give Kids the World Village is an 89-acre non-profit resort that provides critically ill children and their families with magical weeklong vacations at no cost. Last year, Give Kids The World introduced the attraction Serendipity, a pirate-themed ship equipped with an SNA Displays-built LED video screen for movie nights and live entertainment.
Infinite Love for Kids Fighting Cancer is a volunteer, nonprofit organization whose mission is to address the deficiency in funding for childhood cancer by providing financial grants to leading research hospitals and facilities. A project team at SNA Displays recently had the good fortune of working with the Infinite Love folks to display a promotional campaign on the new massive LED mega-spectacular at Moxy & AC Hotel Downtown Los Angeles just before go-live.
To donate to these charitable organizations, visit:
ABOUT THE WRITER
Mitch Leathers is senior director of communications for SNA Displays, a manufacturer of direct-view, large-format LED display systems. Mitch has an education background in English and journalism and has professional experience in marketing, graphic design, and writing work in the digital display industry since 2004. Mitch enjoys travel, politics, learning, and parenting his two smart, beautiful girls with his wife Amy.
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