Idaho Municipality Adopts Digital Signage To Efficiently Promote Local Events, Services
February 24, 2023 by Dave Haynes
Vertical markets that offer a lot of scale are understandably attractive to vendors in the digital signage industry, so it is logical that a lot of companies have spent years chasing business with retailers and fast food operators – because they both tend to have a lot of locations, and therefore might use a lot of screens and software licenses.
But there are other market segments that offer scale, and while I hear about lots of companies looking at hotels, schools, health care and workplace, I rarely hear people talking about government. Or more accurately, governments. There are national and regional (state/province/territory) governments, but what’s really interesting is the numbers of municipalities and townships that are also governments.
There are some 35,000 municipalities and townships in the U.S., and they all need to communicate a lot of information – from meat and potatoes bylaw and statute information, to transit schedules to community events promotions. They all have public facilities, offices and operational centers. Public-facing areas benefit from screens that can cycle through messaging while operational facilities – like first responders, transport and waste management – can benefit from things like status and update dashboards on screens.
I note this because CMS and solutions firm Mvix has a case study out that digs into how digital signage is being used by a small community in the foothills near Boise, Idaho. Mvix, along with Capital Networks, are among relatively few CMS software firms that have been chasing multi-level government business.
The City of Eagle wanted a solution that would allow them to seamlessly display images, videos, and calendar listings to advertise City Hall and library events, meetings, and classes. The ideal solution would be one that also offers great flexibility in changing content and showing updates quickly, as the City has an events-packed calendar every year.
The city needed a solution that would save time and require minimal staff engagement when sending out communication on events and classes.
The municipality now uses Mvix software for everything from listing upcoming community events to encouraging dog licensing and sign-ups for broadband internet services.
While the digital signage rollout at The City of Eagle is still relatively recent, events have been well attended, and the displays have been helpful in communicating upcoming classes, meetings, and events. The City of Eagle is, however, considering adding more digital signage solutions to the museum, parks, and other sites throughout the city in the future. Deciding to move ahead with these plans will be contingent on the impact of the current system and the response from the public.
I like these stories because an awful lot of what gets communicated focuses on the one fancy, bigger dollar thing done that gets attention but maybe doesn’t do much – like a video wall. This simple signage that just makes communications easier, faster and better is just as important, and quite arguably more important.
Dave – we at Mvix appreciate you picking up the story here and agree that government municipalities are an underserved market for digital signage networks.