Chasing A Niche: French Firm Dematerializes Local Gov’t Legal Notices Using Screens

March 30, 2023 by Dave Haynes

I always advise smaller companies looking to get a foothold in the digital signage industry to be “the people” who do something in particular – finding a niche and offering a solution that solves a problem for that very particular activity. So I was intrigued to come across a French company that is marketing what it calls legal signage dematerialization software.

That’s a mouthful, but the nut of it is that specialty display manufacturer Digilor, located in the northeast part of that country, has developed and is marketing a platform that addresses July 2022 French legislation that requires municipalities to post all legal notices in electronic form, permanently, accessible and free or charge.

So bulletin boards with notices – like bylaw amendments or minutes of key meetings – can’t just be printed off and tacked to a cork bulletin board outside in a display case or inside on a lobby or break room wall. You can see in the main photo the difference between a display case filled with printed legal notices and a touchscreen that contains all that in one unit, updated with a few keystrokes and mouse clicks.

That’s the “dematerialized” reference – making the information available on touch screens inside or outside of town halls, and also on a website.

“Several town halls have shown us their lack of space on their billboards and their difficulty in organizing,” the company observes on its website. “This is why we have designed DATAHALL, our  legal signage dematerialization software.”

Scale and the total addressable market have to be considerations if a company is going after a niche. But there are many, many, many local and regional governments out there. Digilor says it has solutions operating for more than 450 municipalities in France.

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