One of the reasons I created my OOH model was to help me get down to what companies truly offer in this space.  Every time I go to one of these tradeshows and ask the exhibitors what they do, most every time, I hear the response, “we do everything, soup to nuts.”  Ugh.  If everyone on the showroom floor does everything, then how do I know who’s offering is better than the next?

So, my model helps me ask pointed questions to really determine what their specialty is, at the very least.  I put it to the test this morning.  First company up – Vislogix.  Response when I asked them what business they’re in?  “We’re the only recognized full-service firm in the country.”  Of course.  After more questions, I got to the nut of what they really provide:  EQUIPMENT.  Specifically, hardware that enables touch and gesture-based interactions on any surface.  They look to focus on storefront windows, but can virtually make any surface interactive.

The solutions they were showing were top notch in the cool category.

You can see, even in this bad photo, that the content is pretty clear on the glass.  These guys aren’t in the projector business.  They’re in the business of the interactive film that the projector projects on.  And the film is awesome.  They have standard sizes that you can choose from and if you need a custom size, they’ll make it for you (technically, they can create any size film, but it’s only as good as the size of the projection.)  Technically, it’s a capacitive touch screen so the user doesn’t need to “touch” it to control it – even still, I found it quite responsive.

They had another solution, much more gesture-based, that picked up movements via a camera placed above the user.  When in the field of the camera’s view, the user can control what happens on the screen just by waving a hand.

The interesting thing about this particular solution is that, since it’s controlled by a camera, it can enable any surface – static, window, even LCD – to be interactive.  Where it gets a little muddy for these guys is in the software.  Obviously, software is needed to run these solutions and these guys aren’t really hard-core software makers.  It seems like they have a number of solid software partners so essentially they can also provide any software needed for these installations.

The nut here – if you want to do a touch or gesture-based experience on a store window or other large piece of glass, call these guys first.  If you want to throw a crazy idea at someone (a 1-off-type project) and see how immersive they can make it, these guys would be good to call.  Keep an eye out for them and what they do in the next 6 months.  They’ve got some great work under their belt and judging by some of their partners (they seemed impressive to me?!?!), they’ll probably be around for awhile.  I hope they do well.