Choosing digital signage software is a strategic decision for your communication on screens. While the use of a display solution remains accessible to everyone, choosing your future software requires careful consideration. With the multitude of solutions available on the market, the challenge is not so much to find the absolute best tool, but rather the one that perfectly matches your use, your needs and your skills. This guide helps you ask yourself the right questions to prepare your benchmark and understand why Cenareo is the reference solution for companies that want to maximize the impact of their communication on screens.
The role of digital signage software
A digital signage solution consists essentially of three elements: the software, the player (or broadcast box) and the broadcast screen.
Dynamic screens broadcast the content transmitted by the player. The latter is responsible for retrieving the media hosted on the platform. The software is the interface between the user and the platform, it allows to integrate content (videos, images, animations, texts), to manage the media and to program the broadcast. All in a few clicks and without special technical skills.
At Cenareo, this architecture has been designed to guarantee maximum ease of use. The player provided by Cenareo is compact, plug and play and guarantees continuous streaming without a black screen. Once plugged in, it starts automatically and displays your content without interruption, even if the connection is lost. The solution also works without a player on certain ranges of Samsung, Sharp, Philips and Android screens, making deployment even easier.
Digital signage is a simple communication solution, but your project must nevertheless be thought through beforehand. You need to determine your goals, identify the interests of your audience, validate a content strategy and decide on the implementation of dynamic screens. The last step is, of course, to select software to manage your digital communication. That's where Cenareo makes all the difference.
What is “simple” digital signage software?
Numerous digital signage solutions exist on the market. Some editors offer a simple tool that is accessible to everyone, while others provide much greater functional depth. The challenge is to find the right balance between power and simplicity.
Cenareo: power without complexity
It can be tempting to opt for a solution with the greatest number of features. Be careful, however, because sophisticated can rhyme with complexity. Digital signage in business must above all meet efficiency criteria.
Cenareo was designed precisely to solve this equation. The SaaS platform (online) offers intuitive ergonomics resolutely focused on the user. Accessible from a simple web browser and optimized for mobile use, the solution guarantees quick handling and accessible to everyone. This simplicity is also one of the assets most appreciated by Cenareo customers, who regularly highlight the ease of adoption by their local field teams.
Training time is an excellent evaluation criterion. After one day, the tool is probably too complex for the novice user. With Cenareo, the learning curve is minimal, allowing your teams to become autonomous quickly and to focus on what matters most: creating impactful communications.
Create and manage content from the digital signage software
Digital signage software must correspond to the needs and constraints of the user. This raises the question of content creation.
Content creation with Cenareo
Cenareo offers a balanced approach to content creation. The platform provides customizable templates in a few clicks and can assist you in creating templates customized to your image and according to your needs. This flexibility allows every organization to create professional content without requiring extensive technical skills.
In 2023, Cenareo strengthened its unique positioning by integrating EasyMovie, thus adding expertise in video content creation to its range of services. This rare combination allows companies to manage their entire communication strategy on screens, from creation to distribution, with a single partner.
File format compatibility
Accepted file formats are a crucial point of vigilance. Some software is very limited on this point. Of course, it is always possible to convert a file to make it compatible with your digital signage software. But the principle being to quickly distribute multimedia content, you might as well avoid frequent file conversions.
Cenareo supports a wide variety of standard formats, including the main video formats (MP4, MOV, MKV, FLV), images (JPG, PNG, GIF, BMP), and animations. This extended compatibility guarantees a smooth distribution of your content without tedious conversion steps.
The integration of automatic and dynamic content
Digital signage solutions offer to integrate content from web pages, social platforms (YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook), collaborative platforms such as Google Docs or even RSS feeds (weather, news). These features are very useful to highlight certain elements of your communication.
Cenareo's smart connections
Cenareo goes further by offering connections with your existing digital ecosystem. The platform easily connects to your Digital Workplace (Microsoft Teams, Google Workspace, Google Workspace, Facebook Workplace, Slack) as well as to your media libraries (DAM and cloud storage spaces like Google Drive, OneDrive or Dropbox).
This connectivity allows your users to access content that is always up to date and easily usable. By giving access to a content library to all the people who need to communicate, the solution guarantees respect for your brand image while facilitating collaboration.
The use of this automatic content is very time-consuming. However, be careful not to broadcast too frequently content that is too general. Let's remember a basic principle: dynamic signage must captivate its audience with personalized and contextualized content.
Intelligent broadcast scheduling
Anticipation and preparation determine the quality of communication. So there is a time to prepare the content and a time to broadcast it. Scheduling broadcasts in advance is a major advantage of digital signage. Recurrence, repetition, periodicity, programming must offer multiple possibilities while remaining simple and intuitive.
Advanced contextualization with Cenareo
This is where Cenareo really sets itself apart from the competition. The platform integrates intelligent content programming thanks to a sophisticated algorithm and numerous criteria for contextualizing campaigns.
You can choose the context of your messages based on multiple parameters: weather conditions, stock levels, audience criteria, top sellers, geographic areas, and many more. This ability to automatically adapt your messages according to the context guarantees communication that is always relevant and impacting with your targets.
Scheduling features include planning in advance to set a start and end date for the broadcast, playlist mode to group together a set of media for quick use, and managing the broadcast loop for streaming or streaming according to a set time slot.
A concrete example: a customer using Cenareo can manage all the photo and video broadcasts on the screens of its network from the head office, by always having up-to-date content, by adapting the content according to geographical areas and weather conditions.
Remote control and management of screen fleets
Does your digital signage project involve a set of screens, or even a set of sites? The digital signage software must have options for multi-site management and/or multi-flow management (different broadcasts from one screen or site to another).
Cenareo: designed for large screen parks
Cenareo was specifically designed for the management of large-scale screen fleets. The solution offers centralized and remote management of all your screens, with a complete overview of the fleet and users.
For this type of project, the remote management of a fleet of dynamic screens requires advanced functionalities. Cenareo offers all the essential functions: control of screens by broadcast groups, synchronization of screens, remote restart, visualization of broadcasts in real time, control of the status of the screens. The proactive alert system automatically reports breakdowns, allowing you to intervene quickly.
Cenareo players are autonomous and configurable. The start or stop times are configurable in the application. The solution perfectly manages screens in landscape and portrait formats, offering total flexibility in the layout of your spaces.
Expert support for a rapid ROI
Beyond technology, Cenareo is positioned as an expert partner, transparent in terms of costs and proactive in terms of support. If a problem occurs with one of your digital signage players, the Cenareo team intervenes remotely and, if necessary, replaces the defective equipment free of charge.
This as-a-service approach has proved decisive for many customers. Boulanger, for example, reduced its total cost of ownership of digital signage in its 182 stores by 30% by opting for Cenareo's SaaS offer. The company eliminated intermediary costs and simplified installation, saving several hundred euros per screen.
User rights management: “glocal” management
Multi-user management is not just about the number of potential users. Choosing digital signage software involves looking at the subject of customizing rights and access. Depending on your organization, you may want to develop a collaborative way of working while maintaining certain limits.
Cenareo's organizational flexibility
Cenareo excels in this field with its “glocal” management approach (global and local). The platform allows you to manage various user rights for more granularity in your communication. You can confidently leave control to local actors while maintaining control over strategic elements.
The lockdown of broadcasts and the local dropout are particularly appreciated by franchise networks or restaurant chains. A national communication team centralizes the creation of content and can then authorize (or not) the intervention of regional teams on this content. This makes it possible, for example, to combine elements of national and local communication while limiting the modification to certain specific elements of a medium.
This management of campaigns at the national level with the possibility of local interventions and customizations is one of the major strengths of Cenareo, particularly suited to large companies and distribution networks.
SaaS or on-premise solution: why Cenareo favors the cloud
The terms SaaS and on-premise refer to the network architecture of the digital signage solution.
On-premise architecture: for whom?
On-premise architecture is a relatively technical configuration. The company takes care of the purchase and maintenance of the server on which it hosts the application. Generally reserved for businesses of a certain size, this option requires resources to administer the solution internally. The first advantage is control over the entire dynamic communication solution.
Cenareo's choice of SaaS: simplicity and performance
Cenareo has chosen the SaaS (Software As A Service) architecture, also called on-demand, online or cloud. This approach is simpler and more effective for the majority of businesses.
The complete solution is offered as a subscription and includes user rights (licenses), updates, support as well as software and media hosting. This operating mode is very useful for businesses that do not have dedicated IT resources. Cenareo provides high-performance servers with levels of service, security and availability worthy of large groups. For the company, dynamic signage then only requires a simple internet connection.
This SaaS approach has a number of advantages:
- Simplified installation : the system is plug and play, no special skills are required for installation
- Reactive remote maintenance : Cenareo manages all technical maintenance
- Automatic updates : you always benefit from the latest features
- Full accessibility : access the platform from any device, anywhere
- Scalability : add or remove screens as needed without heavy infrastructure
Performance indicators: measuring the impact of your communication
Modern digital signage software should allow you to measure the performance of your campaigns. Cenareo integrates key performance indicators that allow you to optimize your communication and give it more impact.
You can track the attractiveness of your media, the freshness of the content, the contextualization of campaigns, and many other essential metrics. This data helps you understand what works and to continuously improve your screen communications.
Cenareo's areas of application
Cenareo supports companies in various sectors, each with specific needs:
Retail and retail
To boost in-store customer engagement and encourage sales through varied and engaging displays. Retailers such as Leroy Merlin, E.Leclerc, Boulanger and the brands Etam and Undiz use Cenareo to animate their points of sale.
Corporate offices and internal communication
Cenareo solutions make it possible to manage internal communications within offices, facilitating communication between departments or between several sites. Major groups such as Engie, EDF, Veolia and Spie use technology to broadcast internal communication messages to their employees.
Education
Cenareo is used to broadcast important announcements, event notifications, and alerts in schools and universities. ENSEEIHT and the entire INP Toulouse have deployed communication screens for their students, professors and visitors, all controlled using the Cenareo solution.
Dealer networks and franchises
The solution makes it possible to manage all the broadcasts on the screens of a network from the headquarters, by having content that is always up to date, by adapting the messages according to geographical areas and local conditions.
Why choose Cenareo for your digital signage?
Founded in 2012 by four engineers from ENSEEIHT and based in Labège near Toulouse, Cenareo quickly established itself as the French leader in digital signage. With hundreds of customers around the world, from SMEs to large groups, Cenareo combines technical expertise and human support to guarantee the success of your projects.
The differentiating advantages of Cenareo
An intuitive and powerful platform : ergonomic for rapid internal adoption, especially for local field teams, while offering advanced functionalities for complex needs.
Smart programming : thanks to an algorithm and numerous contextualization criteria, your messages automatically adapt to the context to maximize their impact.
Centralized management : a complete overview of your screen fleet and your users, with simplified remote control.
A transparent and proactive partner : transparent on costs and proactive in terms of support for a rapid ROI of your project.
A complete solution : with the integration of EasyMovie in 2023, Cenareo offers a unique offer combining video content creation and digital signage management.
A reliable system : autonomous players that guarantee continuous broadcasting, never black screens, and a proactive alert system that automatically reports failures.
