The Home Depot’s Atlanta Store Support Center knew its 5,000 employees were getting the word on human resource events and resources. The problem was that staffers didn’t always remember, missing key opportunities. E-mails can be forgotten, bulletin boards overlooked, and flyers have to be posted and removed. Digital signage looked like the answer, but typical systems were too expensive to deploy and support.

Their solution, the first in the nation, is to broadcast a digital employee signage channel over RF, tuned in by standard flat-panel TVs, delivered by Contemporary Research and X2O Media technology.

Contemporary Research’s Display Express system controls the 50+ LG displays through the same RF coax that carries the channels. Controlling display power, volume, and channels by a daily schedule, Display Express can also force TVs to emergency news or weather channels with a single click. The displays are placed by elevator bays, where virtually all employees congregate several times a day.

The Home Depot Television Manager Bruce Covey states, “Once you’ve solved delivery, content is everything. By integrating PowerPoint, more people can contribute with a tool they already understand. Our goal was to reinforce the messages employees were receiving by other pathways – and the system is meeting that need superbly. Our annual free Flu Shot event normally attracts several hundred people. With the new signage channel, we served over 3,000. By any marketing standard, that’s amazing.

Broadcasting signage as an HDTV channel and using Contemporary Research over-the-RF integration, we saved thousands of dollars over the cost of distributing signage over Ethernet.”