Sounds Good Advertising

Company overview

Sounds Good Advertising (SGA) Ltd is an award winning company working towards enabling their outdoor digital advertising displays to allow the buyer to interact and purchase any product being advertised in real time. The hybrid advertising display will enable free browsing and purchasing of advertised products via a 2 way communication process where the users mobile phone interacts with the SGA wireless ecosystem.

SGA have built upon the concept of digital billboard advertising by adding the element of interactivity between the display and a mobile device. When completed, this will give the user the ability to buy on impulse directly from their mobile handset.

Feasibility Study

While a prototype of the digital display currently exists, SGA recognise that there is three main areas of research to be investigated prior to presenting the system to potential investors. The feasibility study aims to address one of these areas – the m-commerce challenges faced by SGA.

The outputs of the study are:

• An investigation in to Premium SMS Services.
• A critical analysis of current software standards in the wireless market with particular reference to communicationbetween devices and between devices and the internet.
• An overview of key competitors in the market, highlighting barriers to entry and problematic areas.
• Suggestions on the possible software for the SGA GPS located digital display.
• A cost analysis of the direct and indirect cost of the software development. Particular emphasis was put on the effort required to program and deploy each stage, typically by an alpha, beta and user software release.

The outcome

The study highlighted a number of potential options for the SGA system to use for interaction with the end user, including Premium SMS, Bluetooth and Wif Access Points. The report also identifes existing hardware and software solutions that could be used as either a model for producing the SGA system or options to build upon depending on the extendibility of existing systems.

The frst stage of SGA development plan should be to use Premium SMS to allow customers to interact with the SGA system. Bluetooth would then be adopted (at a later stage) as the vehicle used to attract the user to the display unit. A solution for the overall screen design was also investigated (shown above). This design gives the current advert centre stage whilst the sub/pending adverts are visible below keeping their buying message available to the end user when not in focus.

Getting the background system functioning correctly will be the main challenge for SGA as the system must display content in a seamless manner and will have to handle and track various pieces of information including customer orders and personal information. The key features for this were outlined in the feasibility study.

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