Is it New York City? Is it Las Vegas? No, it is the large displays of the Time Square Arena. The two Samsung outdoor LED screens – unveiled during a VIP event on Thursday evening at Sun International’s Time Square Hotel, Casino and Entertainment complex in Menlyn, Pretoria – are unique in design and the first installation of its kind by Samsung in Africa. Samsung offered full end-to-end support on this project and is proud to have been intimately engaged with Sun International on this build, being involved in the design and sizing of the outdoor LED screens and running the project planning team which was responsible for the local design, fabrication and installation of the massive steel mounting structure. The manufacturing of the outdoor LED modules and cabinets were done by PrismView LLC, a Samsung Electronics company based in Utah in the USA. 

“For Samsung's first outdoor LED screen project, we were looking for an iconic site to do this and Time Square's Arena was the obvious choice,” said Mike van Lier, Samsung director Consumer Electronics.

The quality of the colour and brightness on the smart outdoor LED screens is unparalleled. With brighter and more vibrant picture quality, it offers long-life performance, and around the clock support, enterprise-grade security, quality and reliability, while the expertise makes it possible to offer products and services that are designed for specific industries and applications.

"This Time Square project itself has been three years in the making and when planning this venue, Sun International decided to embrace a digital approach and partner with Samsung for this iconic site. It is iconic in that it is the newest casino and entertainment centre in the country, and we will attract big names in entertainment. With this installation, the bar has been raised, taken to a new level, as this is the most advanced technology available to us," said Rob Collins, Group Strategy and COO of Sun International.

Outdoor marketing

“With the changing marketing landscape, more emphasis is being placed on changeable, digital displays. Running targeted promotional campaigns has always been a challenge, but going digital is allowing operators to get more timely and tactical about what they want to emphasise and promote. For decades, marketers planned and managed promotional campaigns weeks and months in advance because of the lead times needed to design, print, ship and post new materials on displays. But with outdoor digital signage, adjustments take a matter of minutes, as messages are fine-tuned and promotions are catered to the varying attributes of the audience,” said Van Lier.

As the industry looks for new ways to engage customers, outdoor LED technologies have emerged as a popular go-to upgrade. New advances in display brightness and picture quality further encourage the replacement of outdated analogue displays in often-challenging outdoor settings. With new technologies inspiring creativity, enterprises are more open to the idea of leveraging digital signage to create unique, sophisticated and memorable customer experience.

Partnership

“We have been collaborating with Sun International for almost a decade, but it is only in the last couple of years that we signed a strategic partnership with them and we are excited about what the future will bring. We are not only delivering the industry’s best B2B technology solutions, but we are also bringing our culture of innovation into focus. Samsung is proud of the partnership with Sun International and this project, which has enabled us to apply the latest technology and human resources to create, build and install these two iconic screens,” said Van Lier.

Samsung and its partners do not offer a one-size-fits-all solution and through customisation and embracing innovation, they are well positioned to meet the needs of individual business customers. There are specialised end-to-end solutions for business customers in various industries, including Hospitality, Financial Services, Public Sector, Automotive, and Education, to name a few. For each of these industry sectors, there is a tailored set of devices and solutions to meet the specific needs of its customers.

"The partnership with Samsung is a match made in heaven. Sun International specialises in hospitality, gaming, creating world-class venues and servicing the public, where Samsung is at the cutting edge of technology, offering digital solutions for every situation," concludes Collins.

“At Time Square, we have three projects running. The first is the casino, where we have video walls and Large Format Displays, the second is the hotel where we are implementing complete hospitality display solutions, and thirdly, the iconic LED screens,” concludes Van Lier.