We’ve all seen them, the displays that just don’t quite live up the any type of standard for what one would consider quality. Whether the culprit is the content, the software or the hardware and connectivity, there are so many places things can go wrong, it’s almost a miracle when things are done right–at least it is for the layman.

As I visited my local grocer(in this case Fred Meyer) last night, I noticed their retail digital display was not working. Upon further investigation, it was quite obvious the issue had to do with power to the display. You can see from the image, I snapped that it looked like someone had attempted to fix the issue by running an additional power cable down the 20 ft. boom that connected the television. Apparently that failed to work as well because the television remained off.

Keeping connected to your digital signs and know what the issues are, whether it involves connectivity to the network or a power source, there are so many ways to “get it wrong.” If there were a “fail blog” for digital signage, this installation blunder would certainly be included on a long list of issues. Failing to connect the screen will mean 100% failure in 100% of instances.

These are easy blunders to have happen and if you don’t have a network operator who cares or is paying attention, a tragedy like this means wasted resources for even putting the network in place to begin with–a very sad ending.