Direct View: LED Applications in Corporate Lobbies

Companies that want a seamless look for their lobby video communication screens have begun turning more and more to LED applications. Ryan Wilhelm, Regional Sales Manager for Unilumin, and Frank Milesky, Southeast Area Director for Cenero, joined The Direct View to talk more about the LED solutions taking place in today’s corporate lobbies.

“Four to six years ago, we started to see a trend where LED started to take over,” Wilhelm said. “Because they could customize these lobbies to make them more current, but they could also make them as long as they wanted, as high as they wanted, and the content is infinite.”

The experience for visitors to these lobbies is increasing with the interactive nature of today’s LED technology.

“The real estate in lobbies began to be re-imagined with the increase of flexibility and customization with LED,” Milesky said. “We’ve seen less custom artwork, fewer fountains and fewer TVs and more of these custom pieces of LED art.”

Milesky stressed the importance of getting LED solution ideas into the hands of the people designing these spaces, so that the solutions work in harmony with the company’s goals and costs involved are understood and budgeted.

“As you’re working with a building team early on in the stages, you can talk at a square foot level of what an LED solution might cost in a good, better, best scenario,” Milesky said.

Transcript

Tyler Kern: Welcome to Direct View, a Unilumin LED Podcast, where we discuss design and technology for the world’s most stunning LED displays.

Tyler Kern: Hello, and welcome to the Direct View, a podcast by Unilumin. I am your host today, Tyler Kern. Thank you so much for joining me for this episode. Today we’re discussing LED applications in corporate lobbies, and this is a topic with a lot of really interesting avenues for us to explore. So joining me for this episode are our two subject matter experts. We have Ryan Wilhelm, Regional Sales Manager at Unilumin. Ryan, thank you so much for joining me.

Ryan Wilhelm: Thanks for having us, Tyler.

Tyler Kern: Unilumin is a LED application products and solutions provider, dedicated in LED product development, manufacturing sales, and after sales service in domestic and abroad. We are happy to have Ryan on the show today. And also joining us is Frank [Moleski 00:00:52]. He is the Southeast Area Director for Cenero. Frank, thank you so much for joining me.

Frank Moleski: Yeah, appreciate you having us.

Tyler Kern: Absolutely. And just a little background on Cenero. They are a service-focused audio-visual unified communications and IT solutions provider, dedicated to the intelligent integration of products and services to create high value systems for our clients that improve communication and efficiency.

Tyler Kern: So guys, as we start off and launch into this topic of talking about LED applications in corporate lobbies, tell me about the growth that you’ve seen in the use of LED walls over the last several years in these spaces?

Ryan Wilhelm: I started on the industry about 10 years ago, and I started in the A/V integration role when we were putting in a lot of the, I’d say, video walls with the LCD screens, where you get the bezel edges and everything. And about two years after that, I started seeing a trend where people wanted a seamless look in these lobbies, and were working with a lot of corporate real estate management firms, similar to the Jones Lang Lasalles out there and the CBREs and they were like, “We work with building owners and they want to make sure that we’re keeping current with the technology so that we’re not losing anything here.”

Ryan Wilhelm: So what we did, was we started ripping out a lot of that older technology and the older look that they had, and they would put in a seamless look in there. They found out that it was customizable. And I would say probably back what, 10 years ago, Frank, and you can correct me if I’m wrong, it was maybe 93% was those video walls, those old video walls, and maybe 3% was LED and then the other 4% was, hey, whatever, projection system or something. But then all of a sudden, we started seeing a trend about four or five years ago, maybe six years ago, that where it went, okay now LED was starting to take over because they could customize these lobbies to make them more current, but also, they can make it as long as they wanted, as high as they wanted.

Ryan Wilhelm: But then they were also thinking, “Wow, I can change the content on this and make …” The content’s infinite. If I put static art in this lobby, people will just walk past it once it’ll get dust. I might know what it is, but if I can change the content and keep it relevant and then add solutions like Frank’s, they do, add more solutions in there like audio, so it captures more senses, than they can maybe do something where it’s interactive, where they add a connect system or some kind of motion system that controls the content when they walk up there. Now, we’re getting an interactive display.

Ryan Wilhelm: What really intrigued me was a lot of people back, 10, eight years ago, “I just want digital signage.” Well, what does that really mean to you? Well, that meant a lot to me because I was like, “What is the experience you’re trying to get?” Because now you’re trying to engage and attract your audience, and it’s really the experience you’re going to get. That’s what we’ve really seen a trend going in, moving in that direction. We talked about working with architects and getting early on this, but these building owners want to keep fresh because what is really important to them is occupancy rates. So if their occupancy rates are at the 40 percentile, but if they renovate it, keep it current, they can attract more companies in there. Sometimes the leasing tenants don’t want to do it, but there’s options.

Ryan Wilhelm: I know Frank and I were just discussing a lot of those that there is out there right now. So I don’t know if that answers your question, Tyler, in a kind of long-winded way.

Tyler Kern: No, I think that’s a perfect answer. Frank, tell me a little bit more, from your perspective, just how you’ve seen the growth of LED video walls, in the last several years in these places?

Frank Moleski: I think we saw a market-saturated by a buzzword, right, being digital signage at one point. We often found that there were flat screen displays or TVs, hate to call them those, peppered around a facility to deliver some kind of message. I think anyone who’s been by one of those, and has either seen one that has been black with nothing on it, or just had a weather ticker or some foul PowerPoint, that was really the trend for years.

Frank Moleski: And I think in some premier real estate locations it was starting to be re-imagined as we had more flexibility and more customization with LED and some of the trends in the market. So we’ve noticed that it’s not only being asked for, it’s usually being budgeted for. We are still facing some inherent challenges with who is going to own it, and what it is going to show, and when it is to be refreshed, to keep it current so people are repeatedly engaged by it instead of just the day that the building opens. But yeah, we’ve definitely seen the trend of less custom artwork, less fountains, and less TVs, and more of these custom pieces of LED art.

Tyler Kern: Frank, just from your experience in talking to building owners and being in these types of situations, is the accessibility of LED growing? Do more people feel like, “Oh, this isn’t something that is exceedingly expensive. This is something that I could easily obtain and there are options here.” Like you mentioned, size, the placement of it, what you can put on it. There’s a higher accessibility for LED these days, which is driving a lot of interest in it.

Frank Moleski: Yeah, I think the accessibility is helping and multiple countries of origin. I think it’s really important to have the correct vision and to, as an industry and as a manufacturer, or vendor partner, or just vendors, or even from a consulting level, get these in front of people that are designing spaces. Make it easy for them to calculate what an LED might cost. So we use a couple of different documents internally that calculate landed square foot cost for LED, and we have that for different sized pixel pitches. We have one for curves versus not curved. And then we have some that have content pricing involved in that too.

Frank Moleski: So as you’re working with a building team, how early on in the stages you can talk on a square foot level of what an LED might cost to do that, any good, better, best scenario, we find that helps to get us in early in the budgeting stages and use a consultative approach after that, to get them what they really need.

Tyler Kern: Absolutely. Ryan, you were mentioning just that ability to have something that is immersive, having that immersive content, over just static art and things like that. So tell me about the value that that provides for these types of facilities, for these buildings, and how that translates down to their tenants as well.

Ryan Wilhelm: Well, yeah, content is … What do they say? Content is king or queen, whatever you want to say, in that perspective. I mean, what you put on there is really the magic of it. And to piggyback a little bit with what Frank just said, I think it’s, what, six years ago, four millimeters was the best pitch we were putting inside of a lobby. So the resolution was a four millimeter pixel pitch from dot to dot. And now we’re seeing 1.2 millimeter being a hotspot. Or it was 2.5 a couple of years ago, now, it’s gone down to 1.5 and 1.2 in lobbies. So the resolution is getting better. The picture is getting better.

Ryan Wilhelm: We’re seeing places with content where they might just put a live feed in there if the World Series is on, so the people can come down and watch the World Series going on. Or game or whatever, you know?

Tyler Kern: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Ryan Wilhelm: [inaudible 00:08:29] attraction. So when you have attraction and people are coming from all over the globe just to get this experience because they’re enamored by 80 foot walls that are put in, and by 10 feet high, so you’re getting 800 square feet of LED in there that seamless, that’s playing music and giving audio with it, you’re attracting their attention. I don’t want to say people are bugs, but it’s almost similar to when you have that light in the backyard and you always turn on and you see that fly going to it. Right? But people are engaged by a big light.

Ryan Wilhelm: It’s when you’re going to that sporting event or whatever, and you see all the LED that’s in there, but that’s not what the experience is when people are going to work every day. That’s really the million dollar question I’ll always go back to it, is what experience are you trying to get out of this? You can get interactivity, where now you’re getting augmented reality. And this is the magic that Frank and their team come up with all the time, where they can figure this stuff out and put that magic behind the displays.

Ryan Wilhelm: I think that augmented reality is where you might walk up to it and you might be wearing a robot suit or something when you’re walking past. Interactivity, when you’re walking past and it changes the content, it moves the bubbles all around that’s on there. Whatever. Whatever you want to put, and I’ve said it before, content’s infinite and you can hit wherever you want to do with it. That’s the beauty of everything that you’re doing with this here.

Frank Moleski: Those events and buzzwords, some have come to life and some haven’t, we like to use gesture-based art, which is some interaction by the user has some reaction by the technology. So it brings a user to be part of the physical space they’re in. So that has been wildly successful in multiple environments. We are starting now using not only gesture-based, but in our post-COVID, current COVID environment, looking at ways to do other things with these LEDs, from temperature scanning, to statistics, charts, and even proximity detection for social-distancing and things like that.

Frank Moleski: So have some really fun things in the works right now with some different think groups, as well as some architects and some building owners right here in my own local market, that we’re going to be looking at some creative ways. Unfortunately, I can’t elaborate on it more than that.

Tyler Kern: Yeah. Got to keep the secret sauce under wraps. No, I get that. I get that for sure.

Tyler Kern: But Frank, if somebody is listening to this and they’re thinking, “Okay, great. You can do all these awesome things with LED and that’s fantastic, but I don’t know where I would start when it comes to creating content or having content or what I would actually put on these walls,” how do you help with that process? What does that look like?

Frank Moleski: Yeah. So our company philosophy has always been technology to solve an application, not technology for technology sake. So aside from the real estate and financial teams that are going to pay for this, you look at how it’s going to be managed and you look at what the overall vision of this project or of this space is. Sometimes there is a creative director involved from that firm, or a C-level executive who has some kind of vision, or a developer who has a vision for whatever subdivision or building or tower they’re working on. And then you can sell the best of breed in the industry.

Frank Moleski: So we work with five or six content companies, storytelling, digital art companies, as an extension of ourself. We storyboard what the asks are of the client, and within what budget range can we do what, and at what refresh cycle and what are our payment variables? That is custom, right? So that takes time. So we find the average timeline to come up with something truly worth viewing or experiencing here, is six months or greater. Six to nine months that there are multiple integration pieces to that. But yeah, it’s finding a partner that specializes in that kind of storytelling.

Tyler Kern: Absolutely. I’m a huge sports fan, so I’m along the lines of if, as Ryan mentioned, the World Series is just showing on the LED, I’m always going to be happy with that. But I know that there’s other applications there.

Tyler Kern: So Ryan, what are some maybe examples of ways that this has been deployed successfully, that you can point to and say, “Man, this was an awesome project that we were happy to be involved in.” I know you probably can’t say company names and that sort of thing, but do you have an example of one where you would say, “Hey, this deployment was really cool and we hold this up as like a standard.”

Ryan Wilhelm: I know Frank, we just worked on one over there. Can we say the name, Frank?

Frank Moleski: Yeah. You can go ahead.

Ryan Wilhelm: All right, just want to make sure. [Sharon Bude 00:00:13:17] Federal Credit Union. Display was huge. It was approximately 8-1/2 feet wide by 22 feet high. I mean, that’s all about attraction. Leading up the stairs there, it’s a beautiful display. Sometimes displays are used, like I said, to attract people, but to make them look up and see maybe an open office space or something. That’s what these do, and it’s to keep relevant. I think that’s one of the biggest things.

Frank Moleski: A lot of it is relevance and whether or not your friend is a sports fan, no one’s inviting you over their home to watch the Super Bowl on a tube television or a projection screen anymore. Everyone’s got a flat screen because you have to have a flat screen. We’re finding the same in a lot of these commercial environments, is that when you walk into a lobby that’s nothing but heavy woods and brass and fountains and tile from other decades, it doesn’t look current.

Frank Moleski: And as people look to capitalize on office space, which is usually one of their biggest line items on the financial report, is that they want to be into a current space. They want to attract the right kind of talent, they want to attract the right kind of customer, and they want to have some pride in where they work. So in the example, you noted, it was a little bit of all of that. May or may not have been a driving, technological application-based need, other than looking current and showing that while competing with other firms within the industry they also had some technology vision and ways to deliver that for their users.

Tyler Kern: I was re-watching Die Hard recently and it’s all set in that office building setting. I’m hearing you guys talk and I’m thinking if they were to redo Die Hard, remake Die Hard, which they shouldn’t do, but if they were to do that, I’m guessing that the lobby would look a lot different, right? In that movie, that office building is new, it’s still under construction and there’s fountains all over the place, there’s brass, like what you’re talking about. But I’m guessing if they were to remake it, that that lobby would obviously look much different. It would be current, it would have LED boards, right? It would have LED walls showing immersive content like what you guys are describing. So I think you’re absolutely right, just that current aspect of it is a really important thing.

Ryan Wilhelm: Man, speaking of Die Hard, at least those explosions would be a lot bigger. But no, it would definitely give some bigger explosion for the buck. It goes to another vertical too, that I know we’ve all worked in a lot too, is higher education. Same thing. They want to make sure they’re recruiting the best talent. Recruit, recruit, recruit. So if they’re not progressive enough, they’re going to, the kid that’s doing the recruit, that’s getting recruited, is going to go to the other university that has the right technology. Same kind of line of thinking.

Tyler Kern: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. No, that makes a lot of sense. And for your tenants, when guests come into the building, you want those guests also to be wowed by the building itself. So for your tenants, there’s a value added thing there.

Ryan Wilhelm: Yeah. I mean, let’s put it in perspective. How many TVs are in everybody’s home right now? And when they leave their home, the last thing they want to do is see a TV. But if they see something big and it attracts their attention, it’s bright, it’s light, and it’s given them that … It could just be showing TV, it could be showing content, but that’s going to grab their attention more.

Ryan Wilhelm: Similar in the transportation industry. People are going to walk past the TV because they’re so blind of seeing it all the time, they don’t want to look at that. But if you have a big display, “Oh, there’s my flight information right there. Oh, I have 10 more minutes. I’ll go shop or whatever.” [inaudible 00:16:40] same kind of thing. Right?

Tyler Kern: Absolutely. Absolutely. So Frank, I want to talk a little bit about financing. What kinds of options are available in that realm, if that’s something that people are thinking about?

Frank Moleski: It’s really endless. Okay, so obviously this can be part of a capitally funded project, and this can be part of an IT budget or even a marketing budget or a real estate budget for maintenance and repairs, if it’s retrofitting something later. So we do see them under a capital expense.

Frank Moleski: We’ve had a lot of success with technology leasing, as well as audio-visual as a service. That allows the client to amortize the cost of these, I won’t call them rather expensive, because it’s subjective to the buyer, but it allows them to amortize those costs over the cost of the square foot of the building. As you would come up with your rental cost per building for a tenant, you’re able to use this as a capital improvement to the project or the property and match your payables, your payment on this video wall or LED wall with your receivables, which are your rents. And when you divide out what this cost of this technology or this improvement to your property is, in that manner, you’re looking at cents per square foot, maybe dollar, maybe multiple dollars, depending on the real estate market. So we find some folks are able to do that. They’re able to lease it, or they’re able to finance it as part of a initial building cost.

Frank Moleski: We also found out there’s ways to, this is the best part, create revenue. If you have a piece of real estate where thousands of people pass by every day, whether it be internal to the building, or external on a main drive or a main thoroughfare, there are people that are willing to pay to advertise in that space. And that may be tenants, that may be others. So we were able to look at some advertising revenue. We’ve seen that in a number of our applications. And also, you’re able to look at it as an additional selling feature to your building, offering your tenants the ability to welcome their clients to the building, or maybe offer or promote their services.

Frank Moleski: Those have all been really successful, creative ways to pay for these in different ways. And the third, being grants. There are grants from many local municipalities across the country for digital arts and arts and things like that, where you may qualify for this as some portion of an art grant for improvements to the city or municipality.

Tyler Kern: That is really interesting, just all of the various options that are available in that realm. What are some other maybe considerations that people should be thinking through when it comes to LED boards, when it comes to power and how it fits into a space and things along those lines? What can you speak to when it comes to those types of considerations?

Frank Moleski: Yeah. So I always say consult an expert. It doesn’t have to be us. It doesn’t have to be Ryan, but all LED is not created equal. There are a couple of major manufacturers that actually batch and create the LED and source it from whatever country of origin. That can become very important of something this magnitude later. It’s probably not as important in the rental and staging realm because you can set it up, tear it down. But when you look at permanent, fixed installations, the reputability of the companies, the country of origin, how they source their materials, how they supply and service those materials, they’re local or US-based sales and service staff, extremely important.

Frank Moleski: The other part of that is infrastructure and planning of something like this. How is it attached to the building or the super or the substructure of a building? How is it cooled? What are its effects on other parts of the building, heating and air conditioning loads, electrical loads, local ordinances for light emission or life safety systems? Another one we find, is how is it cooled? Is it convection-based cooling, where it’s going to take hot air through the bottom and release it through the top? Where does it release that air? Is it clean air? Is it in a certain kind of space that you can’t have that? Or does it require forced air?

Frank Moleski: So as you consult an expert, they can give you the pros and cons of different manufacturers that are out there, and what the net effect is on your construction and structure that they need to provide.

Ryan Wilhelm: Yeah, I want to just piggyback on that. I think one of the biggest things is too, the earlier the better, right?

Tyler Kern: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Ryan Wilhelm: The earlier the better in the design is when … Like Frank just said, these lead times could be six months because you might go through a redesign, 14, 15 times to get it to the right level for them and where we need to be. Because it could be recessed in a wall, it could be on top of the wall, it could be hanging, it could be a floor stand on it. But getting involved early is always the best solution no matter what, in this industry.

Tyler Kern: Yeah, I think that’s a really good word of advice, just when it comes to preparation and just how to be thinking through a project like this. Ryan, I’m curious, just from your perspective, why is it so important to work with integrators, like Cenero, who do such a good job? Tell me a little bit more about the importance, from your perspective, at Unilumin, to work with an integrator like Cenero?

Ryan Wilhelm: Yeah, that’s a good question. We only work with integrators. We don’t ever go direct to the end user. Our main goal is to be partners because they are the ones that put the magic in. They’re the ones with that design behind the building, or behind it, right? We all come together creatively and collaboratively to design these together, and you have to have good teams with you to work collaboratively because these just don’t get put up.

Ryan Wilhelm: Like I said in the beginning, when I talked about, “We just want digital signage.” Is that just a TV with a computer, a PC on the back, put in a PowerPoint? Or is that a full out design and you want an experience? That experience takes a team, and that’s why I think it’s important. Like when we work with a Cenero, it’s a team and it’s a collaborative opportunity, right?

Tyler Kern: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Ryan Wilhelm: Not one person is over anyone, it’s together. How do we make this work so we can get that experience that that end user wants?

Ryan Wilhelm: That is really important because if you take back when I said earlier, the better, it’s like when you go into the architectural world, they’re the ones building a building. Well, these buildings just didn’t get built because the guy said, “I want a building.” They have intimate conversations. And LED’s becoming very an intimate conversation. It’s not as transactional anymore. So when it is that way, you have to have that team approach, and working with them has been really fantabulous. We appreciate it.

Tyler Kern: Absolutely. And Frank, on the other side of that, what has been, as an integrator, what do you enjoy about working with Unilumin and what they provide?

Frank Moleski: Yeah, it’s important. We tend to be the feet on the street, post-sale. There are normally other things aside from just a display, and that could be different sources of content, it could be the content creation, it could be audio, it could be other things that you need to do or interact with the wall, so bringing it all together.

Frank Moleski: Unilumin really is how they source their material. They’re one of the largest providers of OEM-based LED in the market. They’re US-based sales and support. As a company, we found we’ve started to limit our core partnerships to three or four LED manufacturers. Some have competitive advantages over others in certain applications. Unilumin tends to check most of the boxes for those as well. But it’s really the service and the support.

Frank Moleski: I can’t think of anything worse than having a 1000 square foot video wall down in a public place because you’re waiting on support from another country that could be days away, weeks away, months away or sitting on a ship somewhere. So Unilumin has been great for those. They offer some creative solutions for mounting, some cost competitive products, as well as some high end products that fit some different niches for us. So it’s been a good partnership.

Ryan Wilhelm: I want to piggyback on that because just to close it out with the … When we work with architects, the things we hear all the time, Frank and I, where they always say, “Well, they left us. We never saw them again. They did the job, but came late. Or they change orders up [inaudible 00:25:35].”

Ryan Wilhelm: So our whole goal is to make sure that we all partner with the same kind of mentality, that we’re never going to do that. We’re going to be there for the customer and we’re going to service it. But Frank couldn’t have hit that nail any harder on the head. That is really important, is that post-sale service and Frank’s team does a fabulous job at it.

Tyler Kern: Absolutely. Well guys, this has been a really great conversation. I feel like it’s been highly informative and educational, just about what’s going on in the LED market when it comes to corporate lobbies and spaces like that, and just the various options that exist. So Ryan Wilhelm from Unilumin, and Frank Moleski from Cenero. Guys, thank you so much for joining me here on the podcast today.

Ryan Wilhelm: Thanks for having us.

Frank Moleski: Thank you for having us. Hope everybody found some use [inaudible 00:00:26:22].

Tyler Kern: Absolutely. And everybody, thank you so much for listening to the Direct View Podcast by Unilumin. We appreciate you listening today very much. Of course, we’ll be back soon with more episodes, but until then make sure you subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, wherever you get your podcasts these days, to make sure you stay up to date and get the latest coming from Unilumin. I’ve been your host today, Tyler Kern. Until next time.