Digital Signage Touches Hearts and Moves Wallets

Ahead of ISE 2026, we at M-Cube sat down with Florian Rotberg of invidis for an in-depth conversation with our CEO, Gianluca Pasquali, who took over leadership of the company in April 2025. In the interview, Gianluca – former Vodafone Italy director and BCG management consultant – shared how he has been reshaping one of Europe’s leading digital signage integrators. He also discussed our commitment to our proprietary platform and how industrialised global rollouts will define our next phase of growth.

2025: A year of transformation

2025 marked a year of transition for M-Cube. When Gianluca Pasquali stepped into the CEO role, he brought with him a fresh perspective from the telecoms sector, having been entirely new to digital signage. This outsider view, combined with the deep industry knowledge of our founder and current President Manlio Romanelli – who personally selected Gianluca to lead the company – proved to be invaluable as we began streamlining the organisation.

€70 million in revenue achieved in 2025

During the year, we fully integrated our subsidiaries – which had long operated with a high degree of independence – into a single, unified structure. We reviewed management layers, removed duplicate roles, and redirected resources towards sales and commercial operations. Despite these significant changes, we ended the year with high single-digit revenue growth, slightly above market average, and achieved total sales of approximately €70 million. As Gianluca described it, we maintained “a good level of profitability”.

Retail media partnership with Italy’s largest grocer

Italy remained our strongest market in 2025, followed by France and Germany. The UK and Asia-Pacific regions saw slower development, particularly due to market conditions in China. While luxury retail continues to be the core of our business, we also made meaningful strides in the retail media network space.

In Italy, we became the exclusive RMN partner for Selex, the country’s largest grocery retailer. We also secured additional RMN clients in the UK, including Coop. As Gianluca noted in the interview, “We talked for years about in-store retail media. Now we finally see it happening. But we don’t just want to touch the heart of retailers through digital experiences – we also want to move their wallet. That is where retail media networks come into play.”

Looking ahead: Scalable international rollouts

As we look to 2026, we plan to build further on our strengths as a true end-to-end integrator, with deep expertise in content creation and execution of large-scale international projects. This capability is especially important for global brands that require rapid, industrialised rollouts. Retail media networks are a clear example: to generate value, retailers need to reach a critical mass quickly. Without that scale, RMNs simply don’t deliver results.

Focus on our proprietary software platform

A cornerstone of our long-term strategy is our proprietary software platform. Since joining, Gianluca has re-evaluated the role of in-house software within M-Cube. The result was a firm commitment to a single, fully owned, scalable, cloud-based platform. “We focus on one platform – DXP One,” he emphasised. “In 2025, we made the decision to invest. In 2026, we’ll execute it.” This approach not only streamlines our operations but aligns our roadmap with the needs of global clients looking for speed, standardisation and transparency.

Ecosystem partnerships key to global delivery

Partnerships remain essential to our success, especially in the retail media space. Consultancies, hardware vendors, and media agencies all play vital roles. Only a strong and collaborative ecosystem can support pan-European or global rollouts at the scale and speed required by today’s brands. M-Cube positions itself as both integrator and orchestrator within this broader ecosystem.

The emotional and commercial power of digital signage

After nine months in the digital signage industry, Gianluca described the experience as energising. Compared to the telecoms sector – where much time is spent defending declining market share – digital signage is a world of growth, innovation and increasing relevance for retailers and brands. What drives us most is the combination of emotional and commercial impact. Digital signage creates memorable in-store experiences that “touch the heart”, while retail media networks offer measurable impact on revenue and profitability.

We’re well aware of the challenges the industry faces, including increasing pressure from IT integrators and tighter margins. However, we remain confident that M-Cube’s unique combination of creativity, platform ownership, and operational excellence positions us strongly for the next stage of expansion.