Screens used for advertising, branding, promotion and information are now a common sight in a myriad of locations. Few people will fail to notice the number of screens in their local shopping mall, subway or even around town as outdoor digital signage is becoming common too.
There is, however, a big difference between indoor and outdoor digital signage – not just in their locations, with advantages and disadvantages to both systems.
Indoor digital signage is the most common from of out of home screen advertising. Nearly every shopping mall and large retailer has screens dotted around. The great advantage is that this from of digital signage has a targeted audience – the shoppers, who are already in the store or mall, and willing to spend money. However, this is not the case with outdoor digital signage as people walking along the high street are not all shoppers so the audience is less targeted.
This can be an advantage ion itself though. For an indoor screen advertising in a retail store, the only people that get to see the display are already customers as they are inside shopping; however, with outdoor digital signage, every person the content persuades to visit the store, is a new customer – somebody who would not have visited otherwise.
Outdoor digital signage also has advantages over indoor screens in that there is less advertising clutter. In a mall or indoor location, other signs, advertisements and promotional material will distract from the display, but outdoors there is less of this making the screen more noticeable.
The dwell time with outdoor digital signage, however, is less than for an indoor screen. Inside people may view the screen for four or five seconds but with outdoor digital signage this drops to just above a second so any content has to carry all the important information and make an impact in that time.
