Digital Advertising – Temptation to touch

Creme Egg gameTouch screen technology is now everywhere. With so many smartphones and tablets about these days, touchscreens are everywhere. One consequence of this is that people are so savvy to touchscreens that when encountering an outdoor display or digital signage screen, people often touch it, expecting some sort of interaction.

This habit is quite common with the younger generation, who are now growing up with such technologies and are finding normal digital screens without interactivity, a trite method of communication, and who may find a standard static screen or outdoor digital signage display, trite.

Providing a form of interactivity is increasingly becoming important for advertising display. As digital signage has been around for several years, the initial wow factor of seeing a display out of the home in a public environment doesn’t wash with people anymore, especially the younger generation.

Providing touch screens for a digital advertising campaign is an effective way of engaging people, but the right content is essential. People will soon lose interest if touching a screen just changes one advert for another.

Engaging, interactive content is quite hard to come up with, but abiding by the basic rules of digital advertising should steer a touch screen campaign in the right direction: namely, provide consumers with something that adds to their shopping experience. Information, news and branded entertainment are all methods of interacting with consumers and generating interest in either a product or brand. A good example of this is the interactive bus shelter game run by Cadbury’s promoting their crème eggs.

Of course, for small retailers wishing to place a few screens around a store, or provide an outdoor digital signage display outside, this sort of technology is financially far too prohibitive, especially for an outdoor environment. However, inexpensive touch screen systems are available, as are weatherproof touch screen enclosures, which can provide an inexpensive interactive system.

Of course, having the hardware is one thing, coming up with engaging interactive content is another…

 

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