Digital signage, the latest in out of home advertising, has seen a dramatic explosion over the last decade. Screens, used for displaying promotional material, branding and advertisements, are now a familiar sight in all sorts of locations.
Commonly seen around shopping malls, in retail stores, gas stations and convenience stores, not to mention around airport and railway concourses, digital signage has many advantages over other forms of advertising.
Digital signage is far more noticeable than standard outdoor media. Unlike posters and static signs, the moving images and bright imagery stands out and attracts the eye. There is also the ability of digital signage to play multiple spots, so more than one item can be promoted or advertisements shown from more than one advertiser.
And once installed, the sign can be left to run on its own with any new content able to be remotely uploaded, without the need to revisit all the signs to manually do it (unlike static advertisements).
But these logistical advantages are not the only reason digital signage has been the incredible success it has. One of the great advantages of digital signage, unavailable to any other form of marketing, is the ability to manipulate customers.
With the screens, especially around point of sale, the audience (customers) can be steered to promotional items or made aware of new lines. However, there is a downside to all this versatility, the only people that you are advertising too (depending on the location of the sign) will only be the people in the store or shopping mall.
With outdoor digital signage the people who will be seeing the sign will be those walking past as well as those coming through the doors. This can help draw people into the store, who wouldn’t have otherwise have come in, therefore, by relaying the promotional content outside, it will attract new customers.
An as digital signage is versatile enough to play scheduled content; this can be a real boon for restaurants and retailers of fast food and other stores who can time advertisements to appeal to lunchtime audiences, and so attracting them indoors to get something to eat.
