Written by David Little
Wednesday, 01 July 2009
In the first part of this column I pointed out that for many small business owners -even those who understand the potential of digital signage- actually deciding to add digital signs raises a thorny issue: Who's going to create the content that feeds the sign fresh information of interest to viewers in a professional format that makes a great statement about that small business?
Fresh content is critical to the communications effort if viewers are to keep coming back to the sign for more. In media shorthand, this boils down to the often used expression: "Content is king." But if content is king, who's doing the coronation? In other words, who is creating the content that gets elevated to this regal stature? Here, I examine solutions that go beyond the obvious answer of hiring someone like a full-time graphic artist or ad agency -two steps many small business owners are likely unprepared to make. While no individual suggestion solves the entire problem, several taken together should come close.
Before reviewing the tactics, however, keep in mind that the success of any digital sign relies on having a clear understanding where the sign will be located, who's typically watching and what is trying to be accomplished. These sorts of larger, strategic issues play into selecting which of the following tactics make the most sense for creating the content that's desired without diverting too many precious company resources into feeding the insatiable content appetite of digital signs. In this column, I offer five of 10 tactics. In my next column, I'll lay out five more.
Tactic 1: Create and use eye-catching templates that can easily be populated with regularly used data. Templates reduce the complexity of creating digital signage content. They can be constructed to accommodate nearly all of the information -whether its menu items for a restaurant or special event listings in a hotel lobby- that a digital signage user needs to display. Once created, templates also minimize the time that must be devoted to the communications process because they can be used over and over again.
Additionally, one template with a certain graphical theme can be spun off into other graphically similar templates that satisfy specific communications requirements while at the same time creating a consistent visual theme that helps to reinforce the identity of the small business.
Tactic 2: Select digital signage software that automatically imports data from other business systems to relieve staff from re-keystroking data into the digital signage page. For example, a hotel might rely on management software to track reservations, meeting room bookings and other business events.
With the right digital signage software, it's possible to identify pieces of that data that could populate a digital signage template automatically without intervention by the hotel staff. For instance, meeting room booking data, such as the name of the party renting the room could populate a text field in a template built for use on a digital reader boards outside individual conference and ballrooms.
Tactic 3: Leverage existing marketing, promotional and advertising materials to minimize the amount of original content that must be created. Existing content, including company logos -both the small business's logo and those of their vendors- TV commercials, supplier video and conference video can be reused on digital signs when appropriate.
Tactic 4: Use RSS feeds to keep a stream of fresh content constantly crawling across the screen. Depending on the small business and the application, Internet RSS feeds from different sources can provide fresh, new content to attract viewers and hold their attention.
Tactic 5: Rely on a traditional television channel. Some digital signage systems are available with optional television and cable television tuners that allow TV to be imported into a digital signage layout. Integrating TV relieves much of the burden of creating a lot of fresh content. However, there are a few caveats to keep in mind. The cable or satellite TV source may not allow retransmission of its programming without first paying a licensing fee. Another is possible competitive conflicts. For instance, how would the owner of a used car lot feel about unintentionally displaying the commercial of a competitor on his digital sign?
Relying on these five tactics can help small business owners create the content that gets and holds the attention of viewers without taking on a new employee or vendor. In my next column, I'll offer five more tactics that can be used to create content worth of coronation.
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Written by David Little
Thursday, 04 June 2009
When I was a much younger man, a college professor warned me against
the use of clichés in my writing. The problem with clichés, he said, is
that they are by definition “hackneyed” and “trite." Leave
it to a professor to send me back to my dictionary to figure out what
he was trying to say.
Being worn out, however, seems to be a matter of opinion. After all,
how many people drive cars with more than 100,000 miles, especially in
today’s economy? How many patch the knees of their kids’ blue jeans?
Who discards a dull knife?
To me, clichés become clichés because they succinctly bundle a truth
into a few memorable words, which become used to the point of
exhaustion because they so aptly describe something. To “reinvent the
wheel” with an original phrase might leave you “looking for a needle in
a haystack,” requiring you to become “busier than a one-armed
paperhanger” when a simple cliché would have conveyed your point
without the fuss.
The media in general -and digital signage specifically- have their own
clichés, “the mother of all” which is: “Content is king.” (By the way,
isn’t it odd that Saddam Hussein would have coined a phrase that fast
became a cliché in the United States? Or, was he simply the gateway for
a cliché from his culture to ours? “But I digress.”)
The kingship of content is easy to understand. If you want someone to
read your newspaper, listen to your radio show, watch your TV program
or look at your digital sign, you’d better give them a reason. That
“tried and true” reason is content. It better be fresh; it better be
interesting; it better serve your audience’s needs; and it better look
just as professional as the competition’s presentation.
Those who are successful in the media understand these truths
instinctively. However, the same can’t be said for the digital signage
universe. Sure, there are digital signage ad networks being put in
place by megalithic media groups. Professionals in these groups
understand the importance of content, but there is another vast group
of digital signage users who aren’t professional communicators. They
run independent retail stores, car lots, local restaurants, bars, and
any one of a thousand other small enterprises. These people “first and
foremost” are business people concerned with all of the things that got
them to the level of success they’ve achieved so far. Adding digital
signage adds another responsibility, the implications of which may not
be fully understood.
Obviously, these small business owners are adding digital signage
because they understand the importance of promoting their goods or
services. But they likely don’t have the time, understanding or
expertise to develop the content that fully exploits the potential of
the digital signage medium.
For small business owners, this raises a critical question: If digital
signage is king, who’s doing the coronation? In other words, how does a
small business owner with limited resources create –or afford to hire
someone to create- digital signage content that attracts the attention
of viewers, holds their attention and influence the process of making a
purchasing decision? How do they make their content king?
While there’s no simple answer that meets the needs of all small
business owners, there are some straightforward, logical steps to make
clear, effective, professional digital signage messaging possible. In
my next blog, I’ll review some of those steps to help small business
owners put together the messaging they envision for their digital
signs. Till then, at the risk of using a cliché, “stay tuned.”
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Written by David Little
Friday, 22 May 2009
By the millions, households in the United States and around the world are buying HDTVs, which increasingly makes high-def digital signage a must-have for anyone serious about grabbing the public’s attention.
HDTV is becoming more commonplace in U.S. households and around the world everyday. The latest figures from research firm In-Stat show that as of the end of last year there were 22 million homes across the country where HDTVs were being used to display high-definition programming, and another 17 million that have installed high definition televisions but aren't yet watch HD programs.
Worldwide, too, the number of HDTV households is on the rise. In 2007, the number of homes across the globe with HDTVs stood at 29.6 million. By the end of last year, that number had grown to 37 million, In-Stat said.
There appears to be no slowdown in consumer adoption of HDTV going forward, either. Despite the ongoing recession, consumers are projected to gobble up high definition consumer electronics at an incredible pace. A recent forecast from research firm iSuppli, foresees unit shipments of HD products worldwide growing threefold from 2008 to 2012, when they will number 202 million. Granted, iSuppli clumps lots of different HD products together –everything from HD set-top boxes to high definition game consoles. Regardless, though, this tally also includes displays, and more importantly it points to a day in the not-too-distant future when high definition stuff will be the rule, not the exception.
What does any of this have to do with digital signage? Quite a lot actually. The same people who live in HD households and watch their high-def TVs day in and day out also are in public on a daily basis seeing digital signage messaging at airports, hotels, stores and restaurants.
The growing tide of people exposed daily to high-def programming and televisions demands professional digital signage communicators to ask themselves a single, simple question: “How well does my digital signage messaging hold up to what my viewers see everyday in their homes on their HDTVs?”
Like it or not, the public increasingly will judge the digital signage messaging they see against what’s seen at home. Digital signage content producers who lag behind the growing public appetite for high definition run the risk of sapping the "wow" factor from digital signs.
The good news for digital signage content creators is that although they will have to retool their creative arsenal of hardware and software for high-def, the prices of those tools have tumbled in recent years to approach and in some cases equal what they were accustomed to paying for standard definition tools. From professional level camcorders to HD video editing tools, high definition text and animation software to special effects packages, high-definition creative tools are affordable –especially when compared to a few years ago.
Equally sweet music to the ears of businesses looking to deploy HD display panels as well as HD digital signage playback servers and controllers are also more affordable than ever. At the same time, they offer all of the functionality, if not more, than their existing standard definition counterparts.
To be sure, large and small businesses alike are keeping a close eye on their capital and operating expenses given the current state of the economy. While doing so is a reality of doing business in today’s economic climate, it’s equally real that the number of folks at home with HDTVs is growing. To stay competitive for their attention, deploying high-def digital signs and creating HD content will increasingly become just another cost of doing business –one that even the most frugal business manager won’t be able to afford to ignore.
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Written by David Little
Saturday, 09 May 2009
According to a leading research firm, the digital signage industry when viewed as a whole will see growth this year.
Guess which business segment of the U.S. economy is expected to grow 33 percent this year? No, it’s not homebuilding, automakers or purveyors of credit-default swaps. It is the digital signage business, which will experience part of this growth at the expense of other media.
A study released last month from noted research firm ABI Research made the surprising forecast. Even after factoring in the ongoing recession, the “Digital Signage Market Analysis” study foresees the U.S. digital signage market, which includes hardware, software, installation and maintenance, growing by a third.
According to an ABI Research industry analyst, one main reason for the growth is that traditional advertising media are losing their appeal. Possibly unknown only to digital signage newbie’s, digital signage offers something traditional advertising media can’t: the ability to reach buyers with dynamic messaging at the point of sale. When shoppers are in a store, evaluating which brand to buy, digital signage has the chance to snatch a bit of mindshare at the precise moment a buying decision is being made. Radio, TV, newspapers, magazines and even the Internet cannot make that claim.
Another recent report released by SNL Kagan backs up the argument that traditional advertising is losing its appeal. According to SNL Kagan, which has produced annual reports forecasting broadcast industry revenue for the past 20 years, local and national TV spot advertising revenue declined in 2008 by about 7 percent. That decline has continued this year, and the firm projects revenue from television ads dropping about 16 percent in 2009. While the recession is responsible for much of this decline, the changing media consumption patterns of the public also seems to be having an effect. In fact, the SNL Kagan analyst responsible for the report advises broadcasters looking to weather the storm to cut expenses and develop alternate digital platforms –presumably to win back audience drifting away to new media. As that drift accelerates, advertisers seek new ways to reach an audience, and digital signage appears to be benefiting from that desire.
The ABI Research study also credits improvements in the appearance of displays, declining prices for electronics, lower-cost digital storage and the inclusion of interactive technology as factors contributing to its rather rosy forecast.
To be sure, digital signage exists in the broader economy, and the depth of the decline there will impact its growth. ABI Research acknowledges as much, but it seems at this point that the effect of the broader economy is more akin to slowing a speeding locomotive than pulling the emergency stop cord.
Even during this general economic recession, jumping aboard the digital signage express makes sense, especially for marketers and advertisers who wish to position themselves to take full advantage of the recovery to come. While doing so might seem counterintuitive to those looking to cut expenses, the truth is companies are continuing to advertise during this recession. Choosing to reallocate some of those existing ad dollars to digital signage not only provides an attractive alternative for those who have grown weary of advertising in traditional electronic media but also gives those advertisers a strong presence at the point of sale when shoppers one day return in droves to the stores.
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Written by David Little
Tuesday, 14 April 2009
For digital signage ad networks to mature and prosper, advertisers and ad agencies must be assured they’re reaching the audience they pay for and their budgets are not being wasted.
If you watch the local news on television, you may notice that the stories get a little more graphic, the news a little more sensational and the anchors a little more solicitous in February, May, July and November. Why? Because that’s when ratings are measured in more than 200 television markets nationwide to determine who’s watching what, and how many of people are watching it.
If you work in a specific industry, you may subscribe to one or more trade magazines with articles of interest to your peers. If you recommend, specify or actually authorize the purchase of new products and services for your business, you probably receive these magazines for free. If you happen to forget to re-subscribe, you may have been on the receiving end of a phone call from someone --not trying to sell you a subscription, but attempting to get you to provide the verbal equivalent of filling out a subscription card. Why? Because you are a member of a sought-after demographic that those advertisings in that magazine seek to reach.
If you follow Internet marketing at all, you may have read stories over the past couple of years about click fraud –an artificial inflation of online reader responses to banners, buttons and other ads. Click fraud has caused a lot of grief for some of the biggest names on the Internet. Why? Because advertisers pay for each click on their ads based on the representation that there was actually someone with some bit of legitimate interest in their product or service that clicked.
What in the world does any of this have to do with digital signage? Simple, each example illustrates the importance ad agencies and advertisers place on reaching the number of people they pay to reach and often the demographic “type” of person they are targeting for their commercial messages. Audience ratings, circulation audits and bona fide ad responses are critical to monetizing media. Advertisers must be assured that their dollars are paying for something they actually wish to buy. Measuring audience metrics via independent third parties has served both the media and the ad communities by establishing an essential component to the ad buy, namely trust. It all comes down to the expression former President Ronald Reagan made famous when negotiating with former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev on nuclear arms reduction: “Trust but verify.”
For digital signage networks to be taken seriously by ad agencies and their clients, they must deliver a level of audience verification similar to those available with other old-line media, such as TV, radio, newspapers and magazines. Fortunately, advancements in digital signage technology are on the horizon that will allow this exact type of verification. Digital signage cameras mounted on or in the bezel of flat panel displays combined with the right software can count viewers, track where they are looking and catalog some demographic information, such as gender and approximate age, about digital signage viewers are on the doorstep of the industry.
As this technology rolls out into the mainstream, it could give digital signage advertising networks a significant boost among media buyers as there finally will be concrete, verifiable metrics upon which to make ad buys and allocate budgets. Whether or not, media buyers will take a digital signage network’s word that the audience numbers they are representing based on this technology are actually true is another matter. But that issue seems easily addressable by bringing an independent third party to verify these findings into the mix. I could even imagine a scenario where a digital signage network “ratings” service would foot the tab for the measurement technology to separate it from the signage network and add legitimacy –of course for a fee, probably paid by the signage network.
Certainly privacy advocates have raised concerns about this sort of technology. However, steps can be taken to mask the identity of individuals being tracked by the cameras and allay fears about Big Brother tactics.
It seems to me, this type of technology promises to deliver an important component that has been missing from the digital signage ad network arena. Look for the financial success of these networks to grow as this sort of audience measurement technology –or some other yet to be defined approach that gets answers for the same need of verifiable metrics- gains momentum.
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Written by David Little
Thursday, 09 April 2009
Consider digital signage software to:
Reduce paper waste
Reduce printing costs
Communicate more effectively and in less time increasing efficiency
Going green? You should know the results from a first-of-its-kind study into the carbon emissions of digital signage compared with those of traditional signage, which shows that the carbon consumption of a projected display is 7.5 percent lower than a traditional poster package.
Read the results here.
Or maybe you are dealing with reduced staff? Reducing waste? Increasing effectiveness? Increasing efficiency?
Regardless of your business initiatives, Keywest Technology has
world-class digital signage software that will help you accomplish your
objectives. MediaZone provides you a way to do what you could never do
before -express yourself to those who matter most in your business-
with the right message at the right time.
Keywest Technology digital signage systems are used worldwide in
venues like retail plazas, hotels, schools, museums, transportation and
corporate centers. Our key business is providing the software, media
hardware, and integration that powers digital signage. Our MediaXtreme
Signage is affordable for any size budget because our solution is
scalable from very basic to exotic. You can purchase our components a
la carte, or we can also customize and turnkey MediaZone to specific
requirements to meet your out-of-the-box objectives. Best of all,
MediaZone produces professional results at affordable prices. Realizing
a quick ROI is easy with MediaZone.
What are you waiting for? Ask us now for an online demonstration right on your desktop! We look forward to powering your digital signage future with professional results.
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Written by David Little
Wednesday, 18 March 2009
Digital menu boards provide restaurateurs with a host of advantages from paring back printing expenses to capturing new sources of revenue.
In today's economy, restaurants that can respond quickly and effectively to newly presented opportunities have the greatest chance of success.
Consider the local deli, fast-food eatery or even the most upscale of restaurants. These businesses must promote their constantly changing menus with up-to-date entrees, appetizers, desserts and pricing. With food items and pricing possibly changing everyday, the old approach of displaying printed menus on stands outside of an establishment, using kindergarten-style plastic lettering pushed into grooved boards or even relying on professionally printed backlit signs suspended from a wall behind the counter are old, tired and less-than-effective. Enter digital signage.
Digital signs allow restaurateurs to respond quickly to changes in pricing and menu selections. They make highlighting new specials and promotional offers at a moment's notice practical, providing added marketing flexibility. They also reduce the expense of printing new signage. Together those benefits can significantly impact the bottom line.
But the benefits don't stop there. Consider that unlike printed signs, digital signage is not static. It's easy to add motion and even audio to a menu board. Imagine hearing the sound of a searing steak on the grill as an image of the chef grilling the steak comes up on the sign. Try that with print.
The good news for restaurant owners is that special-purpose digital signage software exists that makes creating attractive, effective digital menu boards fast and easy. Often, such applications bridge the gap between other software commonly used to manage a restaurant, such as spreadsheet applications, word processing software, XML sources and even Web sources, and the digital menu board.
The software serves as a data conduit, extracting menu items and pricing from spreadsheet applications and automatically populating attractive digital signage templates for display on digital menu boards.
Such software also lets restaurant chains tap into the power of networked digital signs by supporting centralized management of multiple digital menu boards in a digital signage network. Nationwide, regional, local or even restaurant-specific changes can be made to digital menu boards from a central control point.
Digital menu boards also open up the opportunity to benefit from new revenue streams for restaurateurs. Consider the possibility of securing advertising revenue or some other promotional consideration from vendors, simply by offering space and time on the menu board.
On the level of an individual restaurant, this opportunity could mean a restaurant owner selling advertising to other businesses in the area or perhaps bartering advertising time on the display in exchange for goods or services for the business. For larger restaurant chains, there is the potential to tap into regional or national advertising revenue for commercial playback on screens across the entire network of signs.
In today's challenging economy, businesses need every advantage they can get to stay ahead of the competition. Something as simple as replacing traditional menu boards with their digital equivalents may be just the thing to tip the scales in favor of one restaurateur vs. another. Digital signage-based menu boards may provide the added boost needed to respond instantly to changing costs, eliminate certain printing expenses and generate added interest from customers as well as revenue from non-traditional sources.
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Written by David Little
Tuesday, 24 February 2009
Despite the economy's tailspin, digital signage is poised to surge in 2009 and beyond.
Gloom and doom everywhere. Failures, bailouts, bankruptcies, foreclosures -the list goes on and on, numbing some, frightening others and leaving most looking for some ray of hope.
Believe it or not, that glimmer is coming from the digital signage market. Display industry analyst DisplaySearch Jan. 22 released some data that should give everyone associated with digital signage reason to shake off at least a bit of the funk that lingers from the endless recitation of shrinking economic prospects.
Unit volume for plasma and LCD panels used for public display actually grew 13 percent year over year, according to the analyst group's "Quarterly FPD (flat panel display) Public Display Shipment and Forecast Report." For 2009, DisplaySearch is forecasting a 44 percent increase in unit volume. That translates into 1.8 million displays for 2009. How's that for a swift kick in the shins to the purveyors of economic doom?
While DisplaySearch acknowledges its forecast for this display sector in '09 is a downward revision from its previous projections, the company is predicting unit growth in flat panel displays for public display will continue, hitting 2.4 million next year, 3 million in 2011, 4.2 million in 20012 and 5 million in 2013.
In the view of Chris Connery, VP of PC and large format commercial displays at DisplaySearch, two slices of the public display sector in particular are expected to continue on pace this year and next, regardless of the nation's economic woes. Deployment of digital signs in quick service restaurants and on mass transit vehicles will continue as planned across the globe.
Ironically, the downturn in the economy will help to propel growth in these two sectors. According to DisplaySearch, faced with overall economic decline many consumers will re-evaluate their leisure spending. Rather than taking expensive vacations, says DisplaySearch, consumers will stay closer to home, going to the movies instead of going on vacation. As a result, movie theaters will see a surge in audiences and many will revamp their concessions by installing menu boards based on digital signage to promote the sale of goodies and to offer dynamic advertising opportunities where none before existed.
Economic decline also will change the priorities of advertisers as consumer spending shrinks, the business sector continues spending on the goods and services it needs to survive, says DisplaySearch. As a consequence, advertisers will re-orient their messaging and spending to reach B2B buyers via dynamic displays at transportation terminals and on busses and trains. Everyday, millions of business professionals commute where they work, and advertisers will respond with their dollars to reach them via digital signs.
At first glance, this may look a little crazy. After all, how do you plug in an Ethernet cable to a digital signage player on a bus? How do you guarantee that a commuter train is always in range of a WiFi network hub or cell phone range? But consider the announcement at the 2009 International CES in Las Vegas last month that 63 television broadcasters in 22 markets nationwide have committed to using a newly standardized addition to their original DTV transmission infrastructure to broadcast to mobile, pedestrian and handheld devices.
Where TV broadcasters once could only transmit their HDTV channel and a couple of new standard definition digital TV channels with their digital transmitters, this new standard lets them add multiple new mobile DTV streams without using more than their allotted slice of spectrum. Some of those streams can be used to reach dynamic digital signage on the go in busses and trains and will help propel unit growth in LCD and plasma panels used for public display.
Without question, the economy in the United States and worldwide is suffering. However, as I've discussed in this space before, opportunities continue to emerge during a recession. For those who make their living in the digital signage sector, it would appear that there are many reasons to be optimistic about the future. It will simply be a matter of responding in the right way to cash in.
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Written by David Little
Thursday, 12 February 2009
Scheduling messages to match changing demographics throughout the day is a powerful tool for marketers and advertisers who use digital signage.
Hotels, individual retailers, malls and many other venues where digital signs are often found share a common characteristic: changing demographics and/or desires of customers throughout the day. Savvy marketers can take advantage of the ease with which digital signage messaging can be changed and scheduled to tailor messages to these different demographic groups that wander by their signs throughout the day.
The concept is known as "day parting," something that TV programmers have been doing for decades. This valuable tool has only recently become available to out-of-home marketing and advertising professionals as the tools to change messaging based on the time of day have become available.
Perhaps an example best illustrates the concept behind dayparting. Imagine the lobby of busy hotel catering to business travelers. Near the elevator a digital sign keeps guests informed of hotel amenities and services. A smart marketer has seized the opportunity to daypart messaging on sign by enticing early morning elevator users of the current breakfast menu. As the day progresses to the time business people leave for their appointments, the sign reminds them that office supplies are available from the hotel business center. As lunch arrives messages promoting the hotel restaurant's buffet are interspersed with digital signage pages promoting hotel amenities. As evening approaches, the messaging changes to promote a duet promoting in the hotel lounge. Dayparting can be used in a similar way in a retail store to appeal to different groups of shoppers who peruse the aisles at different times of day.
Digital signage opens up this approach to marketers. Before digital signage, changing messages throughout the day was inelegant at best and impractical at worst. Printed placards and signs -prone to tatters and tears- would have to physically be swapped out several times a day to accomplish the same sort of result.
Day parting is appropriate in lots of other digital signage applications as well, such as at malls, in retail stores and in an emerging new sector for digital signage applications: transportation. Consider how mall traffic changes throughout the day. Even before the retail shops are open, many malls serve as a track and social center for retirees to get their early morning walks in before starting their day. As stores open during the weekdays, shoppers are most likely to be adults, many of whom don't work or are getting off from an early shift. As the day moves on into the afternoon hours, teenagers will begin to appear as school dismisses. In the evenings, mall visitors are more likely to be folks coming home from work or visiting after dinner.
How could marketers possibly hope to tap into demographic-specific marketing opportunities with static, printed signs in this instance? Conversely, how could they possibly ignore the chance to cash in on dayparting their messaging to match the shifting demographics of mall visitors throughout the day?
Many of today's digital signage media servers come with software that makes scheduling messages to match changing demographic audiences a breeze. Doing so gives out-of-home marketers and advertisers the chance to tap into dayparting to increase sale opportunities and better serve the informational needs of their audiences.
Too often, people tend to look to the future weighed down by the past. While past experience can be a good teacher, it shouldn't blind one to the opportunities that arise from new approaches. Dayparting is one of the many powerful opportunities presented by digital signage, and it's there to be seized for those who recognize its potential.
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Written by David Little
Monday, 19 January 2009
With no apparent break in the economic storm clouds, a 2009 forecast with a silver lining is overdue.
Many people and businesses are entering 2009 with a healthy dose of trepidation about what lies ahead --and with good reason.
Billions upon billions have been pumped into the financial system to keep banks afloat. The nation’s auto industry is on its knees, pleading for government loans. New and existing home sales are tanking. Foreclosures continue to rise. The number of people unemployed is mounting. The list goes on and on. No wonder many get that gnawing feeling in the pit of their stomachs when they consider what the new year will bring.
But before you hit the panic button, consider this: even in declining markets and times of economic contraction, opportunities exist to survive and thrive. While it’s beyond the scope of this space to discuss all of the ways a business might go about this, it does seem like a good time to reiterate that advertising, promotion and marketing are not luxuries that are easily dispensed when times get tough. Rather, they are essential components of surviving and even increasing market share while competitors succumb to a slowing economy.
Even in a severe recession, there is economic activity. People continue to buy and sell, albeit to a lesser degree than during an expansion. The question for business really is how to best spend limited marketing, promotional and advertising dollars to achieve the greatest return on investment. Note that during economic recession this question isn’t really much different than it is during an expansion. The difference lies in the added importance on answering the question in a way that reflects the realities of how consumers change their behavior in response to the tougher economic environment.
Over the past few years, digital signage has established itself as a viable alternative to traditional forms of advertising and promotion. Digital signage has distinguished itself as the only medium to offer dynamic messaging that reaches consumers when they are making purchasing decisions. During a recession, this presence at the point of sale along with three other advantages –immediacy, responsiveness and economy- make digital signage a critical tool to help businesses succeed.
When it comes to in-store immediacy, digital signage cannot be beat. Printed signs, banners and point-of-sale displays require relatively long production times. Add to that the time needed to coordinate special offers from suppliers with these sorts of promotional materials and the time from concept to fruition extends further. Digital signs, on the other hand, offer the ability to respond immediately with messaging appropriate to special offers, unexpected new merchandise that shows up on the loading dock and corporate decisions to offer sales on items that somehow don’t get communicated to sales floor managers. During a recession, the ability to respond immediately with appropriate messaging keeps managers and shopkeepers nimble, which can translate into sales that otherwise might be delayed and ultimately lost.
Such nimbleness is at the core of being responsive to changing conditions in the marketplace, allowing retailers to promote new pricing, new offers and new specials. But this responsiveness isn’t limited to these types of circumstances. Digital signs can also meet the individual consumer’s need for specific information by fulfilling a dual role as a digital sign and an interactive kiosk. For example, a digital sign playing back linear promotional content, can be interrupted with a simple touch or via a signal from a pressure-sensitive or photo-electric sensor to switch into an interactive mode, offering consumers a way to find the information they require and facilitate the sales process.
Finally, consider the economy digital signage brings to messaging. No one would argue that a flat panel display and digital signage controller costs less than a single printed sign. However, consider how many signs must be printed in a year in addition to the labor involved in replacing old signs with the new, and the economic equation begins to shift. In my experience, it is not uncommon for many organizations that frequently update their printed signs to reach a break-even point with their investment in digital signage within a year’s time.
So while 2009 promises to see the recession continue and potentially deepen, there can be a silver lining in these economic storm clouds for those individuals and business that can adapt and take advantage of opportunities when they are presented. One tool essential to doing so is improving the effectiveness of promotions, marketing messages and ads. Digital signage offers a powerful means to do just that.
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