Our friends in the UK are once again voicing their opinions about the state of digital signs
in the retail world. In the past two weeks I've come across two
articles that articulate the same views - positive and negative - about
the current benefits and challenges of narrowcasting into retail environments.
Well, to be more specific, the articles (this one from BIOS Magazine and this one from The Retail Bulletin)
mostly focus on the shortcomings found in many current generation
networks. Distilling down Ed Silvester's article, the industry is
reportedly plagued with four main issues: ineffective advertisements,
irrelevant content, poorly situated screens and malfunctioning
equipment. For the most part, I'd have to agree with this assessment -
and I'm willing to bet that a good number of digital signage network
owners and operators feel the same way. But I think we'd also agree
that great strides have been made over the past few years to combat
these problems, and subsequently, to bring retail digital advertising
networks to the forefront of in-store marketing. Looking at the
author's points in more detail:
Ineffective ads: Always keep the nature of the medium in mind
As Silvester notes, many signage network operators simply take existing television advertisements and run them on their in-store screens.
While consumer product manufacturers and their ad agencies certainly
expend a lot of time, money and energy creating ads that build brand
equity and stick in the heads of many TV watchers, these TV ads don't
always translate well into digital sign ads. TV ads typically rely on
both visual and auditory messaging to get a point across. Digital
signage networks don't always have the luxury of audio (and when they
do, they must compete with other ambient noise), so messages have to be
visually striking, sometimes even supplemented by text captions. Plus,
most TV spots are 30 seconds long. You'd be lucky to get half of that
dwell time from an in-store shopper, and in reality, even a quarter of
that (7-8 seconds) is optimistic. And last but certainly not least,
digital signs are placed at the point of purchase to encourage an
immediate sale using a direct call to action. TV ads are typically
designed to keep the brand name in the consumer's mind, building brand
recognition and recall for a later shopping trip.
Irrelevant content: Make sure your audience has a reason to watch
Irrelevant
content is one of those things that really bothers me, because there's
no excuse for it. If your network is comprised solely of 15 or
30-second spots running in a loop, that's fine, as long as it suits
your business needs. If you create longer segments (e.g. 30-60 minutes)
sponsored by or featuring a specific advertiser, that's fine too.
However, recycling old boring content onto digital signs won't make it
any more interesting than it was before. Likewise, creating new content
that doesn't entice the viewer into watching will harm the performance
of your network.
While I haven't seen any research on the
subject yet, I'd also like to know if partitioning the screen off into
multiple zones and showing things like local news and weather
information actually impacts viewership of the networks -- and whether
viewers who are attracted by non-advertising content are likely to
remember the ads that accompany this info. And what about text tickers?
Do they really improve sign performance in a production environment, or
do they just make for a good demo?
Poorly situated screens: Digital displays should fit naturally within the retail environment
I
think that a lot of the energy that went into deploying some of the
early digital signage networks simply went towards making the systems
function. Nowadays, with packaged hardware and software solutions
taking much of the complexity out of that part of the job, more
attention needs to be focused on the placement of the screens. As we
have seen with traditional POP displays,
these solutions work best when situated near the products that they
advertise. Of course, any one digital display can show ads for multiple
products, so determining ideal placement isn't always a cut-and-dry
decision. But the availability of high resolution screens in sizes from
8" to 100" means that screens can be situated where they make good
merchandising sense, with less regard for the physical space
restrictions that hampered older networks. Wired and wireless video
distribution technologies make it easy to have multiple screen sizes
within each venue, tailored to the specific needs of each department.
Screen height is another important consideration -- we've all seen
digital signs placed so high in the store that customers simply walk
right under them without noticing the content. As a general rule, the
higher you place a screen, the larger the screen and your text need to
be in order to maintain strong readability and impact.
Dynamic sign operators should work with store planners and
merchandising experts to pick installation locations that work with the
layout of the store. Somebody probably put a lot of thought into where
all of those aisles and free-standing displays are situated... do
yourself a favor and talk to them :)
Malfunctioning equipment: Understand points of failure and limit their impact
Both
the hardware and software aspects of digital signage have come a long
way over the past several years. As commodity computer components have
gotten ever faster, there are more options for keeping systems cool and
stable. High availability features like fluid bearing drives and ECC
RAM that were previously only available to enterprise customers have
now found their way into digital signage servers and players. Software
solutions have grown from content authoring tools and network
monitoring services into complex suites of applications for maximizing
the performance of a digital signage network. And as Nigel Rix notes in
his article, we can expect even greater things as retailers integrate
their digital signage software with their inventory, EPOS and resource
management packages. But for all of the great technological advances in
our industry, there's still no way to prevent somebody from
accidentally or intentionally pulling out a power or network plug,
rendering your high-tech displays useless. I don't know if there will
ever be a satisfying solution to this problem, but diligent proactive
monitoring and ongoing employee education (as to the importance of the
network) can help minimize downtime arising from purely technical
issues.
All told, we've seen major changes in the quality and
sophistication of today's digital signage networks versus those from
just a few years ago, but there is still room for improvement. While
we're always happy to read the latest article on the next big thing in
digital retailing, we need a good, thoughtful critique every once in a
while to keep us moving down the path of progress.