The Digital Signage Insider

Coolsign, a competitor of ours whom I haven't really mentioned much, has just released some very interesting PR regarding a study conducted for them by media research group Arbitron.  The company conducted the study in April 2004 and surveyed about 1,400 shoppers to produce their results.  While Coolsign obviously isn't releasing all of that data, they did decide to publish a few choice tidbits to get retailers, VCs and digital signage start-ups alike all salivating.  Perhaps the most interesting:

"[M]all patrons were 1.56 times more likely to recall advertising for a specific specialty retail store chain after viewing CoolSign displays, and subsequently, 40 percent more likely to purchase from that chain."

This shouldn't be surprising to anybody in the industry.  We have a number of clients using digital signage as a sales tool who have seen double-digit sales increases for advertised products, from fishing lures and line to slightly more expensive toys.  But the Arbitron study does suggest a few things:  First of all, dynamic digital signage seems to work better for some types of products than others (read the study).  Secondly, the medium is now a viable alternative or addition to traditional out-of-home advertising techniques, particularly in dense retail shopping areas such as malls.  And finally, a well-placed digital signage network can not only improve brand recognition and retention, it can also drive sales.

Now, given that this was a commissioned report, you should take these results with a grain of salt.  And personally, I've never been comfortable with a research company that calls itself Arbitron... it seems so... well... arbitrary.  But all silliness aside,  I'm certainly encouraged by the results, and our customers using FireCast to deploy narrowcasting networks or other kinds of digital signage systems should be as well.