One of the fundamental strengths of digital signage is its ability to leverage all of the communications and persuasion strengths of broadcast TV on a highly targeted and affordable basis.
Digital signage offers those with something to say a way to convey their messages in a targeted, effective manner that cuts through the noise of distraction and focuses the attention of a sought-after audience on a specific action, concept or mood.
Over the next few columns, I will explore this concept by laying out the advantages digital signage offers marketers, advertisers, corporations, educational institutions or anyone else with a critical message.
The fundamental advantage of digital signage is its ability to target a desired audience with a specific message via a medium that leverages all of the things that have made TV the reigning champion of modern communications. In other words, digital signage is the ideal medium to narrowcast a specific message to a target audience –thereby sidestepping the expense of paying for a mass audience when only a small percentage of that audience is of any interest to the communicator.
Consider buying commercial time on a local television station. TV delivers the well-proven persuasiveness of video as a medium, but it also carries with it a rate structure based on the size of the market and the number of people who tune in. Cable TV and IPTV refine this equation a bit, since both can offer geographically targeted ad buys within the market they serve. But even that alternative delivers tens of thousands of viewers who never have had, nor ever will have, any interest in the communicator’s message.
Contrast that shotgun method with the rifle-like precision of communicating via digital signage. Digital signs aren’t positioned willy-nilly. They hang in specific locations for an obvious reason: they are in close proximity to areas that attract people. For instance, a grocery store’s produce stand attracts shoppers interested in fruits and vegetables; a factory lunch room draws hungry company workers; the entry way of a university science building attracts science majors. The examples go on and on.
Couple this geo-relevancy with a digital sign’s ability to play back video, graphics, text, animation and audio in a fashion that –if done properly- is indistinguishable from the quality of high definition television programming, and this fundamental reason why digital signage is so powerful becomes crystal clear. No other video-based medium offers the impact of TV to such a highly qualified audience for so little investment.
If the use of digital signage is commercial, so much the better. What other video-based medium gives marketers the opportunity to influence, cajole and direct shoppers so close to the point of purchase? Literally, a well received digital signage message could mean the difference between a sale and no sale, selling one brand or another, or selling complementary items –think “Would you like fries with that burger?” – or a single piece of merchandise.
To wrap up, the fundamental strength of digital signage is its ability to leverage a powerful, familiar form of communications to deliver persuasive or informative messaging to a select group of people who by their very proximity to the sign are likely to have an interest in the message being communicated.
In future columns, I will address the other reasons, such as relationship building, dynamic messaging and dayparting, that make digital signage one of the most important communications media to have emerged over the past several years.
