Banking services used to be simple and straightforward. You got a paycheck, filled out a deposit slip, walked or drove up to the counter and presto, your needs were met. Perks? Anyone for day-old coffee and a lollipop?

Today, banks, credit unions, pay-day loans and other financial firms look more like modern retailers. The amount of financial services has mushroomed, and with more customers choosing to bank on their mobile devices, the need for promotions to build awareness has never been greater.

Also like modern retailers, progressive financial institutions have shifted into high gear meeting customers’ needs for a better, more connected experience by creating an atmosphere that is conducive to selling financial products.

However, today’s connected finance customer can get services almost anywhere but the bank—on the Internet, via mobile apps, or at the ubiquitous ATM. Human interaction is no longer required for a bank transaction. Considering this, we ask, is self-service the future of banking?

According to the TD Branch Financial Education Survey, some of those “old fashioned” face-to-face banking practices are not only valid today, but also have demand from younger generations. For example, consider these recent findings:

• 54% of Millennials prefer to visit their bank for detailed information.
• Millennials still visit bank branches as frequently as they did in 2013 for simple transactions.
• 90% of consumers prefer face-to-face advice for complex financial products.

To be sure, routine transactional banking activities are going digital by the majority of customers with over 50% using online services, but for more complex transactions that require thorough consideration, modern banks are meeting the needs of consumers by shifting to the concept of full-service flagship locations.  These consumer-friendly centers provide a plethora of financial services and tools, and are staffed with knowledgeable associates for on-the-spot assistance alongside self-serve kiosks for the do-it-yourself customer.

“Many people do their banking not only at a branch but online as well,” noted Robert Moctezuma in the Digital Signage For Financial Institutions white paper published by DigitalSignageToday.com.  “Digital signage can help tie together the financial institution’s online and offline presence.”

“When people walk into a branch just wanting to do a few things, there may be a line at the cashier. They can go to a sign, they can touch it, they can interact, and they can get what they need done,” Moctezuma said. “That helps the institution extend the online presence to the offline world.”

Since banks can no longer take walk-in or even drive-through customers for granted, managers want to do their utmost to maximize the opportunity. This is where modern banking differentiates itself from our parents’ bank. Modern banking crosses the digital divide to connect to customers in new ways, ways that provide information and ways that provide services.

Here are four examples that demonstrate how digital signage can improve the customer experience and better meet growing expectations.

Cross-Selling Financial Services – The common task of cross-selling financial services typically falls on tellers’ shoulders, which is not the best game plan for positions that have high turnover. Fortunately, digital signage provides a platform that can prime customers’ interests and create awareness before having that conversation.

Customer Experience – Modern banking can facilitate better customer experience by reinforcing the brand—and the atmosphere—that makes the client better informed and more inclined to accept additional services. This can happen through customer engagement with both bank employees and interactive media, bolstering services that directly address and fulfills customers’ needs on the spot.

Drive-Through Banking – For approximately 60% of the customers that drive to the bank, the majority use the drive-through to meet their banking needs, which is possibly the most overlooked opportunity to promote and cross-sell customers. Today’s digital signage can be easily placed outdoors, providing a reliable, dynamic way to keep drive-through customers informed.

Staff Training – Bank employees can benefit as much as patrons with targeted digital sign messages. Keeping staff up to date with the latest promotions, rates, and industry regulations becomes much easier on a display platform that resides in break rooms and cafeterias. Busy personnel can be reminded of the most important product promotions, rates, and other service offerings that managers want to emphasize. This greatly reduces the time required training staff, and the reinforcement greatly improves retention.

So, to resolve the question we started with, the answer is a resounding YES! Self-service is the future of banking, but that future will also include many digital bridges that go right back to face-to-face services that even your Grand Pa and Grand Ma would fondly remember, barring the stale coffee of course.

David Little is a charter member of the Digital Screenmedia Association with over 20 years of experience helping professionals use technology to effectively communicate their unique marketing messages. For many more helpful digital signage tips, examples and solutions, keep in touch with Little at KeywestTechnology.com.

Digital signage has become an important new communications medium. Here’s a look at the basics of why that’s so.

We often read so much about the technology of digital signage that we can forget what this technology is all about—getting communication results that go above and beyond non-digital efforts.

Sure the technology is cool, but most business managers want to add value to their efforts and ultimately to their businesses. That’s why digital signs are important.

Let’s get back to the basics of digital signage –specifically, why should professional communicators and managers turn to digital signage to convey their important messages? Actually, there are several reasons, including:

-To increase a company’s visibility. One of the biggest problems retailers have when it comes to self-promotion is cutting through all of the marketing noise generated by every other business –be it on radio or TV, in newspapers and magazines or from competing store front signs. Digital signage can cut through those distractions by attracting and directing the attention of the most important potential buyers of all –those in a store who are ready to spend money on a purchase.

-To help solidify relationships with customers and vendors. Consider an auto dealership waiting room with customers seated waiting for their cars to be fixed. With well-positioned digital signage messaging –as opposed to an ordinary TV displaying a cable news channel- the dealership can promote special offers aimed at its captive digital signage audience as a reward for choosing to do business with the dealership. Or, in a corporate setting, a digital sign in the lobby can be used to welcome scheduled vendors, guests and other visitors as they arrive –a simple move that builds goodwill.

-To deliver critical information more efficiently. In times of emergency, an existing digital signage network can be a lifesaver, providing critically important messages alerting employees, customers and other guests of exit locations, storm shelters and other vital information. Look for digital signage systems that have the ability to display local alerts instantly by sourcing third-party Emergency Alert Software (EAS) information, providing instant text alerts as well as coordinated signage that gives up-to-the-second information to all concerned.

-To save time. Preparing a static, printed sign is labor-intensive, expensive and time-consuming. The same message can be created and displayed far more quickly with a digital sign. Add to that the recurring expense of printing new signs as needs change versus simply updating a digital sign with a few keystrokes and it doesn’t take long to begin earning a tidy ROI from a digital sign.

-To attract greater attention than is possible with static, printed signs. The other drawback of print is that it is static. Human brains are programmed for motion. Our eyes are automatically drawn to moving objects. Digital signs displaying full of motion video are dynamic not static. They tap into something that is innately human to demand attention and hold it.

-To increase the efficiency of employees. Emails don’t work well, especially in a production environment. Imagine an industrial plant where management wants to communicate vital information to hundreds of workers. Perhaps it’s production quotas vs. actual performance; perhaps it’s mean time between accidental employee injuries; perhaps it’s delivery information regarding vital components that are en route. In all of these instances –and others too numerous to recount here- digital signage has the ability to convey important information to a workforce that is vital to employees maintaining a safe, efficient environment.

There you have it –many reasons why digital signage is an important, effective communications alternative that professional communicators and managers can no longer ignore. Sometimes it’s good to get back to basics.

Digital Signage...
1) Can increase your company’s visibility,
2) Can help solidify your customer and vendor relationships,
3) Can deliver critical information more efficiently,
4) Saves time,
5) Attracts attention better than static signs,
6) Can increase the efficiency of your employees.
 
And, digital signage can be less expensive than what you are already using.
 
What do you think?

Disruptive technologies can greatly change society. For example, in 2007, Apple released the iPhone that had a massive impact on how and why people use phones. Yes, most of us still talk on phones, but we are using smartphones for just about everything else, too. How much longer will society tolerate anything less than "smart", and what does all this mean to the future of digital signage?

Life was certainly less connected before smartphones. For example, before most people knew that an Apple was more than a tasty fruit, I was fortunate (or unfortunate depending on your perspective) to have had one of the first smartphones on the market, a Toshiba Pocket PC. If you have never heard of this product, that's probably because it was made about the time you were born or otherwise too young to care.

What do I remember about this phone? Nothing glamorous. It was slow, clunky to operate, prone to glitches, required rebooting about as often as Windows 95, even crashing with the blue screen of death on occasion!

And when I think about this a bit more, I realize the same could be said about legacy digital signage systems.

It just so happens I was involved with the nascent digital signage industry in the 90s, the same decade the original smartphones were invented. Yes, when I think about digital signage in the 90s, I can easily conclude it too was slow, clunky to operate, prone to glitches, required rebooting about as often as Windows 95, even crashing with the blue screen of death on occasion!

However, if I were to sum up digital signage starting in the 90s right up to the last few years, one would have to say that despite all of its quirks and limitations, it was glamorous. How about you? How did you feel about digital signage in its infant years? Try this; think back to the very first time you saw a flat panel television. You were likely spellbound with its thin stature and seductive HD resolution. If not spellbound, maybe you remember being gagged by its price with those early plasma panels costing over $10K each.

Peering into 2014 and beyond, I think we can safely say that digital signage is beyond glamorous-it's a bona fide medium-at least for advertisers. For example, at the 2013 Digital Place-based Advertising Association (DPAA) summit held in New York City, the panelists agreed that place-based advertising (think digital sign media) would continue to rise through 2017 (up from 5% to as much as 25%). "I think place-based will outgrow [other forms of media] because it lends itself to targeting customers," said Chris Paul, General Manager AOD of VivaKi. "It is just a matter of technology, terminology, and industry understanding being in sync before we see dramatic changes."

What kind of dramatic changes is Paul alluding to? Possibly, the 2013 ANA/Nielsen Survey has the answer. The survey states that in three years, the importance of integrated multi-screen campaigns is expected to dramatically increase, from 20 percent of digital media purchases today to a projected 50 percent by 2016.

We might consider at this point the attributes that would lead to such optimism on spending. According to the survey, spending increases on multi-screen campaigns will require three main things:

• Verification that advertising achieved the desired result (noted by 71 percent of respondents)
• Consistent metrics across screens (61 percent)
• Verification that advertising was delivered to the right audience (59 percent)

Are you one of those that still think digital signage is a fad? Heads up! According to the AdNation News article, Digital Place-based Media, What's Ahead?, there are strong reasons to believe it's here to stay. The article reported a case study related by David Krupp, CEO of Kinetic, who shared information about Degree Women's "DO MORE" antiperspirant campaign.

 "By focusing place-based media in gyms, likely to be seen by women while they were working out, the study concluded that consumers had better recall (56%) and a stronger intent to purchase (62%) than the control group. Krupp described Degree as 'the right brand for the right environment' because in this place-based campaign, it reached a large scale of consumers, who were in the right mindset to recall the product."

So digital signage went from glamorous to a medium to a business almost overnight. It started out as an eccentric technology with a glamorous flair. Eccentric because no one was exactly sure what to do with it and how to best use it-plus it was unfriendly to use and awkward to manage.

But glamour alone does not build markets. Results build markets because investors put their money where opportunities look promising, and digital signage has been adept at getting results. Looking forward to 2014 and beyond, we can now make an educated guess at where digital signage is heading, and we need to look no further than the popularity of smartphones, online gaming devices, tablets and the Internet itself.

What do these popular technologies all have in common? The single thread that ties everything together comes in the form of engagement. Digital signage of yesteryear behaved more like our parents' TV-it broadcast a message to its likely viewers without a plan for interaction. There's nothing wrong with this, of course, but the big opportunity for digital signage going forward has more to do with engagement. Engagement is the way forward for digital media of all kinds, including advertising, branding, infotainment, videos, movies, gaming, and social media at large.

David Little is a charter member of Digital Screenmedia Association with over 10 years of experience supplying professionals with trusted digital signage solutions. For many more helpful digital signage tips, examples and solutions, keep in touch with Keywest Technology.

While digital technologies threaten the effectiveness of television advertising, interactive digital signage can amplify the impact of your marketing message.

Television programming is far from passé. Matter in fact, more people than ever are watching TV. For instance, consumers around the world are watching nine more hours of TV than they did in 2011. When you add in films, the average person is now watching 25 hours of TV and movie content a week. That’s great news if you are an advertiser, right? Not so fast.

Something has changed over the last sixty years of primetime television; the days of gathering around a 100-pound TV and eating TV dinners in the living room as a family affair are mostly over. Nonetheless, just over half of us sit and watch traditional live broadcast on televisions in the living room. It’s what we are not watching that may be disturbing to advertisers.

But before we go there, let’s consider the remainder of TV watchers. According to the 2013 report, Motorola Mobility’s Fourth Annual Media Engagement Barometer, almost half of television programming is consumed in other places and on other devices, such as, tablets, smartphones, computers, game consoles and DVRs. For instance, in countries like the United Kingdom, Sweden and Germany, more people consume media via their tablet than the trusty old flat-panel television, regardless if they are in the house or elsewhere.

The problem for advertisers is this: Despite all of the hours people watch television—the actual time spent viewing commercials has dropped precipitously. The aforementioned Motorola study reveals that 29% of all content is viewed after being recorded. And if you are an advertiser, you don’t need to wait until Halloween to be scared of this fact: 68% of global viewers record programming to skip advertisements on commercial channels, rising to 75% and 74% in the UK and US, respectively.

In other words, the viewers who record their favorite television shows on a digital video recorder will fast forward past $12 billion in advertising in 2013. How much of your ad budget will contribute to that sizeable sum?

It should be clear that digital technologies have enabled viewer choice, which is proving to be a challenge for advertisers who are counting on eyeballs being present during sponsored breaks.

With so much at stake, it’s no wonder why marketers are looking for alternate advertising avenues –ones that can target their desired audience, deliver control over playback to defeat ad zapping, and provide interactivity to engage potential customers.

Digital signage offers an appealing alternative –or at least supplement- to traditional television advertising. Delivering valuable product information and appealing marketing messages to consumers with dollars in their hands advances the goal of your advertising message. That’s exactly what digital signage can do in a retail setting.

Add to that the impact of interactivity via a touchscreen interface, and you have a technology to draw in consumers, engage them in your message and ultimately direct their buying decisions. All of this can tie into an omni-channel marketing mix that provides multiple consumer touch points and inputs.

Compared to a digital video recorder and commercial zapping, interactive digital signage offers you a technology for marketing that works with you to capture consumer attention and dollars –not against you. Isn’t it time to consider giving your advertising the Midas touch?

Smartphones and tablets present digital signage with new opportunities to evolve.

The broad adoption by consumers of media tablets and smartphones, such as the Apple iPad and iPhone, is certain to impact digital signage in ways that today aren't fully imaginable.

However, there are a few important data points about these devices that offer a clue as to what some of the effects will be and their potential magnitude.

First, the number of media tablets and smartphones in use is staggering. In the two years since they have become available, 55 million iPads have reached consumers' hands. IHS iSuppli forecasts 275 million tablets worldwide (all tablets, not just iPads) will be sold by 2015. At home in America, 65 percent of the population, some 200 million, will have smartphones and/or tablets by 2015, an In-Stat study says.

Those numbers mean that whatever the ultimate impact will be of these devices on digital signage, it's bound to be huge.

Second, these devices are changing how people like to interact with technology. Multi-touch screens, a critical component of the success of tablets and smartphones, will likely become an important component of some digital signage applications, too. After all, people by the millions are being trained by their devices on how to interact with screens.

Soon the desire to have multi-touch will shift from a want to an expectation in the minds of consumers who access information via a screen. This naturally will carry over to digital signage, particularly hybrid digital signage used in interactive kiosk applications.

It's worth noting that the popularity of multi-touch is nearly overwhelming -literally. In late March, IHS iSuppli reported that the "runaway success" of the iPad and iPhone has created a boom in the shipment of touch screen display. That in turn will cause the market for the silicon that makes multi-touch possible to nearly triple in size over the next five years -from 865 million touch screen controller integrated circuits in 2010 to 2.4 billion in 2015.

Smartphones and tablets also will likely affect digital signage by giving this emerging communications medium a way to reach out to consumers in the proximity of a digital sign and wirelessly deliver information, coupons and QR codes. With so many smartphones and tablets in the hands of consumers, doing so seems like a natural way for marketers and other communicators to extend the digital signage experience beyond the public square and into the purses and pockets of the general public.

To be sure, my crystal ball is as clear as the next fellow's. But it seems to me you don't need to be Nostradamus to look a little bit down the road and see that smartphones and tablets will play an increasingly important role in the direction of digital signage.

While predicting exactly how these new devices will shape future digital signage developments is impossible to say, it is certain that digital signage vendors and the people who communicate with these signs will be hard at work seeking to find ways to benefit from the swelling ranks of their users.

Smart TVs with interfaces based on voice control and other cool technology may one day change how digital signs integrate interactivity.

It wasn't too long ago when a digital sign consisted of a TV set and a VHS deck or DVD player. In what seems like a flash, tube TVs are passé, and VHS cassette players are beginning to look a little like antiques.

Driven largely by the overwhelming popularity of HDTV in America (recent research from Leichtman Research Group finds high-def sets are now in two-thirds of U.S. homes), flat panel displays are achieving ubiquity. Along the way, they transformed the look and appeal of digital signage.

As striking as that change has been, digital signs appear to be on track to see an equally dramatic change over the next few years, once again driven by the consumer television set. At the recently concluded 2012 International CES in Las Vegas, several television vendors rolled out their vision of what a "smart" TV should look like.

Among them were Samsung, LG, Sony and Lenovo, each with their own versions of smart TVs. Google already has taken a run at this market, and Apple is long rumored to be working on its own smart TV with a consumer interface similar to its Siri personal assistant for the iPhone 4S that would let owners control their TV with their voice. Samsung, too, reportedly is at work on adding voice and motion control to new televisions.

For the interactive digital signage industry, these new smart TVs will open doors to greater possibilities for digital sign-based interactivity and further reshape consumer expectations. How long will it be before we see digital signs that allow a hotel guest not only search a list of available restaurants from a digital sign in the lobby but also make reservations simply by speaking to the screen?

Beyond voice interaction with smart TVs, what other benefits might this new generation of televisions bring to digital signage interactivity? Perhaps, these TVs will lead to easier syncing with personal smart phones and tablets offering the public interactive takeaways from the sign. Or, they might make it possible to migrate the digital signage experience from outside the home into the living room -sort of an offshoot of the TV Everywhere concept being promoted these days by pay TV operators, such as cable TV companies.

To be sure, my crystal ball is no clearer than anyone else's. However, it seems obvious that this next-generation television technology will open up new and exciting possibilities for those who communicate via interactive mobile devices. I'm not suggesting these opportunities to employ a higher degree of interactivity will be available in the short term. But when they do come, what it means to communicate with a digital sign will undergo a dramatic transformation.

Where we are today and where we might be headed in the not-too-distant future with this new technology might be as stark of a contrast as the difference between Tom Hanks feverishly plugging in numbers to an early microcomputer in his role as astronaut James Lovell in "Apollo 13" and Leonard Nimoy as Spock saying from his science station aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise, "Computer, compute to the last digit the value of pi," and the computer replying: "You're kidding, right?"

From ubiquitous touch screens on smartphones to directing interactive control with a glance, this dim sum of digital signage delicacies has something for everyone.

This column is a bit of a digital signage dim sum -a tasting of various thoughts, facts and musings that taken together should make for a tasty treat.

Item one; nearly all smartphones will have touchscreens in the not too distant future. ABI Research released a projection in late August that sees 97 percent of all smartphones having a touchscreen by 2016. To put that into perspective, in 2006 only 7 percent of the smartphones shipped had touchscreens. The research firm attributes much of the coming proliferation to the availability of low-cost capacitive touch controllers that can reduce the cost of adding touch-based interactivity by as much as 30 percent.

Question. When touch-screen capability is ubiquitous in smartphones, will interactive touch-screen capability simply be expected by consumers? Will signs without it, leave consumers wondering what's wrong, or worse, simply walking away to a friendlier, more interactive alternative?

Item two; a blending of digital technologies may point the way to the future for out-of-home advertising. Global lifestyle and environmental communications agency Kinetic, said in September that is was launching Fuel, "a response to the increasing scope of Out of Home advertising including opportunities to integrate digital interactivity, dynamic displays, experiential and bespoke design into client brand campaigns."

In announcing the launch, Kinetic's UK chief operating officer said the move "reflects the changing nature of Out of Home media and the huge opportunities that emerging technologies add...."

Question: How long until others notice and begin to leverage complementary interactive technologies with digital signs to produce an even more effective communications experience or more powerful marketing opportunity? What sorts of opportunities will be available when a sign can communicate wirelessly with a smartphone, for example, and vice versa?

Item three; a telling glance can direct a sign. Researchers from the Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute in South Korea in mid-September demonstrated a technology that allows someone to have interactive control over a television -and digital signage is not too far of a stretch of the imagination- by tracking their gaze. The technology, shown at the International Broadcast Convention in Amsterdam, uses a camera to track where one of the pupils of a viewer is directed to give the viewer interactive control. In one demo, a viewer's gaze was used to pull up the vital statistics -age, name and hometown- of various dancers as they performed on stage. Still a prototype, a finished version is years away.

Question: Will the gaze of a digital signage viewer one day replace touch as the gateway to interactivity? If so, what possibilities will this new interactive interface open to communicators and marketers?

That's about all for this digital signage dim sum tasting. I hope this presentation gave you some food for thought. At the very least, I hope it didn't leave you with any digital signage dyspepsia.

A new forecast from IHS iSuppli projects stunning growth in some digital signage sectors for touch screen functionality.

A friend of mine recently upgraded his cell phone to an HTC EVO running the Android operating system and proudly was showing me how he accessed his contacts, apps and the Internet by touching the handsome screen on the mobile computer. Not to be outdone, I couldn't resist pulling my Apple iPhone from my pocket and demonstrating its big, bright screen with the same type of touchscreen interface.

My encounter with my friend points out just how commonplace touchscreen technology is becoming among consumers. According to a Wikipedia entry 6.4 million iPhones are active in the United States. Worldwide the number is 41 million as of February 2010. Ditto for Android phones with 400,000 being activated daily, according to Google, and a total of 100 million in use worldwide.

Add to these numbers the millions of consumers who have purchased an Apple iPad as well as the momentum growing among consumers for Motorola Xoom tablets and other such devices and one thing seems so apparent that I risk winning the "Captain Obvious" award for stating it: People love touchscreen interaction with their devices.

The same is true, it turns out, with digital signage. Perhaps fueled by their appetite to navigate around their phones and tablets with their fingertips, consumers will soon reach out and touch digital signage in record numbers.

A new research from IHS iSuppli, finds shipments for touchscreen displays for signage and the professional market will grow by a factor of seven over the next three years, reaching 2.97 million by 2013. Last year, shipments reached 404,999. The forecasted increase between 2009 and 2013 represents a 96.3 percent compounded annual growth rate, IHS iSuppli said.

The research firm forecasts the growth of touchscreen digital signage in several sectors including: public spaces, hospitality, healthcare, government, corporate retail, transportation and education.

By market segment, IHS iSuppli forecasts growth of:

• 41.8 percent in public spaces, hospitality and healthcare applications;
• 31.2 percent in the government and corporate sectors;
• 20.7 percent in retail use; and
• the remainder of the growth in transportation and education.

According to Sanju Khatri, who authored the posting on the IHS iSuppli website detailing the forecast, not all of the dozen or so technologies used to enable touchscreen functionality are appropriate for non-consumer displays 32 inches and larger. The most likely candidates to help enable the forecasted growth are optical imaging, resistive, projected capacitive, bending wave, infrared and surface acoustic wave (SAW).

All of this projected growth points to the need digital signage users will have for the talent to develop content that taps into consumer interest in touch screen technology. Managers responsible for digital signage content used by their organizations should begin planning now for exploiting the power of touchscreens to advance their communications goals.

Certainly, interactive touchscreen technology is not appropriate for all digital signage applications. However, in those sectors identified by IHS iSuppli for growth in touchscreen functionality digital signage messaging has the opportunity to grow equally in relevancy as viewers interact with signs in search of the information they need.

Interactive digital signage offers brick-and-mortar retailers the chance to rekindle their relationship with the growing number of online shoppers.

I must admit it. I am a typical guy. I don't really like to go shopping, and I look for every chance I get to consolidate shopping expeditions and eliminate trips to the store.

So a few years ago, when I really took the opportunity presented by Amazon.com and other sites to shop online -particularly at Christmas time- I was overcome with cheer, that is holiday cheer, because doing so let me minimize the drudgery of the season and focus more on faith, family and friends.

Still, even though the convenience and ease of online shopping has made my annual holiday shopping far less time-consuming and exhausting, I'm left with a nagging feeling that I am missing something -something important that I can only experience if I actually make the time to shop at brick-and-mortar stores.

Upon reflection, that something is really four very important "somethings" that make us who we are as humans, namely the satisfaction of touching, tasting, hearing and smelling. Sure shopping online can deliver all sorts of images-from cheerful holiday online catalog type shots to a full, 3-D fly-around of merchandise I'm evaluating-to satisfy my visual sense, but what about the simple experience of holding an item in my hand and evaluating it in a quite personal way with all the other senses an online image can't satisfy?

What if I could have the best of both worlds? What if I could have the convenience and ease of locating merchandise online and also have the in-person shopping experience that lets me squeeze the produce, taste the cookie, smell the evergreen and listen to the din of shoppers hurry about on their own expeditions?

Apparently, I'm not the only one asking those questions. A couple of new reports from Aberdeen Group, sponsored by HP, suggest in-store technology, like digital signage, point-of-sale systems and kiosks, can bring the convenience of online shopping into the retail space, to complement the in-store shopping experience.

However, 76 percent of 100 senior retail executives from apparel, grocery and department stores surveyed by Aberdeen Group report not possessing the technology or business processes to make use of Web, catalog or special orders from their stores.

According to the reports -"The Customer Connected Store: 2011 Store Operations Automation Best Practices" and "Retail Network Optimization: A Strategic 21st Century Enabler"-fully one-third of the retailers surveyed said they are likely to invest in kiosks that help give shoppers the experience of online shopping and the ability to check inventory while in the store.

The reports also identify why retailers should be willing to recreate an element of the online shopping experience for customers. The researchers found that retailers who give customers the ability to do things like place Web or catalog orders in the store are "1.4 times more likely to see higher than 80 percent customer satisfaction in stores" than retailers that don't do so, a press release announcing the surveys said.

The bottom line: interactive digital signage technology offers retailers a wide variety of advantages, not the least of which is touch-screen access to the Web to support things like in-depth product information, inventory checks and catalog purchases.

If retailers follow through and actually invest in interactive digital signage and kiosks, I know I'd be likely to return to brick-and-mortar retailers for more of my every day and holiday shopping, and I bet millions of others like me would, too.

The rapid adoption of touchscreens in multiple consumer devices demands attention in the digital signage realm.

If adding interactivity to your digital signage communications mix hasn't been top-of-mind, it's time to re-evaluate and give serious consideration to tackling touchscreen technology.

To be sure, not all digital signage uses call for interactivity, but many signs employed today for simple wayfinding, retail promotion and other applications can leverage touchscreen interactivity to better serve the informational needs of viewers, and in so doing, deliver a communications experience more in line with the goals of the enterprise.

Reconsidering the role of interactivity in digital signage messaging has taken on added urgency recently as consumers buy and fall in love with touchscreen gadgets like the Apple iPad and even touchscreen PCs.

Consider the latest statistics on touchscreens from market research organization iSuppli. Shipments of touchscreens for devices like Apple's iPad are expected to rise nearly 5,000 percent to 8.9 million this year, according to an iSuppli forecast. That's up from 176,000 in 2009. By 2013, the research company projects shipments to increase sevenfold to 63.9 million units.

The popularity of touchscreen interactivity isn't restricted to iPads and iPad competitors in the pipeline. According to iSuppli, the personal computer touchscreen market is expected to grow by 242 percent this year.

As consumers by the millions adopt PCs and tablet-type computers with touchscreens, their expectations about technology are likely to evolve. Whereas at one time no one would give second thought to a wayfinding digital sign, other than to absorbing the directions being conveyed, it's entirely likely wayfinding viewers of the near future will wonder why they can't touch the screen, call up a more detailed map and touch highlights along their route to learn more about them.

The number of consumers looking for greater interactivity with retail digital signs also is likely to climb as the number of touch-screen tablet device owners grows. With touch screen interactivity becoming a growing habit, why wouldn't shoppers expect to do something as iPad-like as dragging a digital sweater from one interactive shelf and a pair of slacks from another onto a virtual mannequin to see whether they match?

Taking this type of interactivity to the next level, why shouldn't traditional digital signage offer touchscreen interactivity via the very tablet computers, like the iPad, that are driving the explosive growth in the touchscreen market? After all, iPads come with either 3G and/or WiFi connectivity built in. Giving an iPad permission to take temporary control of a digital sign in a retail store would let customers benefit from the interface they know and love on their tablets and the 42- or 50-inch display that delivers larger, more impactful images that better emulate the real world.

Digital signage communicators who ignore the forecast of explosive growth in touchscreen enabled devices do so at their own peril. To be sure, not all digital signage applications are appropriate for interactivity, but the ubiquitous presence of consumer devices controlled via touchscreens demands a serious re-evaluation of digital signage communications strategies.

Now is the time to begin that re-examination, because it may be too late to make a strategic shift once 64 million touchscreen devices are in the hands of consumers worldwide. Launching a review today will let digital signage communicators proactively plan to take advantage of this tidal wave in touchscreen familiarity rather than flat-footedly responding to this likely sea change in consumer expectations.

From iPhones to ATMs and other self-service kiosks, consumers are demonstrating their love affair with touch and interactivity.

I recently was having lunch with a friend who excitedly told me he had signed up to be one of the first to buy an Apple iPad. While he liked the prospect of owning a full-color tablet to access and consume all of his favorite media, what he instinctively knew he would love about the gadget is its touch-screen interface.

Already an owner of an Apple iPhone, he was well familiar with navigating his device with a simple touch, scanning through menus with the flip of his fingertip against the screen and blowing up a picture to a larger size by touching the screen with the tips of his thumb and forefinger and pulling them apart. Navigating around his new iPad in the same fun way, undoubtedly will feel comfortably familiar.

My friend is one of the millions of people around the world who today enjoy the fast, friendly feeling of control made possible through touch and interactivity. Many of these touch-screen devotees were first exposed to the concept of interacting with technology in the form of a computer mouse used to point and click through an interface to complete a desired task. (Thank you Xerox PARC for the concept of a GUI and Stanford Research Institute for the mouse). After years of whetting their appetite for this sort of interactive control over technology, it's easy to see why consumers now have a deep love affair with interactive touch-screen control.

Just look around. Touch screens are everywhere. Think about it. You likely are not going to spend more than a day before you encounter touch screen interactivity in the form of an ATM, self service kiosk, MP3 player, GPS navigation device, cell phone or even on TV in CNN's Situation Room or in the movies like "Minority Report."

Research firm DisplaySearch has quantified the popularity of touch screens. It released a report in May '09 finding about 220 million touch screens were shipped for use in mobile phones in 2008 -or 16 percent of the mobile phone market. By 2015, the research firm forecasts the penetration rate of touch screens in mobile phones will grow to about 40 percent. And that's only one slice of the interactive, touch-screen pie.

I bring this up because I am a big proponent of identifying important trends and positioning oneself to benefit from where that trend is headed. So when it comes to digital signage, professional communicators would do well to consider the potential of digital signage panels to tap into the public's love affair with touch-screen interfaces and add interactivity to their digital signs when appropriate.

Consider a large casino or hotel lobby. How much easier and efficient is it for patrons to access and staff to convey way finding information or ballroom event schedules than via interactive digital signs? Simply by automatically tapping into the booking and management software used by the hotel or casino, a digital signage controller can extract the appropriate data and create the right digital signage page before it's required. Thus, when Aunt Martha wants to find out where the chrysanthemum contest is being held, the digital signage controller has already gathered that data from the facility management software, created the page and is ready to display "Ballroom C."

Best of all, when interactive control is not required, that same digital sign can mimic a traditional digital sign and playback scheduled media to promote shops, restaurants and other amenities offered by the facility until once again being called into interactive service.

Simply by recognizing the public's fascination with interactive touch control, those designing digital signage installations can add interactivity to make any given digital sign more useful to the public and more effective in the eyes of the marketers, advertisers and other professional communicators who intend to use the sign to achieve their goals.