The 40,000-foot view is a excellent vantage point to see just how dynamic the media atmosphere is.
Mega-incidents and macro-trends in the economy have motivated big changes, improvements and refinements in media effectiveness over the past 20 years.
Big shifts in media commerce have taken place in the pre-Internet economy, the technology bubble burst of the last 90's, the post 9/11 economy and more recently, in today’s “recovery” economy.
Over this period, Internet Protocol addressability, declining flat-panel pricing and audience targeting approaches have emerged.
During tough or uncertain times, spending and practices have been reassessed, and each of these shifts has advanced more precise audience targeting and greater engagement.
North America enjoys a very high level of media competency.
The supply side’s technology providers, content producers, integrators and operators actively seek to monetize their capabilities. Deploying and using media technologies – in particular digital signage – is relatively easy, and becoming simpler.
On the demand side, consumers – including shoppers, patrons, visitors, staff and students – LOVE media, and they ingest, digest and invest in it. They recuperate with TV and research with the Internet, and they get information from and engage socially with every media devise available to them. People live in a "screen media – screen on" world. It is increasingly a multichannel, multimedia world of communications.
They engage, they try it and then they vote on its continued use with their attention, their fingers and thumbs, and their purchasing power.
In the middle of all this is media commerce, media creation, management, planning, playout buying, transport, presentation, billing, analytics, etc. etc. etc..
And at the center of all this media push, pull and engagement is the desire to achieve one thing ... ACTION.
That is where digital signage shines at the 40,000-foot view and at every other level right down to the bottom line.
It fits naturally into a communications continuum ... leveraging brand media assets, and driving traffic and engagement through other media devises in the multichannel media mix. It delivers reach and large audiences, as well as granular audience targeting and recency - message delivery at or near a point of purchase, decision or action.
Digital place-based media has a proven track record of:
- delivering sales lift and cross-selling in retail and consumer services,
- reducing perceived waiting times in transit locations, line-ups and ques, and waiting areas,
- improving the delivery of messages to staff, visitors and students.
- adding to safety and reducing looses in an environment, and
- bringing ambiance, vitality and improvement to a location experience everywhere that people visit, gather, shop, study, relax and are entertained.
So the view of digital signage from the 40,000-foot view and any other level is both bright and exciting. The technology infrastructure is being continuously improved around a core, proven set of inherent competencies and practices. Digital signage is refining its place in the multichannel communications mix and communications continuum And the abilities to apply these inherent capabilities is accelerating rapidly.
Engage!
