Trends
Five key trends in digital signage
We look at how digital signage solutions are being used to capture attention and boost sales
As the shift from offline to online retailing continues at pace – hastened by the pandemic – businesses will be forced to rethink the whole in-store experience.
Digital signage is at the forefront of this technological retail revolution and screens will be further used to give customers the best possible experience; to give them a reason to step outside the four walls of their house.
Let’s look at how digital signage solutions are being used to capture attention and boost sales:
- Driving efficiencies in drive-thru and click and collect
Lockdowns prompted hospitality firms to invest in their drive-thru and click-and-collect kiosks, as it was often the only way to sell their products with restaurants having been forced to close for intermittent periods.
Digital signage solutions helped these businesses to improve customer service, reduce waiting times and personalise their marketing. The latest digital menu boards can not only change according to the time of day, but display products based on a customer’s individual preferences.
Looking to the future: customer identification technology will help identify customers on arrival and generate up-sell opportunities through personalisation.
- Letting users generate the content with social media walls
Social media digital walls are taking the trend of user-generated content to the next level.
User-generated content “provides the necessary social proof to legitimise the product or experience, which has the power to turn browsers into buyers”, . Social media walls bring social proofing (a into the physical arena, with a constantly refreshing feed of desirable content.
The great thing about social media walls is that they’re super easy to set up and do all the heavy lifting for you – consumers essentially advertise your brand on your behalf.
Looking to the future: Hashtags campaigns or simple social media post campaigns used to curate content from their core social media followers are likely to appear in retail spaces as screens in-store or at product activation events.
- Shift towards LED plays into sustainability drive
Digital signage has long been held up as a way brands can show their sustainable side, as it can help them to cut down on paper wastage, save water and reduce carbon emissions.
The latest digital signage solutions are even more energy efficient, with today’s LED screens consuming up to 60% less electricity than previous LCD models. LED walls are easily fixable too, so instead of changing a whole screen, a single pixel can be replaced.
But, of course, LED walls aren’t just being used by brands to make them look good in the eyes of eco-friendly consumers. They play into the ‘techorating’ trend i.e. combining the worlds of technology and interior design to create physical spaces that wow and inspire.
Looking to the future: Bigger walls with a smaller carbon footprint! LED walls can create unique shapes, even wrapping around corners. Be on the lookout for experiential displays!
- Creating a spectacle with 3D digital signage
In the past 12 months, 3D digital signage has moved from concept to real-world application. Some of these digital out-of-home displays have been impactful enough for commentators to suggest that they could present the ‘future of advertising’.
Describing 3D OOH (out of home advertising) displays, Greg Coleman, Amazon Prime Video’s global head of marketing and franchise, says: “When you literally have things popping out of a billboard at you, it feels inviting in all kinds of new ways.”
But the Washington Post cautions that they could “turn public commons into obtrusive brand exercises”. One thing’s for sure – big brands with big budgets are going to push innovation to the limit.
Looking to the future: Creativity within digital signage will boom, it won’t be just 3D movies that can delight customers with mind-bending shots. Products will be shown off to their full potential, using new life-like animation to capture a customer’s attention.
- Creating new advertising revenue with digital ads
It was recently reported that Amazon plans to roll out digital ads in its physical stores at some point this year – no huge surprise, but what’s interesting is that it intends to allow brands to buy the advertising space.
Amazon rarely misses a beat when it comes to commercial decisions, and it looks like it’s one step ahead again here. And the company is reportedly thinking of expanding the inventory to other parts of the shopping experience including smart shopping carts, checkout booths and digital smokescreens on refrigerator doors.
At the moment, other retailers aren’t doing anything quite as sophisticated as that. “In Best Buy, you can buy ad space in their stores,” Brian Rappaport, CEO of Quan Media Group, explained to Modern Retail, but “it’s a block of TVs in the store.”
Looking to the future: retailers will be keeping a keen eye on the success of Amazon’s digital ad experiment to see if they should follow suit and give their customers a fully omnichannel experience to engage with when browsing the shelves.
Linney – your full-service marketing partner
At Linney, we help brands level-up their digital signage, from full implementation, to crafted content to keep customers coming back for more; we’re experts when it comes to getting the most out of your digital screens.
Contact us today to find out more about how we can help your brand serve up compelling, innovative content across all your digital signage.
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