By Grapevine Digital

03/01/2018 A lot of retail store and service businesses are moving away from physical signboard, posters and large static displays to more innovative Digital Signage displays. This trend in India started more than a decade and a half back but has accelerated in the last 3-4 years in almost all the Tier 1 and Tier 2 towns. There are several reasons for this to have occurred so quickly so soon all over. Major ones are:
Cost
The price of normal LED screens, specific digital signage screens and large displays have fallen rapidly over the near term. Just for comparison an LED/LCD TV around a decade ago was over 10X the price one would need to pay for one at the moment. This by and large makes the display part of the digital signage solution cheaper. The TV box as a concept was few and not widely available till about 3-4 years back. And now you have a lot of devices starting from as low as $25 dollars to power the display of the network. Multi retail locations or other businesses can be connected through a wired or wireless connection. The connections are stable and cost of data is at an all time low.
Engage with the fleeting Attention spans
Nobody has time today. Attention spans are at an all time low. Hence retailers and businesses need to capture attention in the minutest window and this is only possible using an interactive creatively tuned design on a digital display. Key features and offers can be displayed using the Digital signage network so that there is the brand mention that rests with the customer and also propensity to take action. Plus because it’s real time and dynamic you can think of various methods to entice the users/buyers by posting their user generated content and other specific offers.
Building a Kool Brand
In the 50’s , 60’s and 70’s cool brands were built on print since they had the maximum awareness. That changed in the 80’s and 90’s with the TV playing the main distribution avenue for brands. In todays era of digital the brand has be built using creative tools and digital first and will leverage on Digital Signage and Internet to be the main distribution medium to get the reach. The customers place a high weightage to good visuals, great design and what the characteristics of brand (brand ethos) are. Hence retailers and other businesses need to stay ahead of this trend. The brand being created for Digital Signage or Internet or to be distributed on Whatsapp will be very different. The design thought and emotional pull played on the prospective customer will be different from the brand commercials seen on TV or a viral video seen on YouTube.
Dynamic
Digital signage networks today allow instant delivery of content and not reliant on earlier USB/Thumb drive based updating over a large network. Retailers and businesses have the ability to test different offers on several mediums and display the most relevant offers at the appropriate time and locations in their network
Measurability
Several technologies exists to capture the user attention on the signage’s when content is being played so that it allows the network to provide Advertiser the proof of play and various metrics on specific Ads and how they performed during the play slots.
Complement in the Omni-Channel Strategy

As a marketer once you identify your audience or persona of customer then the optimum way to drive your brand into his sphere of relevance will be through all mediums – mobile, digital signage, internet, etc. Hence overall digital signage is a great compliment to existing distribution channel. An attribution model can be built in a retail setting quite easily based on offers.