Dynamic Digital Signage Articles

Digital Signage Transforms In-Store Advertising

It’s late afternoon, and a 30-something mother is running into the grocery store with shopping cart and four-year-old in tow to pick up a couple of things for dinner, and a cookie for the little one. She isn’t sure what her husband and three kids want, but as she walks into the store, something on a plasma screen overhead catches her attention.

She moves the cart forward, but stops and turns to watch the screen again. Two women are talking about picking something up for dinner, and they’re laughing. The woman smiles and the image on the plasma screen dissolves into that day’s special ­ family-style dinners in the deli department at 20 percent off. Now she knows what she is buying for dinner.

Welcome to the future of advertising ­ a future that could reinvigorate a medium beset by splintered audiences, too many messages and continually escalating costs. Point-of-purchase advertising that uses state-of-the-art digital signage, like the plasma screen and the deli special, will allow retailers to reach their best customers when they’re ready to buy, and allow them to do so at a fraction of the cost of other media and with almost 100 percent penetration. Who can argue with results like that?

How In-Store TVs Play to Shoppers

Slim screens in shops give retailers innovative and dynamic ways to keep consumers informed, entertained, and more likely to buy. Flat-panel TVs are cool. Retailers know that, too -- and they're using them to woo you.

As you hit the mall this holiday season, expect to see these sleek screens -- from large wall-mounted units to tiny four-inch displays embedded inside cases -- staring at you from more places than ever. Increasingly, retailers are not only using them to play commercials but also loading them with eye-catching video to draw you inside their store and enhance the experience while you're there.

MORE THAN SHOPPING. The concept of using TVs in stores has been around for a long time. But in the past, you could find them only in such large chains as Blockbuster (BBI ), Wal-Mart (WMT ), and Best Buy (BBY ). And the content wasn't exactly appealing -- mostly a series of ads, ranging from movie previews to special in-store sales and promos.

But as costs steadily fall, "digital signage" is working its way into high-end and mass-market retail alike. And rather than using them to explicitly hawk products, retailers are embedding these slim-profile screens into walls and display cases to push their brands more subtly while also embellishing their décor and bringing the atmosphere to life.