Gimmicks and Innovations – Getting Noticed in the Digital Signage World

It wasn’t too long when we first began seeing digital signage emerge into the world. This digital out of home advertising media was a logical step following the innovation of flat screen TVs and the fall in cost of such devices.

However, in just a few years, digital signage has gone from being a niche market to a mainstream advertising media and is now found almost everywhere; from the high street to gas stations; retail stores to shopping malls – even outdoor digital signage is ubiquitous.
But getting noticed in such a competitive marketplace is now becoming increasingly difficult. In a sea of screens and digital signage – installers are coming up with novel and gimmicky methods to get notice:

• Sound – Sound is now being increasingly relied upon to attract the attention of the audience. While sound and music can improve some digital signage campaigns if done properly, more often than not it does the opposite. Sound can be annoying and too repetitive and may cause people to deliberately avoid the sign – rather than pay attention to it.
• Gimmicky Locations – From the top of taxis to digital sandwich boards – a whole host of gimmicky locations have been tried. Most of these fail very quickly; however, can you remember the last time you saw some poor soul traipsing down the high street in a sandwich board advertisement? No, then you need to ask yourself – why would a digital version of this long obsolete advertising method be in anyway effective?
• Tickers – Providing news, weather and other information at the bottom of the advertisement screen is also used to encourage viewers but often those that look at the sign to check out what the weather is probably won’t bother looking at the rest of the content unless its relevant to them (and if it is relevant – there is no need for the ticker).

Content and Location – The best ways to get noticed

Despite these gimmicks, there is only really two ways of getting noticed above the crowd: Locations and content. Finding the best location with the highest audience (often outdoor digital signage) is perhaps the best thing you can do to increase the effectiveness of a campaign and the only other method is to get the best, modest and most unique content possible – the same method TV/radio/magazine advertisers get to stand out.

As with all advertising, there are no short cuts of gimmicks with digital signage.