The deployment of digital signage in banks is skyrocketing, but the technology’s day-to-day challenges are causing a lot of frustration, according to a new survey, reportedly the largest of its kind to date.

John Ryan, a retail marketing agency that has specialized in printed, digital and integrated point-of-purchase (POP) advertising programs for the financial services sector, surveyed executives at 204 banks operating 153,272 branches in 32 countries, including Canada. While nearly 60 per cent of respondents ranked digital signage at a “high” or “very high” level of importance, a similar percentage said they were only “moderately satisfied” so far with their network deployments. They cited difficulties with content creation and management, including message localization, among their main sources of frustration.

The survey also revealed a wide spectrum of additional difficulties, ranging from unexpectedly high requirements for employee involvement to information technology (IT) department challenges.

In its report, John Ryan suggests many of the banks’ issues could be overcome by approaching digital signage not simply as a technical medium, but also as a marketing channel.

“A network without marketing is a failed one,” says Tom Pritzker, executive vice-president (EVP) of client relationship management (CRM). “Successful adopters use a range of strategic tools and techniques to produce engaging, locally relevant digital signage content at an acceptable production cost.”

In this context, the report suggests there is ample room for improvement in how banks use their digital signage networks. Audience-targeting methods continue to be quite basic, it says, with a focus on branch-centric or even regional targeting instead of more sophisticated data-based approaches. Also, the integration of digital signage content with social media and customers’ mobile devices remains in the experimental stage so far.

For these reasons, the report encourages internal goal setting, team participation, more careful vendor selection and putting as much thought into the messaging strategy and execution as a bank would use in any of its traditional marketing initiatives.

The full report is available for free at www.johnryan.com.