Lamar Transit Advertising Canada operates an extensive digital signage network throughout Vancouver’s SkyTrain stations, featuring updated scheduling information within its communications mix.
This is a new era for many marketers. They must find a balance between paying for access to the highest number of customers and earning access to a higher level of engagement with individuals.
Digital signage, on the other hand, is a form of a third category, ‘targeted media.’ Screens are generally installed at a point of decision, where they can have some influence over a viewer’s experience. In this sense, the medium has come to represent a unique combination of relevant messaging, convenience and specific audience demographics, all of which can have a major effect on business processes.
To provide a more comprehensive medium, digital signage is now being enhanced with ‘intelligence’ based on a variety of conditions that can change on the fly. Software can make these decisions without back-end human intervention.
Rather, a smart system is ‘rules-based.’ And these rules may adjust parameters based on live data feeds or on input from the audience.
By manipulating variables, rules can determine the appropriate messaging for each display at a given time, for a given audience. The following are just a few examples of this ‘smart content.’
- Products or points of interest related to a user’s query through interactivity.
- Conditional information, such as the directions of escalators within a facility at certain times of day.
- Automatic updates when a store opens or an item goes on sale.
- The best and/or safest route for a driver to take, based on weather, traffic conditions and/or emergency notifications.
At the Vancouver Convention Centre, digital signage software is used to manage both signs and kiosks.
The overall goal of this approach is to make the content more relevant and accurate, while reducing the effort required to maintain it.
The need for relevance
In a flood of information, content needs to connect with its audience before it can have any impact. The relevance of that content provides a context for the viewer. So, an intelligent digital signage system that can target specific messaging to the right audience at its point of decision will be more effective than a passive one.
Further technological changes will occur in the future that cannot yet be predicted, but the ability to change information easily and inexpensively is an important investment, enabling the audience—whether customers, employees or others—to make more well-informed decisions within a more personalized experience.
Jeff Collard is president of Omnivex, a digital signage software developer based in Concord, Ont. For more information, visit www.omnivex.com.
