As technologies continue to evolve, digital signage now seamlessly integrates into the everyday lives of consumers and brands. The integration of digital signage into consumers’ lives in the retail and Quick-Service Restaurant (QSR) sectors, in particular, has resulted in digital signage trends often times mirroring the concerns and changes that are important to consumers, making for a more efficient brand-consumer relationship with reliability and consistency being the key focus. Below are 5 stand-out digital signage trends that will shape the way businesses interact with their customers in the year ahead.
Eco-centric Awareness
With eco-consumerism still a key focus area, communicating and engaging with consumers in a more sustainable manner is top of mind for brands and businesses alike. One step that businesses can take to lessen their impact on the environment is to replace these channels with digital signage, which will decrease the carbon footprint associated with the production, distribution and disposing of static signage.
Chris Day, Managing Director at Moving Tactics, South Africa’s leading digital signage solutions company, says, “Digital signage can change and customise content at any given time. So, not only does it replace a tremendous amount of paper and ink wastage, which often ends up in landfills, but it also eliminates the paper clutter within a space. In addition, digital signage reduces CO2 transport emissions.
“Most QSR and retail brands have switched to digital signage to reduce energy consumption, which is a hot topic in SA and internationally, with companies like Famous Brands and McDonald’s replacing their entire portfolio with digital screens. To reduce our own ecological footprint as a business, Moving Tactics avoids single use plastics when it comes to the packaging of componentry, opting for eco-friendly alternatives”.
Commercial Grade Equipment
Technological advancements in commercial grade equipment maximises energy efficiency, offering longer product lifetimes as well as reliability and consistency when it comes to communicating with customers. In addition, quality commercial grade screens that employ System-on-Chip (SOC) digital signage technology cost less in the long run as they are less likely to fail and automatically switch on after a power failure. This means that brands can rely on the fact that their marketing content is unaffected by power outages and guarantees effective operation and interaction with customers 24/7. To this end, upgrading your digital signage system every three years is imperative.
Data, Data, Data
Data remains incredibly important. “Following Moving Tactics’ visit to the ISE last year and as identified as a trend in 2021, data driven content continues to fuel the digital signage industry,” says Kevin Bierman, Head of Digital Signage at Moving Tactics.
Thanks to new technology and the ability to integrate with multiple data sources, digital signage is no longer unidirectional but can be bidirectional – in both an active and passive way – providing relevant data to enhance the customer experience, optimise business operations and increase profits. Taking practices used in the virtual world and applying them to a brick-and-mortar environment aims to offer business owners analytical data to better understand their customers’ behaviour and target their marketing initiatives more effectively.
Customer-Generated Content
With interactive technologies on the rise, brick-and-mortar retailers can learn about their consumers’ behaviour much the same way they can online. “This is a key focus area for Moving Tactics and we’re employing engagement enhancement technologies for digital signage. This allows us to investigate what else we can do with digital signage to ensure that the right content is being flighted at the right audience at the right time. Using touchscreens, interaction, sensors, queue management and camera technology, will become the foundations of organic customer-influenced content,” explains Bierman.
Holistic Queue Management
To get an understanding of customer engagement and target content to improve the customer experience, employing a holistic digital signage solution that encompasses queue management is recommended. Tactics such as footfall counters, or camera technology to track the customer journey within a retail or QSR space brings about a deeper understanding on consumer behaviour and the ability to alter content to better reach the customer.
Having one holistic digital platform aligns the brand’s need to effectively engage and communicate with customers’ wishes to have a personalized in-store experience. Digital signage kiosks and engagement with interactive technology in a retail environment also eliminates the need to have large stores and stock and instead utilizes endless aisles.
