The new wave of marketing advertising and communication, dynamic, digital signage, takes advantage of the huge strides we’ve taken in video recording and programming technology over the past 50 or 60 years. One reason for the increasing popularity of digital signage is the dropping cost of this technology. Narrowcasting networks (as digital signage is known in the Netherlands) are more affordable now, and the costs continue to decline. The results of POP advertising, digital media advertising and captive-audience networking, however, continue to get better and better.
From the huge electronic billboards unmistakably displaying brands and services in downtown large cities, world-wide, to the drop-down screens on busses and airplanes, to the credit card display screen at the gas pump digital signage displays are undeniably gaining in popularity.
The massive billboards dominating Times Square in New York City are N-tier player networks, with a multitude of networks, covering various venues but controlled from a single location. Admittedly, these awe-inspiring dynamic displays are expensive, technologically overwhelming, and just not within the financial grasp of every business or organization.
A far less expensive, and far less complex system of digital media advertising displays consist of basic MPEG-2 video loops displaying content over small, flat-screen LCD ad players. Many smaller businesses utilize this much simpler and less costly technology to great effect in their POP advertising strategy. This scaled-back use of digital signage is ideal for small groups of displays since they can be updated easily enough by simply changing the programming disc or CD-ROM.
Rapidly falling prices for the hardware needed for out-of-home media networks is also allowing smaller businesses to upgrade their marketing and communications strategy. LCD ad displays and plasma display screens are selling for much less than they were four or five years ago. Playback and broadcast equipment has been dropping in price for even longer.
The variety if Internet connectivity options means that availability of electronic advertising, informational, and marketing programming and broadcast technology is available to everyone no matter how constrained their budget.. The technology today is such that you can operate your LCD ad player or your LED scrolling message board from your PC or laptop.
Another method in reducing the cost of digital signage technology is found through eschewing brand-name equipment for no-name” brands. Technologically equal to better-known brands, these lesser-known brands are very often cheaper, and, in many cases, easier to operate. One study, by Projective Marketing, LLC found that price varied as much as 77% from display to display. Shopping lesser-known brands for your digital media display network technology works!
Finally, the growing selection of digital signage software, cellular technology that allows you to deliver your messages in text format to specific cell-phone subscribers, and the relaxing of interoperability and broadcast standards indicates that in the very near future, digital signage will be available to everyone.
