Customizing Digital signage content
Image source: Pexels.
One of the most up-and-coming ways of promoting your brand is through digital signage, instead of the traditional billboards-and-poster advertising. Digital signage involves using LED and LCD display systems to display audio-visual and interactive content. Think of touch-friendly digital maps in parks or short clips in large LED monitors in malls. Digital signage not only attracts customers with its various displays, it also adds to the glittering night skyline (just see a photo of Tokyo and you will know what we mean!)
You can easily get interactive custom signs and displays to promote your brand or organization. Here’s all you need to know:
Decide on the Display
Hardware is never as significant as it is to digital signage. Before you get set to design your very own display, find out what the dimensions of the prospective LCD or LED projection will be, and adjust and customize your design accordingly. Also find out what software the projection supports, and how your content will be displayed. Your content strategy depends on your display style, so only after all this information can you decide on it. For example, if your display only promotes visual and no sound, you need to design graphics and subtitles keeping in mind that there will be no audio. If you want to use a single static image on display, get a good designer who can ensure your custom signs will be of a good quality.
Tips for Design
Regardless of what content you use: video, image or an interactive board, there are some standard design tips. As with posters, do not overload your display with text or graphic. The simpler the poster, the more effective the message. A smart example of digital signage were these advertisements for Netflix in Paris. With reaction gifs from the shows offered by the media company, the displays responded to the current weather. This minimalistic effect was immediately relevant. No wonder, this campaign attracted a lot of attention!
Good Editing
Key to any advertising good content production is editing. After creating the content you like, make sure that it is grammatically sound and visually clean. No matter how attractive your display, having poor quality editing (like grammatical errors, poor graphics, misspelling) can be immensely off-putting for any onlooker. It gets quite cumbersome and expensive to have to redo the final version after its display in digital signage (not to mention, embarrassing). Before uploading the final draft, have it looked over by proofreaders and designers.
Time is of Essence
The Netflix campaign we mentioned also embodied another vital idea: timing. It is a bad idea to run a full-length advertisement because most digital signage displays are spread across malls, bus stops or parks: places where people are unlikely to hang around for long. Keeping your presentation short and simple is more likely to attract onlookers and get your brand message across. Keeping it short means you can even use these short advertisements on social media!
Draw Effective Links
One of the best ways of creating brand recognition is through multi-ad campaigns. By maintaining similar style, theme and message through different content, connected advertisements make the customer eager to find variations of the advertisement. Thereby, they keep a lookout for the brand. In digital signage, this is especially easy because you can rotate content and display multiple messages over time. For example, in Singapore, Pixar displayed different digital signage advertisements based on the weather for their film Inside Out! People even made videos documenting these switches. You can design custom signs based on seasons, weather and the time of the day. You can even evolve them around sale timings or different coupon codes!
Besides Advertising
Remember, your digital signs do not simply have to be used for advertising: you can use them for a variety of purposes. Many NGOs use digital signage alongside donation sign-ups or boxes. Take The Melanoma Institute Australia, which displayed a massive melanoma alongside a credit card projection for paying towards cancer research. Each successful donation would reduce the size of the melanoma! Plus, the versatility of the display means that with some technological modification, you can even increase the efficiency of your company. For example, if you own a restaurant or shop, you can use digital signage to accept orders through interactive screens.
If you have a brand that needs promoting, it isn’t enough to merely come up with innovative content, you also need to keep up with the latest trends in advertising. Digital signage is the rising trend in business promotion. Switch over to this new avenue, and get custom signs made to draw instant attention towards your brand!