A recent article from technology and advertising blog PSFK asks whether or not retail-focused smartphone applications make self-service solutions redundant. Even though the piece makes positive mention of Microsoft Surface and Intel’s intelligent digital signage proof of concept, it lists six reasons why retailers should exclusively focus on mobile development:

1. The phone is personal. It already knows who you are and can access what you like and even your purchase preferences like clothing sizes. With an interactive display you often have to start from the beginning.

2. The phone is social. The phone knows who your friends are and allows information before and after purchase to be shared between you and your peers. Sure, interactive displays can be connected to social media but are you really going to put your password to Facebook into an interactive display in a store that you visit once a month?

3. The phone is touchable. Would you rather tap away at the screen on the phone only you use or would you want to touch the smudged screen of the chain-store retailer where thousands of people pass through each day?

4. The phone is consumer-powerful. The phone keeps the power in the hands of the consumer while the interactive display offers the controlled world of the retailer. The interactive display doesn’t provide access to the world of group buying sites, deal services or comparative pricing apps.

5. Because a retailer can doesn’t mean they should. Just because WalMart stores have TVs throughout with advertisements running, it doesn’t mean that this service must be replicated across all retailers. Stores want to program specific environments that create subtle experiences that drive sales. A TV blasting ads – even if it’s interactive – might actually be a turn off for shpppers in many instances.

6. The phone is becoming sensitive. Technology is evolving to allow the phone to notice RFID tags and other ‘internet of things’ technology.

The above points are valid, but they look at the retail sector from a singular perspective. Smartphones are becoming an increasingly integral component in how we shop. They are not, however, the end all and be all of the consumer shopping experience. Just as the functionality of cellphones are growing more advanced so too are interactive digital displays. Retailers are right to focus significant energy on developing applications for mobile phones, but they must also devote resources to alternative in-store communications channels. Mobile is great, so too is digital signage.

What were once little more than computer stations in retail stores are evolving into immersive multi-touch gateways. Interactive video walls and intelligent self-service solutions are beginning to be integrated seamlessly into store environments. Their flexibility begets their utility. They function as integral parts of a store’s atmosphere. They can exist as omniscient sales associates, multi-user entertainment systems, or large-scale online catalogs.

Mobile phones and interactive digital signage should not be looked at as being mutually exclusive at retail. One doesn’t diminish the other. In reality, when they are positioned to enhance each other, consumers reap the greatest benefit. As I detailed in an earlier post, mobile applications and digital signage are allies, NOT adversaries. Whereas the mobile channel is geared around one-to-one interactions, digital displays at retail can be used to extend the engagement to a broad segment of consumers.

Mobile Applications and Digital Signage are Allies, NOT Adversaries

An in-store digital signage network is a one-to-many communication platform, yet still has the potential to foster a deeper connection than a one-to-one mobile interaction. Such is the nature of advertising when the medium is part of the message. It doesn’t mean that one platform, mobile or digital signage, is better than the other. It just illustrates that they offer alternate means of achieving the same goal: Lead Customer X to Purchase Brand A.

Rather than looking at the two platforms as adversaries, one harnesses each technology’s full value when pairing them as allies. Two arrows are always better than one. And, when one medium can increase the impact of another – use them together.

There are times when a brand may be better suited to use mobile instead of digital signage, and vice versa. But, in reality, given the fragmented nature of today’s media environment, its best to develop content for multiple platforms and target your message to reach consumers across various outlets.

Integrating Mobile and Digital Signage: Opportunities Abound

When given the choice of viewing content solely on a smartphone or interacting with the same content on a massive multi-touch display, which would you choose? I would go for the interactive digital signage, selecting the option that extends the boundaries of the user experience. What can be considered more exciting than selecting one option or the other is alternating between the two. Using a mobile phone to interact with a digital screen can create a unique experience that draws in multiple users and builds significant brand awareness (SEE: Locamoda, MegaPhone, Snaptell, Akoo)

Thanks to the portability of content, and innovations in the realm of cross-platform communication, shoppers can move between mobile applications and digital signage without skipping a beat. Each platform can function as a unique retail touchpoint, whereby each shopper has the ability to choose his own digital path though a store.
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By the count of Bill Gerba and his company Wirespring, there are some 330 firms out there peddling some form of Digital Signage software platform.

Let’s be conservative and say each of those platforms has at least 20 clients. That’s more than 6,500 networks that are running anywhere from one to 1,000s of players.

Let’s say each of those networks needs three new pieces of creative content a month (it may and should be much higher). That means almost 20,000 piece of creative a month to produce.

So who is doing it?

We have a whole industry endlessly recycling or repackaging the phrase Content is King, and I’d suggest there is not a single dominant content shop in the entire digital signage marketplace that could with a straight face declare itself the Content King.

Yes, there are good companies out there. Some are friends. Some are clients. But they are relatively small players on a broad landscape. There is no company that really stands out as THE guys. The company that’s doing the most business. The one that is usually top of mind when clients ask.

I asked Keith Kelsen, who has written a book about content, when I saw him in Las Vegas at The Trade Show Formerly Known as Kioskcom. He threrw a company name at me. I said, “No way.” Good company. but no way are they dominant.

I’m not entirely sure why no one company has stepped up and grabbed significant market share, but I think there are a few reasons:

1 – Existing production houses that have gone into this line of work are accustomed to charging serious studio rates for broadcast and interactive customers. With studio rates usually well above $125/hour and even simple spots quoted at $1,000-plus, these are numbers that make start-ups and existing businesses weak at the knees. Business overhead and company cultures that foster excellence drives those kinds of figures, as does the knowledge that those numbers are well below the $1K per second rule of thumb of major creative agencies. I know a retailer that has a nice – not great – but nice network in hundreds of stores, but it only changed out a piece of content once a month, because its agency – and only a small regional one at that – costs were too crippling to allow more than that.

2 – The big agencies aren’t interested in this space, at least yet, because the risks outstrip the rewards. The medium and audience are moving targets. There are no real standards. Budgets are a fraction of what they are for easier (as in there are standards to apply) TV work. Depending on who you listen to, it;’s also argued many agencies haven’t really crossed the digital divide to interactive, web-based work, never still emerging stuff like DOOH.

Curiously, there is far more supply than demand in the mainstream and digital agency sector and calls for consolidation.

3 – There are plenty of very good freelancers who don’t have any of that overhead or baggage, and can charge way less, but they are generally lone wolves. They are the “I know a guy who does that stuff” guys who get their work from their contact networks. They don’t market themselves. so they never really develop an industry profile.

4 – Some “solutions providers” are baking entry-level creative work into their offers, using in-house hires or their “guys” they’ve developed in a virtual go-to network. That services the entry-level, not-much-more-than-a-juiced-up-poster market, but that stuff has more to do with manufacturing messages than generating creative work. A lot of the software guys have templates that can be used to crank that stuff out – but the pieces, while polished enough, are templates. They do part of the job, but not all of it.

5 – Nobody, as far as I can tell, has meaningfully claimed the middle ground in price and capability between the cheap entry-level stuff and the high-end work that is often great, but in practical terms, unworkable in operating budgets.

As consultants, we try to get our clients heads around the idea that creative work needs to be engaging, and there needs to be enough of it to sync up with the amount of time viewers are in the presence of the screens. It also has to be refreshed regularly so it doesn’t go stale in the minds of viewers. Makes perfect sense. But then somebody runs the numbers on the anticipated creative invoices and comes up with a monthly production cost total that causes a severe case of Restless Leg Syndrome for the company CFO.

We also have end-users in this industry who either don’t have the experience to know good creative when they see it, or do know what it looks like, but expect Veuve Clicquot quality at Milwaukee’s Best prices.

Maybe it’s out there, and I just don’t know (and I assume there will be comments from companies who say they are the answer), but whoever decides to go hard at it has to pretty much forget about the norms.

An industry friend sent me a note recentlyt with a link to a piece about the collapse of complex business models, and he related that to production challenges in this industry. This is the post: http://www.shirky.com/weblog/2010/04/the-collapse-of-complex-business-models/

This is a very different industry from mainstream media and a lot of the old rules and ways don’t apply. It’s likely true that gaining serious market share in creative production means forgetting how things have always worked with hours and pricing, and then stripping out costs, creating new efficiencies, and delivering polished work and professional processes at rates that network operators can really afford.

I know there have been business model stabs at creating a “content factory” and there are people and companies promoting work being done offshore, as in China. The samples I have seen have so far have suggested that ain’t the answer (though in the right hands, it could be part of it).

There’s a big market waiting for the company that puts the message, infrastructure and processes together to seize the market.

It would seem obvious that replacing a static sign with a digital screen, or adding a screen to an environment, would automatically create more awareness for whatever was being communicated. It’s easy to see that putting really great video (herein generally referred to as “content”) on an HDTV that someone wants to buy is a foregone conclusion. But that is not the case. In situations where the shopper is buying a staple, like shampoo or toothpaste or milk, the shopper is so focused on the mission at hand that almost all signage, static and digital alike, is ignored. The potential to miss the audience can be frustrating to a network operator that has spent enormous amounts of money to put in a network and wants to see a return on the investment.

The ultimate goal of digital signage is to change behaviors. It could be to navigate through an environment, or learn more about a product, or catch up on the latest news. But digital signage alone does not allow the operator to be better at communicating.

You need terrific content.

The ability to engage a viewer with outstanding visual content is not easily accomplished. The awareness and respect for content is increasing because providers continue to learn about the medium. The common battle cry of “It’s Not TV!” runs through the industry. It isn’t TV in the traditional sense of what we sit down and watch in our homes each night. But it is a screen designed to communicate, and the understanding of how to communicate is evolving as fast as the industry itself. It is TV, just a different kind of TV.

In the past, the novelty of a screen in a store or elevator or subway was enough to allow the network operator the freedom to simply hang a screen and turn it on. Now we are seeing screens treated as vital elements of design, being built into the physical structures. This completes the experience for the end-user and the audience. The screens and content look like it was made for the store, rather than just added on at a later stage in the environment’s evolution. Venues are constantly looking for advantages over their competitors, but brand logos, colors, and store layout can only go so far. Compelling, relevant content can give one environment over another by bringing the environment to life.

As much as good content has the ability to engage a viewer, bad content can detract a viewer just as fast.

High quality, relevant, and compelling content is the most important feature to digital signage in any application. It is the reason you’re adding the screens. It can connect you with viewers in ways never before achieved through the traditional methods of communication. Whether you are a brand, or a product, or a service, or just someone who has information to share, digital signage gives you the ability to engage the viewer with your message.

There are myriad variables to consider when creating good content. What works in one retailer, or waiting room, or on a billboard, will not work on screens of the same nature because the audience makeup is different each time. This creates havoc for providers who are trying to get the right content in the right place at the right time. But there are a few basic principles that can be understood and applied across any medium that will give the provider and/or end user great content, great impact, and a greater return on the investment.

Great content tells a story. The unique environments and audiences give creators the opportunity to tell more intimate stories with greater impact, focusing on key features of the subject that appeal to the viewer at that particular time and place, rather than trying to cover all the bases in a short message you may find on television at home (a good reason why “It’s not TV”). Because digital signage is a more dynamic way to communicate, providers can leverage the creative resources to tell a better story about their brand, or product, or service. For example, a cell-phone provider may be able to show live action of the cell-phones screen and interface (think of the iPhone commercials) as an advantage over other cell-phone manufacturers. This has tremendous impact at the point of sale, where the phones are on the shelf, where customers ready to buy. Great content creates competitive differentiation.

Great content can engage a viewer like no other type of communication. And with the growth of interactivity through touch screens and mobile devices, that engagement can become personal and inspirational. Brands, products, and services can now connect with customers and consumers at all points of interaction, from the internet at home to touch-screen kiosks in the store to mobile social media that allows users to define a brand or product in their eyes. The effort to change behaviors and create impact is tremendous when the customer becomes engaged with the message.

Great content makes money. In the case of retailing, relevant and compelling content will encourage a viewer to purchase a product. The revenue generated from more product sales in turn becomes a budget that retailers can spend on bigger and better digital signage applications. The technology of digital signage alone does not generate the revenue needed to purchase a network. The largest revenue generator for digital signage is the content and the amount of money someone will pay to put a message on your screen.

Here’s the catch: This is easier said than done. The research and strategy that goes into creating an engaging network can be extreme and often nebulous. The factors of audience demographics, environmental attributes, and advertising requirements all play very heavily on the composition and execution of great content. For example, creating content that runs longer than a person’s dwell time at the point of viewing will keep the viewer from getting the message because she has already moved on. Another example is sound. In a noisy environment, audio will not be effective in communicating a message, so the message should be entirely visual. Any aspect of the message in audio can and will be lost on the viewer because he cannot hear it.

However, the front-end work that goes into understanding the variables of compelling content can pay dividends in the end when the understanding of important features creates guidelines from which terrific content, and viewer engagement, can be achieved.

Content is that important.

A core factor of the retail customer experience is advertising. But, how we speak to a potential customer versus a point-of-sale customer is not the same.

Sacrifice for the Greater Good

In a consumer’s home, the advertiser competes with everything; there is nothing “endemic” about a TV program, a magazine, or the internet. During a break of a recent sporting event I saw the following ads: Nextel (Wireless), Taco Bell (Food), Zantac (Medicine) Progressive (Insurance), and Ford (Auto). Each advertiser thinks you need their product more than anything else.

Something about the proposition will be sacrificed for the greater good of brand awareness due to factors like broadcast running times and lack of actual products or services. You can only drive a car when you get to the dealership. You can only experience a wireless device by actually using the wireless device. Lifestyle benefits are a core proposition of broadcast advertising; it’s easier to show how your life will be with the product because you can’t actually use the product…yet.

Terrific creative and understanding the audience and the environment is crucial in winning a viewer’s attention.

But retail is different. Very different.

At retail, the competition narrows down to the category. When Nike competes with Budweiser at home, it’s only a matter of who likes shoes and who likes beer. But when Nike competes with Adidas and Reebok and K Swiss and Puma on a wall of footwear, the category focus by both the customer and the advertiser at the point of sale is paramount. This is where the brand “wins the last 10 feet.”

And, in many cases, you can use the product. You can try on the shoes or the clothes. You can test drive the car, or make a wireless connection.

So why do advertisers and venues accept external advertising for the network in a retail environment? Why do so many brands and manufacturers just re-purpose their 30-second awareness ads to run on the shelf?

The Push (or Pull) for Better Content

The simple answer is insufficient data to support the theory that custom content does any better at selling a product than regular broadcast advertising. Numbers get thrown around all too easily: 70% of shopper decisions are made in-store. Or is that 50%? I recently read that POPAI’s MARI project claims that only “… three percent of in-store marketing communications is currently passed and seen by shoppers…” So that means that 97% is ignored? Or is it missed completely? How does this affect the 50-70% of shoppers who make the purchase decisions? In a 2008 study from IMI Consumer Track, North Americans were asked what influenced them to purchase brands they don’t normally purchase. The respondents said they were influenced by an ad they saw on TV 24% of the time.

Statistics, always subjective and often misleading, should compel an argument, not decide it. They should not stand in the way of engaging the customer. Instead of believing in one side of the statistic, look at the other side: 50% may be influenced, but 50% are not. 50% is a really, really big number.

Why should retail marketing push brands and advertisers to create custom content?

You have to stand out. The amount of retail environmental stimuli waging a war for the customer’s attention is close to immeasurable.

Re-purposing advertising does two things: It tells the customer what she already knows, and it tells her you don’t have anything to add to your proposition. Result: She deselects you because there are other, newer things to look at.

Decisions. Decisions.

The customer’s mindset is different in the store. Marketers must stop believing that “purchase decisions” and “unplanned decisions” are the same thing. A purchase decision usually starts outside the store.

I need bar of soap.

Where do I get soap?

At the store.

I’m going to the store.

I’m at the store.

I’m here for soap.

There’s the soap.

External advertising starts the path to purchase by compelling the viewer to decide whether or not he needs what you’re selling. In-store advertising must pick up where broadcast left off – at the curbside or front door – and guide the customer along the path, not simply reiterate what he already knows.

Purchase decisions may lead to unplanned decisions. An unplanned decision is based on impulse. Oh…I need shampoo, too. While I’m here… Where the two types of decisions mix is in the shopper’s mindset at the point of sale. Therefore, the approach to the customer should be different.

Advertising is part of the equation, not the solution; it must work in tandem with everything else.

The Effort Starts Here

The marketing team must collaborate with merchandising team to create that holistic experience. Merchant teams will negotiate massive deals with brands for product placement with little regard for how the product is actually presented to the customer. A big victory for the brand is a prominent location, but the surrounding presentation materials may not complete the entire experience. Marketing must sit at the table and be a part of the deal so that proper attention can be given to the messaging that accompanies the product.

To this end, the need for extra money to create custom content will diminish. The content and production will be part of the negotiated deal for the product life-cycle in the store. It will not be an afterthought tapping into other budgets. Further, because of its separation from any other kind of advertising, it will give marketers the ability to better measure impact.

While statistics may support some of the arguments, they should never make a case. Knowing that the customers at home and customers at a store are different should warrant the argument for custom creative at the point of sale.

Terrific creative, coupled with understanding the audience, is crucial in winning a viewer’s attention.

There is really only one goal for digital signage: enabling initiative, getting the customer doing something with what he or she has just seen. Regardless of the engagement, a positive outcome is the only desired effect.

Here are three very general areas where digital signage can play a positive role in a customer’s experience within an environment, and the potential pitfall each encounters with poor planning and execution.

Environmental Navigation

Navigation is usually the first impression a customer gets of a store. “Where can I find…?” Good navigation will make the shopper’s experience positive and can reduce time and stress. Digital signage can play a key role in making sure that two goals are met: Showing the customer exactly where to go and showing the easiest way to get there. But you don’t get a second chance at a first impression. Poor navigation techniques, or making the customer work too hard to locate the destination, will disengage a customer before he is even at the destination.

Do we now need GPS in a store?

Education

Learning about a product or service through digital interactivity allows the customer to learn at her pace, not the pace of the employee or the store. The ability for digital engagement (most likely in a kiosk) to be flexible for the customer’s depth of knowledge and desire for education will generate interest, respect and loyalty from the customer.

In contrast, poor education or programming that makes too many assumptions about the customer’s knowledge and has ignored important messaging will sour the experience.

Perception of Time

The ability to cut down on a customer’s perception of time is taken very seriously by environments where waiting (hospitals) or poor attitudes (returning an item that gave you a bad experience) are part of the customer’s experience in the space. Engaging content can change behavior and ultimately reduce a customer’s perception of time.

However, poor execution on basic guidelines, such as the running time on a looping program being shorter than the average time a customer waits, can be a big disappointment. Customers don’t want to see the same thing twice. In addition, creating programming that does not effectively draw attention away from the customer’s purpose in the environment can backfire by making the customer even more aware of the time.

The detail that goes into each category is dependent upon the venue’s strategy with digital signage. Great care should be taken each time. Poor execution with one screen can wreck a customer’s experience in the entire environment. A bad digital signage experience can drive customers away just as fast as bad customer service.

To avoid that end, constant research and understanding will keep your digital experiences fresh and appealing for the customer and the venue.

The thing that I enjoy most about shows like DSE is connecting with industry contemporaries and those who I have established connections with via online communication platforms. Having the opportunity to meet face-to-face with industry friends I have made through this blog, Twitter, Linkedin, and other social media channels is something that I cherish. At DSE, it’s the people you meet and the conversations that you have which make the event unforgettable. I always welcome the opportunity to meet new folks and share interesting conversations with people who exude passion for digital signage, retail customer experience, emerging communication platforms, etc.

I shared conversations with a wealth of uber-smart individuals on topics such as location-based mobile services, real-time news, the future of digital out-of-home media, social media pollination across the enterprise, using digital technologies to enhance internal communications, digital signage as a brand/customer experience gateway, emerging mobile platforms, etc. It’s in these conversations that industry participants and I waxed analytical on digital signage’s role in our communications ecosystem and the technology’s advertising future. To those who I shared conversations with, thank you. To those who I didn’t get a chance to connect with, please feel free to reach out if you would like to talk (best way to reach me is via email: david.weinfeld@presetgroup.com). I am always happy to talk and help out in any way that I can.

Thoughts from the Show Floor

I don’t think that a single person who attended the show would argue that the technology on the event floor wasn’t impressive. As you entered the expo hall floor, it was like a treat for your eyes. Digital signs stretched as far as the eye could see. From thin screens to video walls and outdoor displays, the technical side of the industry was more than well represented. If you love digital signage (I assume that you have at least a passing interest in the technology if you’re reading this blog), your feelings about the environment would run parallel to my own.

The technology that powers the digital signage and digital out-of-home media industries was front and center on the show floor. While screens, media players, and interactive elements stretched across every square foot of the Las Vegas Convention Center, such a setup ran counter to the goal of educating newcomers and longtime attendees about digital signage and future industry developments. For anyone that was new to the digital signage industry, they likely left the show floor with more questions than answers.

An enormous focus was placed on digital signage technology at the detriment of featuring solutions that solve real business problems. The show floor lacked balance between the hardware/software side of the industry and the experiences that the technology powers. Too much emphasis was placed on the physical boundaries of the technology. Many missed the chance to feature digital signage as a gateway to expansive customer and brand experiences. The technology, and all of the bells and whistles, are great to look at it, but the sheen of these objects fade if they aren’t framed within the greater context of digital signage’s far reaching impact.

Many people I spoke with described the show floor as “cluttered” or “difficult to navigate.” For some, it felt like a summer camp reunion, drawing the conclusion based on a limited number of attendees outside of the digital signage and technology industries. If you got a nickel for every agency or brand rep. that was at the show, you would barely be able to afford a fast food combo meal.

One industry friend who is extremely knowledgeable on digital signage technology even admitted that he dreaded walking the show floor. This sentiment came from someone who loves digital out-of-home media. I can understand why he felt this way. For anyone who was new to digital signage, these end users were met with software companies all appearing to do the same thing (some claiming they could do more, others claiming best-in-class solutions, and none willing to admit that a potential customer would be better suited speaking to one of their competitors).

One of the few advertising agency reps. in attendance equated the expo to a “picks and shovels show.” He found the show lacking in relevance to his specific discipline. He commented that his agency colleagues don’t have anywhere near the same interest in technology as he does. They just want to know that it works.

A screen is a screen, but a true digital signage solution is an experience. This is an ethos that needs to be shared across the industry and, most importantly, carried throughout the Digital Signage Expo.

The people I was yakking with couldn’t figure out why, but it was pretty clear to me. The companies chose their thing. Their vertical. And then they went after it hard.

In a little more than a week the North American part of the industry will gather in Las Vegas for DSE, and prospective buyers will walk into the exhibit hall and be greeted by a sea of exhibits from companies that are all pitching pretty much the same thing. They will see countless booths and hear countless pitches about the nuances of why a particular company’s way of doing things is the cat’s pyjamas (always wanted to use that phrase …) but not a lot that distinguishes them.

Not that many companies at the show will set themselves up in a way that clearly tells prospects, “If you are looking for a solution that is laser-focused on doing this, or serving that, we’re your guys.” Almost all the pitches and positioning will be a riff on the right message, right time thing.

It’s all very general, and leaves the vendors engaged in an endless scrap over features, personalities and, what they really don’t want, price.

Then there are the other guys who are just quietly going about their business servicing a particular vertical category … and not a broad vertical like retail. I mean narrowed down to a sub-category of retail. Or maybe they just do campus. Or museums.

They got focused. They developed sector expertise and tailored their message and their product and service officer to a particular area. Instead of 300 software companies, maybe they’re competing with three on jobs. Or none.

There are companies in this industry who don’t show up at the trade shows. They don’t make a lot of noise. They just do their thing with their own narrowed list of targets. When they do trade shows, it is THE trade show in their vertical. Sometimes, they’re the only digital signage company there.

The people who run those companies figured out getting focused made more sense than trying to get noticed in the crowd.

If I am a guy looking for a solution, I am going to be a lot more engaged by someone who understands my business, and its dynamics and challenges,  than I am by someone else who may have more brand recognition and flashier material, but only a fleeting grasp of what I do and need.

People are going to walk up to booths at DSE in a few days and just flat ask salespeople, “What do you guys do?”

If all they’ve got to answer back with is some canned blah-blah-blah stuff with scale and reliable and cost-efficient lobbed in the patter, that’s a problem.

There are some big guys with big budgets coming into this sector now and they probably aren’t going away. But they’re just getting started and their offers are really undefined.

Pick what you’re really good at. Look at where the market opportunities are and what kinds of businesses are either recession-proofed and hopefully expanding. And look for those categories in which digital signage is a need to have, not a nice to have.

Get some focus, and you could flourish.

In an effort to attract customers, retailers are becoming more category and product agnostic. Walmart’s consumer electronics department is beginning to look a lot like Best Buy’s layout. Best Buy adopted a red theme for their new Musical Instruments department. It looks a lot like Guitar Center. Amazon just takes on everyone with unrivaled inventory. The customer has two choices to make: Click-and-order, or brick-and-mortar. And if the customer can get the same product from any number of retailers, the brand experience becomes the deciding factor for the customer.

The most valuable thing a retailer can own is its position in a customer’s mind. At the retail level, digital signage augments that perception by bringing the brand to life.

A digital signage network is an investment in your brand, not a line item on your P&L sheet. You build it to create a differentiated experience, not to show an ad a customer can see on her TV at home, online, or in another retailer’s space. Running ads for the sake of revenue denigrates the brand equity you have built for the customer experience. The network has a higher purpose at the intersection between the brand and the customer.

Your digital signage network allows you to consistently deliver your brand proposition, withstanding the ebb of market forces, product sales, and incremental revenue. This reflects in a customer’s choice between you and another retailer. Relying on revenue to drive the programming or the experience will force you to rethink your strategy every time the market fluctuates.

With a customer’s ability to deselect messaging as she moves through the retail environment, it is critical that your brand engages her instead of becoming a casualty.

With an Internet-ready device in our reach at all times, are we ever really captive? Think about the last time you stood in what seemed to be an endless line (for me it was standing in the line to see Avatar…). How many people around you were using their phones? Were the majority of folks talking on their phones, or were they engaged in any number of non-voice based activities: texting, playing games, surfing the mobile web, writing a business email, etc.? Did you see anyone pull an e-reader from his or her bag?

What were you doing while you were in line? Did you seek sanctuary in technology to stave off the boredom of staring at your watch?

My reason for asking these questions is to get you to think about how common it is for people (of all ages) to pull out a phone, laptop, netbook, e-reader, or iPod when they’re forced to wait for something. Such evidence supports my hypothesis that the truly captive audience is disappearing.

Just because people are in a lobby, elevator, amusement park line, or waiting room for seconds, minutes, or hours, that doesn’t mean that they are captive. Thanks to the evolution of technology, while seemingly “captive,” these individuals could be performing any number of digital tasks that occupy their attention.

So tell me…

How Captive is Your Audience?

Technically and financially, we’re there. But what about content?

The conventional wisdom is that digital menu boards don’t need to have any particular whiz-bang about the creative. They can be jpegs or motion vector graphics (like Flash or Silverlight), and maybe there’s embedded video. The few digital menu boards I have seen look like regular menu boards.

Is that the optimal way to do it? I haven’t a clue, as my fast food patronage doesn’t extend much beyond buying coffee at Tim Horton’s now and then. But there’s an interesting piece in Wednesday’s New York Times (you may need to register to read it, but that’s free) about the psychology of menus that is worth a read if planning or peddling menu boards is in the cards for 2010.

Restaurant operators are fiddling, the story says, with combinations of prices, adjectives, fonts, type sizes, ink colors and placement on the page to try to coax diners into spending a little more money.

The use of menu engineers and consultants is exploding in the casual dining arena and among national chains, a sector of the business that has been especially pinched by the economy. In response, they are tapping into a growing body of research into the science of menu pricing and writing, hoping the way to a diner’s heart is not only through the stomach, but through the unconscious.

This piece, I should stress, is all about the menus a waiter or waitress hands to you, not menus up on boards. But there is good stuff in here that is broadly applicable to anyone trying to get people ordering more.

In the “Ten Commandments for Menu Success,” an article published in Restaurant Hospitality magazine in 1994, Allen H. Kelson, a restaurant consultant, wrote, “If admen had souls, many would probably trade them for an opportunity every restaurateur already has: the ability to place an advertisement in every customer’s hand before they part with their money.”

And like advertisements, menus contain plenty of subliminal messages.

Some restaurants use what researchers call decoys. For example, they may place a really expensive item at the top of the menu, so that other dishes look more reasonably priced; research shows that diners tend to order neither the most nor least expensive items, drifting toward the middle. Or restaurants might play up a profitable dish by using more appetizing adjectives and placing it next to a less profitable dish with less description so the contrast entices the diner to order the profitable dish.

Research by Brian Wansink, director of the Food and Brand Lab at Cornell University and the author of “Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think,” suggests that the average person makes more than 200 decisions about food every day, many of them unconsciously, including the choices made from reading menus.

Menu design draws some of its inspiration from newspaper layout, which puts the most important articles at the top right of the front page, where the eyes tend to be drawn. Some restaurants will place their most profitable items, or their specials, in that spot. Or they place a dotted outline or a box around the item, put more white space around it to make the dish stand out or, in what menu researchers say is one of the most effective tools, add a photograph of the item or an icon like a chili pepper.

Interesting reading, and a good reminder that our emerging industry can learn a lot from the efforts made on the more traditional sides of businesses.