In my last blog post on digital signage, I mentioned that I was going to The Digital Media Systems Demo Center, at Cisco Systems, to get a first hand look at Cisco's digital signage solutions. Well, I went to the demo center last week and was not disappointed. The demo started in one of Cisco's TelePresence rooms. Cisco's TelePresence solutions are developed in the same product division that the digital signage solutions are developed in. I'll leave the details and marketing benefits of this part of the demo to another blog article though, as I already have way too much to say about digital signage.
The next part of the demo focused on Cisco's digital signage solutions. Here, the demonstrator walked through a number industry specific applications showcasing digital signage solutions in financial services, retail, health care, government, entertainment, higher education and safety and
security industries. We spoke at length about marketing specific applications for digital signage in the retail industry. Some of these applications included:
- Displaying brand messaging next to products grouped together by brand (i.e. showing video clip of famous person using or talking about a particular product or brand)
- Displaying targeted, dynamic advertisements associated with a specific product brand and/or product category
- Displaying information about a specific product by simply "waving" the product in front of the video screen
- Displaying complementary product recommendations. For example, a customer could wave a dress shirt in front of a monitor and the monitor would dynamically display an assortment of ties (in stock of course) that go with the shirt. This would be the modern version of children's Garanimals outfits with the mix-and-match tags!
- Generate dynamic, in-store coupons, for complementary products, that are redeemable at checkout
I could go on-and-on here, but I think you get the general idea.
More broadly, it would be interesting to see the ROI analysis of replacing in-store print ads and promotions with digital signage. Just think of the potential savings that could be realized by eliminating printing and shipping costs associated with print ads (not to mention the "green" benefits of eliminating shipping and paper usage). And how about personalization? Try getting an estimate from your printer to create a personalized print ad campaign deployed nationwide for 10's, 100's or even 1,000's of stores. The quote would likely be astronomical! And, oh, what if the printer used the wrong logo or put the incorrect discount percent on the ads? Ouch! This would require reprinting and reshipping all of the ads. Even if the printer absorbed the entire cost for the mistake, you would likely incur a significant loss in potential revenue due to the error. The key takeaway here is digital signage should allow you to more easily and quickly change or update in-store signage, thus eliminating the time and cost for printing and shipping. The other added benefit here is marketing content can be more timely, personalized and relevant at the store and/or individual customer level.
One potential hurdle that could impact immediate and mass adoption of digital signage (from a purely direct marketing standpoint) is tracking, as it looks like the primary method to gauge marketing ROI is indirect tracking. This method of tracking is becoming less desirable, as more and more CMO's and upper level management are demanding more direct/tangible methods to gauge marketing ROI versus indirect methods. Here's an excerpt from a blog post in the Digital Signage blog that further describes this challenge:
ROI Calculation: This is perhaps the most difficult, but important aspect of any advertising campaign. Internet campaigns through organic search as well as PPC have the ability of giving very precise ROI numbers, an aspect of internet marketing which advertisers absolutely love. Not only do they love it, but now they demand it, which is why some companies have searched for unique ways to calculate digital signage ROI. This still remains difficult, however. Impressions don’t talk, cash does. And, until the signage industry is able to put more precise numbers on effectiveness, they will be handicapped by incumbent advertising mediums.
This potential hurdle will likely become a moot point though, as most of us carry a device that has great potential of becoming the holy grail for redeeming dynamic offers and tracking marketing ROI from digital signs and other similar media channels... OUR CELL PHONES! I won't go into too much detail here (as I will save this for a future blog posting) but suffice-it-to-say, with the features & functionality that are now standard in most cell phones and the emerging technologies that leverage these features, our cell phones could soon be a marketers device of choice for capturing and redeeming offers and tracking marketing effectiveness for digital signage and similar media channels.
As a final note, I wanted to thank the good folks at Cisco Systems for taking the time out of their day to show me all of the awesome products from the DMS division. I was truly "wowed" and inspired with what I saw and look forward to monitoring the progress of these emerging marketing solutions as they continue their debut into the marketplace.
