This has been the decade of the digital sign. And, it’s only fitting that we talk about this now — at the very end of the 2010s decade, too. The term digital signage first appeared on an
NEC brochure nearly 20 years ago, but it was really over the past ten years that we’ve see explosive growth. Just look around. Every fast food restaurant, every airport, every shopping mall and nearly every taxi is now outfitted with digital signs. And, let’s face it, we all saw it coming.
But, what we didn’t see is how influential digital signage would be in places it was never never expected. Like? Well, Zoom added a cloud-based digital signage system to their videoconferencing systems such that, when a meeting isn’t in use, you can throw signage content on the screens, automatically.
Visix,
Crestron and
Extron all collectively invented the room sign market and, voila, those are digital signage-enabled too. Our phones? Aren’t those all personal digital signs now? Yep!
I’ve been saying for a half-dozen years or so that the future of advertising is digital signage. And, it will be. No one’s watching TV ads anymore — if they can either afford to buy out of them — or they watch Netflix, Disney+, AppleTV+, HBO or Showtime, all networks without linear ads. And, the ad industry is finally noticing. DOOH (
digital out of home) spending is expected to triple over the next three years — where is that money coming from? Simple, it’s shifting from TV commercials to signage. So, we’re on the cusp of something big.
And, as much as the 2010s were the decade of the digital sign, you ain’t seen nothing yet! The 2020s are going to see massive growth in digital signage and, dare I say, we’ll be a $50B or even a $60B market by 2030. You can count on it.
