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New Research Reveals Digital Signage’s Impact on Sales and Promotions

Editor’s note: ProAV integrators doing digital signage, you can use this information as a tool to help sell your systems for retail applications.

Digital SignageA recent research project undertaken with the goal of understanding the effects of digital signage on non-gaming sales and offers in a casino environment sheds important light on the role of digital signage in general on sales and promotions.

A paper summarizing the results of the research is now available and provides valuable insight for anyone wondering whether to invest in digital signage and how to make their investment work.

What is clear from the study, which was a joint project conducted by Intel, Research Strategy Group, Ontario Lottery and Gaming, Capital Networks and EdCom, is that simply hanging a display on a wall without regard to placement or content undermines the potential dynamic digital signage offers versus traditional static signage.

The project, conducted between August and December 2012, was set up using an experimental design to compare three different digital signage deployment scenarios over three time periods:

  • venues with digital signage
  • venues with static signage
  • venues with no signage.

The results allowed the researchers to estimate the effect of digital signage at the casino venues in three areas:

  • free giveaways
  • restaurant menu item sales
  • sign-ups for a loyalty program.

Digital SignageSimple changes in advertising style can create a significant change in outcome. While most viewers did not notice the small font at the bottom of this ad, a more pronounced and visual “call to action,” included a flashing sign with the words “Free Tote Bag,” produced a tenfold increase in giveaways.

The Anonymous Video Analytics (AVA) data the Intel Audience Impression Metrics (AIM) Suite provided helped gain an understanding of the impact of the digital signage in relation to static signage and no signage and to draw important insights about the optimal location and content design for digital screens.

Overall, the results confirmed that digital signage has a notable impact on food purchase decisions such as those pertinent to free giveaways and restaurant items, but on the more complex decision-making required for signing up to a loyalty program, it was difficult from the results of this study to detect a measurable response.

Additional conclusions from the study include the following:

  • The positioning of the digital screens is extremely important for reaching the target audience and for collecting reliable data. Consideration should be given to all factors that might affect the data collection. These factors include whether the screens are positioned close to gender or age specific locations that may skew the data.
  • The average exposure time per visitor tended to be in the range of 2 to 3 seconds. This has implications for content design; like billboard advertising, digital ads are a glance medium. Content should be designed so that it allows the message to be absorbed at any point during viewing.
  • Digital signage might have a stronger effect on new patrons than on “regulars.”
  • A high priority should be placed on the style of marketing messages. The project demonstrated that changing tote bag giveaway advertising to be more of a call to action increased the number of giveaways by a factor of 10.
  • Digital signage seems to have an effect on restaurant menu items. Advertising an item on a digital screen can boost its sales or prevent a decline in sales.
  • Overall, advertising of free items that require minimal decision-making seems to work better on digital screens than of products/services that require a more complicated thought process.

The complete research paper is available as a free download on the Capital Networks website.

This article was reprinted with permission from the Digital Signage Connection and originally appeared here.

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