This article first appeared on digitalsingnageexpo.net
The past few years have seen an explosion in capable technology that allows myriad locations to bring digital signage into their world to create a better story for their customers. But once you have that technology in place, how do you tell a great story? Better yet, how do you get major advertisers to tell a great story in your environment? With thousands of message locations, it’s nearly impossible for them to keep up with what a location wants or needs.
What are the basic building blocks to effective and compelling content?
It should go without saying: Proper audience measurement and research are paramount to creating the right story. If you don’t know your customer or viewer, you simply do not know what to say. Once you have that information, you have to put it to work.
Here are four main guidelines in helping to tell a great story. These are purposely flexible and not bound to a hierarchy, developed to allow the location and advertiser to discuss the right approach to content:
The content must be simple and compelling. Telling a story in front of moving traffic is never easy, but a “less-is-more” approach doesn’t waste time and encourages the viewer to actively move to the next stage of engagement. What happens next is even more important than the hook. The customer has chosen to invest time in you. Now you have to deliver.
The content must align with the environment. This is the “right place, right time” part of the equation. For example, you wouldn’t promote HDTVs at a checkout queue of a consumer electronics store that sells them. Knowing the area the message plays in, regarding both the products surrounding the message and the customer’s purpose for being in that area, will greatly enhance the efficacy of the message. This is especially important if you use technology to create multiple zones of programming within a location. Variations on an advertisement purposed for targeted zones will provide much more effective communication.
The content must relate with the environment’s brand identity. A visual relationship between the message and the location is crucial. If you’re telling your customer that they should buy a particular product, you’re sending the message that you endorse it. Every second on your program can either enhance or diminish your own brand. It can take only 15 seconds to destroy a relationship with a customer you spent years building. And in today’s retail environment, your competitors are watching closely.
How do you actually get advertisers to build content that is perfect for your environment?
You need to educate the advertisers about your experience. With respect to confidentiality, you need to share what research you can. Show the advertiser and the agency, when applicable and appropriate, who your customer is. Next, you need to have a strategy. Knowing the desirable outcomes of content within an environment can play a big role in the partnership. Since every location has a different interpretation of ROI, the little things can mean a lot to the bottom line.
The flexibility in these guidelines provides you with an opportunity to address some potential concerns about how content is used. For example, will audio work in your environment? If not, will your customers get the full message from the video alone? Customers or viewers may be looking at your screens but unable to hear the message. What about the speed your customers have moving through your environment? Is it a fast-traffic space? If so, the message must be very quick and to the point.
In many cases, you won’t be bound by broadcast timing standards, so your story can be 17 seconds instead of 15, 27 seconds instead of 30. But don’t wander. A perfect story doesn’t need to be a treatise on the subject.
You should execute these before an advertiser starts campaign production. Going back and re-purposing is not effective in many cases. Too often customers see 30-second spots on a digital display other than their home television and tune it out because they have seen it before. Slapping a logo or copy over an existing spot is not an effective way of saying, “Hey, I think you should know this.” Building a kit of parts for the campaign that can be easily converted to the right location is the most efficient method. You don’t say the same thing to a rider on a subway that you do to a browsing customer in a store. A slight variance in your approach can be the difference between complete ignorance and complete engagement.
What can advertisers and agencies do?
Start talking to each other and to desired location owners. When campaigns start, the agency should be asking the advertiser where they want to live. Does the advertiser want to be on a billboard, store, mall, or subway, or all of the above? Creating a relationship with an agency and advertiser is not difficult, and over time will result in more effective communication at the place where it matters most, in front of the customer just as they’re about to decide.
In the end, these guidelines can help you create a differentiated and unique approach, separate from your competitors, and a stronger brand environment for your customer to thrive in.
