Predictions for the Future of Digital Signage

Digital signs are increasingly becoming an aspect of everyday life. Their flexibility makes it easy to deploy them in a variety of industries. According to research, by 2025, the sector will have a projected net worth of $31.7 billion. While the future of digital signage looks promising, what are its specific growth expectations? This comprehensive resource gives you a valuable head start by exploring in detail the trends that will shape this field. 

Key Research Considerations

Just as with other technology sectors, digital signage continues to experience blistering innovation. Other than getting slimmer and brighter, displays are also becoming marginally advanced. Unlike previous versions that merely pushed information, modern products can also customize experiences. While collecting data for this article, we made the following in-depth considerations:

• The location of companies most likely to benefit from the future of digital signage. The majority are in the United States, followed by Asia, Europe, Canada, Latin America, the Middle East, and Africa.
• The type of institution that utilizes digital signage. Although applicable in several industries, we made three broad categories: Companies that offer digital signage software, hardware, and associated services, end-users, and potential end-users.
• The type of organization most likely to deploy digital signs. They include advertising agencies, the retail sector, educational institutions, healthcare providers, hotels, government agencies, and casinos.
• How operators currently use their digital signs. Do you display in-store menus, promotional information, or outdoor advertising?
• Whether current customers have multiple locations? If the answer is yes, do they use digital signage in all of them? If no, do they plan to?
• The benefits experienced since deploying digital signage solutions. Examples are improved customer engagement, higher brand awareness, increased sales, and lower wait times.

Manufacturers faced with these demands are working overtime to include more advanced analytics and customization features.

Main Expectations for the Future of Digital Signage

Industry experts have the following expectations for the future of digital signage:

1. Automation

A digital display can engage your customers faster and more cost-effectively than humans. It also allows interactive ways of drawing attention through top-notch communication and marketing tools. Although it offers convenience, the content can also get stale and turn away your targeted audience if you keep repeating it.

In the past, manual updates would be costly and clumsy because, in addition to creating new content, the process involved various other steps. For example, you had to undergo a time-consuming approval process. Automation solves this problem by displaying real-time updates. You can schedule all the information once, after which you’ll show it in a streamlined manner according to your calendar. 

Examples of automation include welcome messages, holiday-based content, and product launches. Artificial Intelligence (AI) will play an essential role in the future of digital signage. It will enable accurate customization of content after evaluating multiple databases for the relevant insights.

2. Interactivity

Interactive digital signage technology includes several additional features in addition to information display. Examples are tabletop ordering, touch screen kiosks, and in-built games. Although restaurants have been receptive to these additions, other sectors have reaped the benefits. They include retail and direct advertising. The response from customers is also positive.

The applications are interactive wayfinding maps, collection of contact information, training, showing demos, and presentation of shopping catalogs. You can also share menus, communicate more efficiently with employees, create brand awareness, and manage contests. Consequently, future interactive displays will incorporate more than touch.

The COVID-19 pandemic increased the urgency of creating non-touch solutions to comply with social distancing and other containment measures. They include gesture control and voice commands. According to Verto Analytics, in 2017, at least 44% of US smartphones were utilized for voice search.

This trend indicates multiple channel interactivity will play a central role in the future of digital signage. Fortunately, you won’t need to overhaul your media players. That’s because some of these features will work with software updates, sensors, and app integrations.  

3. Mobile Integration

Modern digital displays already allow your customers to interact with display panels through their mobile devices. Some businesses also use beacons to curate and personalize the messages they send consumers. This innovation allows you to separate shoppers by their gender, among other distinct features. For example, your marketing campaign becomes more effective if you inform female shoppers about dress sales instead of all customers.

It’s also possible to track their shopping habits by monitoring their interactions with public Wi-Fi networks. This feature will become more accurate as the integration with digital signage technology and proximity network companies improves. It will also allow your business to harvest crucial data for use in targeted campaigns.

Limited bandwidth is one of the challenges of mobile integration. However, the proliferation of 5G networks should solve this issue. You’ll also need to increase customer engagement by incorporating social media, improving customization, and driving value.

4. Multiple Screens for Customized Purposes

As screens improve in quality, they also become more affordable. The future of digital signage will utilize multiple display panels to enhance and streamline the customer experience. For instance, shoppers will no longer need to look for human assistants to guide them in stores. Information overload also reduces consumer attention span and makes it imperative to maintain engagement via multiple sources.

Samsung, NEC, LG, NVIDIA, HP, Intel, and other players in the industry are continuously innovating their display technology. Other than crisp screens, you need embedded processors, graphics cards, network systems, and other peripherals to ensure seamless integration. As such the future of digital signage will normalize synchronized displays, 4K-and higher resolution, and mosaic displays. 

These innovations will be suitable for tradeshows, hotel lobbies, corporate signage, museums, educational institutions, and briefing centers. Advanced processing capabilities will support projection overlaps, warp engine transmission, large display systems, and tiled walls.

5. Innovative Touch Screens

There was a time when touch screen technology seemed revolutionary, but today it’s a mainstream feature in most computing devices. Touchless is the logical next step in its evolution. Apart from gesture control, other types of no-touch solutions are virtual keyboards and facial recognition. These innovations have helped museums, retailers, and other businesses survive the onslaught of the coronavirus pandemic.

Touchless also has various applications, ranging from proximity sensors to more complex products. For example, you can display a digital menu board that visitors can interact with by flicking pages without touching the screen. It’s also possible to convert a touchscreen into a touchless version. You can do so by connecting a touch screen device, via its USB port, to a compatible digital signage player.

As promising as this technology appears, the industry still has some issues to overcome. One of them is convincing customers to install and use the apps needed to create a seamless experience.

6. Live Streaming

Live streaming is one of the digital sectors that will continue to experience a boom for the foreseeable future. This growth ranges from consumer-focused entertainment content such as YouTube to corporate digital display solutions. All the ingredients are in place to boost the uptake of live displays for business purposes. They include higher quality cloud storage solutions, faster bandwidth, and a slew of software integrations to smoothen the process.

For example, you can stream a live news network in the lobby or premier a YouTube video. You may also boost interaction with your audience by displaying a live feed of your social media platform. The future of digital signage is exciting for a variety of reasons. For one, technology will promote your audience from mere spectators to active participants of live streams. You’ll be able to collect instant feedback for any content you put out and adjust your marketing strategy accordingly. 

7. Larger Screens

Large-format displays will only get better as manufacturers pour more resources into R&D. Unlike ordinary TVs, future products will have optimizations for high-quality performance. They will have flexible mounting options, 24/7 usability, and compatibility with demanding applications.

There will be several resolution options to help you pick a model that fits your workplace needs. Touchless screens will be excellent for interactive environments like esports lounges and schools. Other than projecting a sharp look, bezel-less displays will have practical applications. They’ll allow seamless side-by-side configurations without visible lines between individual screens.

Video walls will continue to experience a boom in the coming years. Their applications include digital billboards, malls, tourist destinations, airports, menu boards, and educational institutions. Multipurpose displays will also make it easier to customize content by switching between landscape and portrait modes. Next-level speaker systems will improve the customer experience by providing 3D audio effects.

8. Deep Analytics

In the past, business owners had a hard time measuring the success of proximity marketing. The future of digital signage promises deep and accurate analytics for both vendors and customers. Face recognition and proximity sensors will determine whether your targeted audience is in range and whether they’re engaged.

Advanced algorithms will also identify specific parameters such as their height, age, mood, and gender by analyzing their facial expressions. Optimized touch screens can also establish the parts that people interact with most. These video analytics allow you to discover trends and adjust your product offerings to satisfy customer needs.

The combination of these technologies also facilitates the creation of optimized campaigns.

9. Security Considerations

Increased integrations, reliance on the internet, and interactivity will offer convenience to digital signage users. However, it will also increase the threat landscape. The future of digital signage will therefore witness a rise in cybersecurity integrations. You’ll need to be ahead of bad actors to ensure they don’t use your infrastructure to breach your company network.

On a positive note, these displays will also improve security for the organization and society. A completely digital system that gets real-time updates can also act as a warning system. You can inform large crowds of hazards such as fires, stampedes, and armed attacks. These bold, clear, and easily understandable messages can make the difference between life and death. Other security-focused uses include weather forecasts, traffic updates, and safety alerts at the workplace.

10. Increased Overall Uptake

The digital signage market shows no signs of slowing down. You can expect increased uptake due to the apparent benefits. Statistics show that displayed content enjoys a recall rate of 83% and a 47.7% effectiveness during brand awareness campaigns. Given these impressive figures, the future of digital signage looks bright across several industries.

This technology will see adoption beyond its traditional customers. The integration and customization features mean any other sector can personalize its display content to achieve its intended results. Digital signs will cease to be niche products and become mainstream solutions for small, medium, and large businesses.

11. Digital Signs Will Fuel New Customer Experiences

Amazon has been testing the cashier-less store for years now. This revolutionary concept allows shoppers to walk in, purchase a product, and walk out without interacting with a human worker. It utilizes sensors, computer vision, IoT, cameras, deep learning, and cloud technology.

With the online giant set to offer the underlying tech to interested retailers, the digital signage market looks set to benefit as well. Such stores will require digital signs to guide customers in the absence of humans. Self-driving vehicles also have large displays with higher resolutions than traditional cars. These screens have multiple roles, including navigation and entertainment. Indeed, the demand for digital display solutions grows as we adopt new technological ideas.

Most of the predictions discussed above have high likelihoods of success because they’re already in testing in one way or another. Therefore, it’s in your best interests to incorporate digital signage solutions into your business. Apart from improving communication and productivity, a first-mover advantage gives you an edge over your competitors through cutting-edge data analytics.

Conclusion

At Mvix, we always anticipate the future of digital signage to create comprehensive solutions for our customers. In addition to incorporating the latest technology, our products receive software updates as soon as they appear. Our affordable pricing also makes it easy for startups and large organizations to sign up. Apart from installation, we offer customization and maintenance services. Our skills and experience in this field are unparalleled. Please contact us today for more information on our end-to-end solutions.