Interactive Digital Signage

Fakultät für Wirtschaftswissenschaften

Institut für Betriebswirtschaftslehre

Fachbereich Electronic Business

Interactive Digital Signage as a Service KFK eBusiness: SE Neuere Entwicklungen in eBusiness & eLogistics

LVA-Nr. 040.006/2

Summer Semester 2013

Profesor: ao. Univ.-Prof. Dr. Strauß

Supervisor: Dipl.-Ing. Dr. Natalia Kryvinska

Author: Jozef Négli (1246898) Vienna, May 2013

Interactive Digital Signage as a Service

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Table of Content Table of figures .......................................................................................................................... 3

List of abbreviations ................................................................................................................... 4

Introduction ................................................................................................................................ 5

1 Digital Signage at a glance ................................................................................................... 6

1.1 Types of digital signage ................................................................................................ 6

1.1.1 Indoor and outdoor digital signage ......................................................................... 6

1.1.2 Mobile digital signage ............................................................................................ 7

1.1.3 Application area of digital signage ......................................................................... 7

1.1.4 Interactivity ............................................................................................................ 7

1.2 Benefits and drawbacks of digital signage .................................................................... 8

2 Deploying the digital signage as a service ........................................................................... 9

2.1 Reasons for digital signage service ............................................................................... 9

2.2 Digital signage network ............................................................................................. 10

2.3 Digital signage exchange ............................................................................................ 11

2.3.1 Placing an order .................................................................................................... 11

2.4 Scheduling ................................................................................................................... 12

2.5 Pricing system ............................................................................................................. 13

2.5.1 Payment options ................................................................................................... 13

2.6 Display blindness and external factors ........................................................................ 14

2.6.1 Mediating effects .................................................................................................. 15

2.6.2 Negative externalities ........................................................................................... 15

2.7 Best practices ............................................................................................................... 16

Conclusion ................................................................................................................................ 19

References ................................................................................................................................ 20

Appendices ............................................................................................................................... 23


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Table of figures Table 1: SMIL and POPAI ......................................................................................................... 8

Table 2: Scheduled types of orders .......................................................................................... 12

Table 3: Effects influencing display blindness ........................................................................ 15

Table 4: Best practises for service provider ............................................................................. 16

Figure 2: Volume of digital signage units shipped .................................................................. 23

Table 5: Types of orders ........................................................................................................... 23

Figure 3: Information flow in learning concept for digital signage ......................................... 24

Figure 4: Effect of digital signage on approach behaviour ...................................................... 24


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List of abbreviations DOOH- digital out of home

W3C- World Wide Web Consortium

POS- Point of sale

POT- Point of transit

POW- Point of wait

POA- Point of access

NYC- New York City

ROI- Return on investment

CDI cycle- creation, distribution, installation cycle

Advert- Advertisement

DSE- Digital Signage Exchange

DSN- Digital Signage Network

IADT- International Academy of Design and Technology

ITUT-T- The International Telecommunication Union's Telecoms Standardisation Sector


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Introduction Digital Signage represents a relatively new tool in marketing environment and provides a

great enhancement to the traditional advertising platforms. As the phenomenon of the Internet

has become to be the part of our everyday life, the new possibilities for customer´s attraction

have been revealed. The most of us are already suffering under an informational overload,

hence there is a strong need to be able to draw customer´s attention with tailored

advertisement in a real time. Digital Signage, called also digital out of home advertising

(DOOH), allows the companies to provide adaptive, real time services, fitting customer´s

needs.

This work is structured into two main parts. The first one describes the whole theoretical

background of the digital signage itself, such as its advantages and disadvantages, usage, year

growth, types and new trends in this marketing field followed by its interactive feature.

Moreover, the key points regarding the infrastructure (network) and standards are stated in

conclusion of this part (SMI, POPAI, W3C consortium efforts).

Second part examines digital signage as a service, managerial implementations relating to

instruments and recommendations for avoiding the display blindness and elements increasing

the customer attraction. From the managerial point of view, understanding the whole bidding

and pricing system is one of the most significant elements when deciding whether to

implement such a type of marketing tool, thus, in the second part the different approaches to

bidding, pricing mechanisms and scheduling are explained.

Finally, the last part deals with the best practices for digital signage services revealing some

practical insights, such as display blindness, role of context, content, location and negative

externalities covered in the academic papers (e.g. Müller and Krüger, 2009b MobiDiC).

This work will be accomplished on the basis of the journal, academic articles and some

credible online sources and could be useful to assist those organizations attempting to

implement a digital signage as their service.


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1 Digital Signage at a glance Nowadays, when the public places are overloaded with prevalent advertisements and the

space is a scarce resource, digital signage solutions can be feasibly applied to display

unlimited number of adverts. Digital signage is a form of informational and commercial

advertising network which uses predominantly digital screens such as LCDs or plasmas to

display multimedia content in public places. Based on its direct connection to the provider it

offers quick, effective and flexible controlling and displaying of content (Négli, 2012).

According to the latest studies, current, approximately US $5 billion digital signage market,

will triple by year 2016 (Want and Schilit, 2012). The wide spread of this technology was

caused mainly because of the price fall of the LCD screens, which are considered as the

crucial components of digital signage. Additionally, the volume of units shipped will grow to

2.1 million by 2013, generating a Compound Annual Growth Rate of 22.9 % from 758,122

units in 2008 (Khatri, 2009 cf. Figure 2 in appendix).

1.1 Types of digital signage There are different types of digital signage solutions used in the market. Based on the location

of deployment we can divide these solutions into two main groups and namely into indoor

and outdoor digital signage solutions. There is also a separate group of digital signage that is

delivered directly to the consumer´s phones or mobile devices called mobile digital signage

(Négli, 2012).

1.1.1 Indoor and outdoor digital signage

This type of digital signage is often used in public places, trying to draw attention of passers-

by. Most common examples are interactive kiosks that are deployed in subway stations,

shopping malls, in the streets or at airports. In recent days some fast food chains have

recognized the value of the digital signage as well and applied them at their point of sales

(POS). Indoor and outdoor digital signage uses mostly a playback device which is connected

to the display. Newest forms of the interactive digital signage take an advantage of affordable

prices of computers and install them into the machine in order to be able to provide tailored

response for each customer. Moreover, based on the device used in the unit, the maintenance

can be done through Internet what is one of the crucial factors when deciding for

implementation of such a solution. Most recognized examples of outdoor digital signage

solutions are LCD screens deployed in the biggest public areas such as Times Square in NYC

or Shibuya in Tokyo stored in a secure and weather proof TV enclosure.


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1.1.2 Mobile digital signage

Mobile digital signage uses devices owned by customers/passers-by. When the customer

approaches the coverage of POA (Point of access), prepared advertisements are supplied to

the connected device (Yoon, C., Lee, H., Jeon, S. H., & Lee, H., 2011). This connection is

accomplished mostly via Bluetooth or Wi-Fi. Widely known examples are vouchers sent via

Bluetooth, SMS, or directly shown on the customer´s phone screens after scanning QR codes

(cf. Müller and Krüger, 2009b).

1.1.3 Application area of digital signage

Digital signage can be distinguished also based on an application area (Kelsen, 2010). The

most solutions are deployed at the points of sales (POS). These are typically comprised of in-

stores signs striving for customer´s attention in order to cause a conversion. At POS the usual

intended conversion is sales uplift. In these cases the call to action is immediate as the screens

are placed directly at the place where customer is making buying decisions. Another

application area is represented by point of transit (POT). These advertisements are trying to

grab attention of passers-by for a short time. The main purpose of these screens lies in

establishment of brand identity. The third application area is point of wait (POW). At these

points customer does have sufficient time to look at the signs and therefore the advertiser can

use different tactics to engage his/her attention (e.g. more repetitions, longer advertisements

with persuasive character). Usual examples of digital signage at POW are found in healthcare,

retail banking or office buildings (Bauer, C., Dohmen, P., & Strauss, C., 2012).

1.1.4 Interactivity

The main aspect favouring digital signage from the paper counterpart is its interactivity. The

revolution of the smartphones allowed the digital to use them to control the content. As the

short-range wireless minimizes delays between user and sign, it can be an effective method of

low-latency interaction (Want et al., 2012). Another examples are cameras integrated in

digital signs that can recognize person´s age or gender according the length of hair, height or

weight. According to this information the advertisement can be better adapted to the audience.

Vogel and Balakrishnan (2004) presented also gesture-controlled displays, interacting with

passers-by according the proximity to the screen. Müller and Krüger (2009) developed

solution that can learn from its experience and based on this information can influence the

scheduling and selection mechanism. To conclude, interactive digital signage allows greater

involvement of audience, better user experience and accurate targeting.


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1.2 Benefits and drawbacks of digital signage Digital signage offers some special features and benefits in comparison to a conventional,

static way of campaigns. The fast, flexible and on the fly update through the network, without

the need to interact with the signs physically, eliminates high costs in comparison to creation

and distribution of print advertisement campaigns. Moreover, the possibility of selling

advertising space to their suppliers contributes to the financial advantage of this solution too.

Digital signage, for the sake of its interactivity, is also more engaging, more informative and

offers targeted content that can grab customer´s attention right at the POS and thus, positively

impact sales. Based on the solution deployed, it can be also possible for passers-by to interact

with the advert through several technologies. (Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, Motion sensors) As the

attention of customers increases, these solutions offer also better ROI and lower financial

expenses for creation, distribution and installation (CDI) (Bauer, Dohmen, Strauss, 2012;

Harrison and Andrusiewicz, 2003).

The major drawback poses the lack of unified standards which would be used in all solutions

across the world. The existence of such a standard will even more boost development in this

emerging field and make all customizations forgotten. Nowadays, the most used standards are

POPAI, SMIL and HTML 5. W3C consortium is preparing to launch one standard platform,

what will allow additional cost reduction of content acquisition and transmission in this field

(iAdea, 2012). The first workshop in 2011 was held in Tokyo, where the needs and

requirements of big digital signage users were consulted (ITU-T, 2011; Négli, 2012). In the

table below, the two most used standards are described.

SMIL POPAI

• XML-based mark-up language for describing playlists, schedules and screen layouts

• Open standard established by the W3C • Mostly used in USA, Germany, Denmark

and France • One hardware vendor can drive about 100

000 displays. (W3C, 2003)

• Similar use as SMIL, • Most common supported formats are:

MP3, . AAC, .PCM, A-law, U-LAW, DiviX, Xvid, x264, .bmp, .jpg, .gif, .png, .avi, .mov,. asf, .mp4, TS, PS.

• Pros: no dropped frames for video, no noticeable distortion of audio and still images from original (POPAI, 2009)

Table 1: SMIL and POPAI


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2 Deploying the digital signage as a service Setting up a digital signage service is a business process which offers different approaches in

the terms of serving customers. There are also several business models which can be used

when deploying digital signs. In this part we will focus on digital signage as a service, its

infrastructure, forms and special aspects that have to be taken into account in order to achieve

a successful running service.

2.1 Reasons for digital signage service There are many reasons why to deploy the digital signage. As the current trends are showing

that the conventional way of attracting customers is connected with intensive costs of CDI in

terms of labour and material (Harrison and Andrusiewicz, 2003), the use of digital signage

seems to be legitimate. The main drivers, which are determining the business model used, are

presented below.

• Selling the display time/third party advertising: ‘‘ This business model has

probably received more attention than any other, because it speaks directly to ROI’’

(Yackey, 2009). From perspective of service provider, the main reason for setting up

of digital signage solution is to sell display time to the third-party advertisers.

• Market: e.g. in-store promotions, using interaction with customers.

The aim of such screens is to ensure the sales uplift. These signs typically include call-

to-action statements, which are mostly placed at POS.

• Entertain: This function of digital signs is focusing on the interactive activities to

attract and reduce boredom, as most of the customers dislike waiting in the queues.

While customer’s attraction is focused on the advertisement, the waiting in queue

seems to be shorter and overall purchase experience is positively affected what can

have consequently a supportive impact on brand awareness

• Inform: Providing up-to-date news, events calendars and location sensitive

information to highly targeted audiences e.g. Subway news.

• Internal Communication: Digital signs can be also used to ensure intern

communication and provide employees with real time information related to their

scope of work (Yackey, 2009).

• Alert: Informing targeted audience. E.g. Motorway LED screen warning about ice,

traffic jam, car accident, safe crowd management at large events (ITU-T, 2011).


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When deploying any digital signage solution, it is necessary to be able to measure the impact

of these signs on achievement of intended goal. Afterwards, this fact can persuade the

potential buyer of time slot whether to use the service or not. In case of digital signs used at

POS, the measurability can be easier than for digital signs deployed for entertainment, as

these are striving more or less for increase of brand awareness what must not be conditionally

related to sales. These days, the most providers usually state only approximate number of

passers-by exposed to the screen (Medias, 2013), but there are also another approaches such

as partnership of In-Store Marketing Institute and VNU trying to measure the impact of

digital signs in cooperation with supermarkets. In general, the measurement is accomplished

individually and therefore it is hard make one universal conclusion (Broadcast Engineering,

2007).

2.2 Digital signage network In the following parts the focus will be placed on digital signage

network (DSN) which chiefly connects the display controllers. This

connection allows shortening of the conventional CDI cycle with the

exception of the graphic design of a particular advertisement (Harrison

and Andrusiewicz, 2003). When the campaign is designed it can be

directly transferred to the display in milliseconds. The conventional

steps such as physical sign creation, distribution and installation are

eliminated (cf. Fig. 1). On the one hand, the implementation of digital

signs is connected with higher initial investments, but on the other, the

flexibility in changing the content remotely can be done at relatively

low cost (Bauer et al., 2012). Moreover, if the retailer’s inventory

system is interconnected with the digital signs, according to the actual

situation the particular advertisement can be pushed or, in case of

unavailability of an item, paused. Not just the information about the

inventory status, but also demographic data is important when

providing dynamically configurable promotion. Assuming that

advertiser has information relevant to the audience the advertisement

can be adapted to meet expectation of audience, thus, the probability of

conversion will increase.

Figure 1: CDI cycle (Harrision and Andrusiewicz ,2003)


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2.3 Digital signage exchange For the sake of appropriate distribution of advertising space within digital signage network

there is a need of digital signage exchange (DSE). Harrison and Andrusiewicz (2003) describe

the DSE as a ‘‘partially automated, supervised broker than mediates between sellers and

buyers ‘’. Seller is defined as an entity, who owns and control digital signage solutions; it can

be platform provider and/or space provider. The buyers are usually advertising companies,

interested in purchase of time slots for their customers. In the literature there are also stated

another entities as parts of this chain, namely consumer, space owner, and context

information provider (Bauer et al., 2012). The interactive feature of digital signage gives the

consumers the option to provide comments on advertising, meaning that the future advertising

cycle can be adapted to the personal needs. Digital signage exchange is an intermediary

between all these market players and based on schedule management and bid amount (when

auctioning selection is applied) decides whose sign, when and for which price will be shown.

This decision process is called transaction management model (Harrison and Andrusiewicz,

2003). In the next chapters we will take a closer look at the service framework of digital

signage.

2.3.1 Placing an order

From buyer´s perspective the order is represented by description of content, physical location

and scheduled time. This order is placed through DSE and based on comparison with other

orders it is decided if the requirements of buyer can be fulfilled (Harrison et al., 2004a).

In general, there are 3 types of orders.

• Time based order (T): This type of order requires only one exposure at a fixed time,

‚‘‘cycle duration equals the exposure duration, which also equals the time between

activation and expiration‘‘ (Négli, 2012; Harrison and Andrusiewicz, 2004a).

• Standard order (S) is type of order, when the buyer specifies the start and end date of

the campaign. The frequency and total exposures can be set as well. This type of order

is more flexible as once the order cannot be fulfilled the alternative solution can be

followed. The exposure duration is not equal to cycle duration, but there is not cycle

gap. This order is mostly used to promote time-limited products.

• Recurring schedule item (R): When the advertisement should be repeated in fixed

times this type of order is required. The exposure duration is equal to the cycle


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duration, but the cycle gap occurs1 (cf. also Table 5 in Appendix).

In the table below, already described types of orders are accommodated within the schedule.

Table 2: Scheduled types of orders (Harrision and Andrusiewicz, 2004a)

2.4 Scheduling Getting the right message to the right audience and at the right time is the key element for

providers of digital signage solutions. Storz, Friday and Davies (2006) state that the

scheduling for collaborative displays2 is mainly determined by person´s interaction; thus, the

person directly decides which content will be shown and therefore, there is no need for

complex scheduling system. On the other hand, the informational signs typically employ for

scheduling looping playlists where the orders of other players/advertisers can influence the

whole selection. The chief function of DSE is to provide accurate information about available

display time to buyer and also seller. When a new order is placed, the digital signage

exchange generates a partial schedule. Based on this schedule, system calculates how many

other orders can be accommodated. If the new/next order is placed, system compares partial

schedule with proposal and either accommodates this offer as requested or propose a counter-

offer (Harrison and Andrusiewicz, 2004a).

The crucial feature of the digital signage is its interactivity; these systems are able to use

different sensors in order to better adapt to the context. Müller et al. (2009) propose to employ

an automatically learning mechanism using Naive Bayes classifier3 that can apply scheduling

strategies obtained from previous observations of audience. Their concept consists of

feedback loops, id est the digital signs can adapt their content based on audience reactions.

Thus, when system recognizes that person reacted on certain sign under certain circumstances,

favours this advert next time in similar situation (Müller et al., 2009; cf. also Fig. 3 in 1 Exposure Duration: The time necessary to display the content, e.g. the length of the ad. Cycle Duration : An interval of time, repeated between announcement and termination, in which the ad can be played repeatedly. Cycle Gap: The time interval between two cycles. 2 Collaborative displays enable users to share information. 3 Naive Bayes formula classifies the presence or absence of a particular feature. E.g. if the system recognized that at 7:00AM man looked at the ad no.1, saves this information and next time when another man look at the screen the probability of displaying of this ad no.1 will be higher.


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Appendix). Not just the buyer’s order or contextual data, but also another factors influence

the scheduling. Each deployment of digital signage is striving for financial sustainability; thus,

there is need for appropriate pricing mechanism, which will produce relevant information for

scheduling system.

2.5 Pricing system Assuming that the platform provider (digital signage service provider or seller) is trying to

fulfil advertiser´s needs (pushing the exposure of its advert in the advertising cycle and

offering intended conversions), the auction mechanisms seem to be feasible as these can

achieve higher conversion rates than classic selection approaches such as Round-Robin

approach and Random approach (Payne (2006) states particularly up to 64%). In this part, we

will focus on the auctioning selection.

Interactive digital signage makes a vast use of contextualization that is applied in the

auctioning selection too. Based on contextual information such as video captured by

integrated camera, Bluetooth device connected to the digital sign, location and time, the most

suitable advertisement even for lower bidding price can be favoured and viable conversion

rate achieved (Müller and Krüger, 2007). In general, the auctioning selection process consists

of advertising agent that is responsible for purchasing advertising space and auctioning agent

that saves a history of successful advertising cycles (e.g. in which cycle the buyer won the

auction, the advertisement was shown and conversion was achieved) and based on this results,

favours/disfavour advertiser´s bid in the next auctioning cycle (Payne, 2006). This example is

just one of the many used in practice and there are surely different algorithms for computing

the bids and consequently to display them. For example, Google has never completely

revealed the bidding algorithm hidden behind its Adwords service. In order to utilize the

auctioning process Google takes also an advantage of contextual data and applies them in the

Adwords’s auctioning mechanism. Buyers with higher Google page rank, more keywords or

better link quality will need to bid less than buyers with poor rank or less keywords. In

conclusion, this strategy will favour just the relevant buyers and produce just appropriate

results for the audience.

2.5.1 Payment options

Buyer has several options to pay for digital signage service.

• Buyer can pay per impression, id est to pay for each second when the advertisement is

shown;


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• Per view is type of payment, when buyer pays for each person who saw the

advertisement (similar to pay for click in Google Adwords);

• Last option is called in literature per attendance (Müller and Krüger, 2007). In jargon

of Google Adwords it is similar as to pay for conversion (Google, 2013), id est buyer

pays when a desired action happens.

In general the auctioning mechanism in the field of digital signage works on the base of

second price auction (Payne, 2006). Winning advertiser will never pay more than one bid

increment above the bid amount of the advertiser in the second position, meaning that

winning buyer gets the time slot for price of bid of the second higher plus an increment, and

second buyer pays just one bid increment above of the bid of an advertiser in the third

position4 (Amiri and Menon, 2003).

2.6 Display blindness and external factors As already mentioned, the auctioning selection takes an advantage of contextual factors when

processing the bids (audience, location, Bluetooth device connected). In this part, we will

focus on some of them in relation to the display blindness.

Display blindness was derived from similar term, namely, from banner blindness which is

characterized as the phenomenon of website users who are actively ignoring web banners

(Owens, 2011). Studies have confirmed that the ‘’ expectations towards what is presented on

public displays can correlate with their attention towards these displays’’(Müller et al., 2009).

Milgram (1970) also states that the display blindness is connected with person’s informational

overload. Some solutions to overcome the display blindness will be presented in this section.

It was found that there are two major factors affecting person’s glance at the display, bottom-

up effects and top-down effects. Furthermore, the displays at POW received more attention as

displays deployed at POT (Müller et al., 2009c). However, the location does not have any

effect if person expects some interesting information. When the display was deployed in the

school area students expected interesting information, in contrary to the displays placed in

city centre, which were considered as ‘‘just an another ad‘‘. Thus, the displays at schools

were glanced more often (Müller et al., 2009c). This underlines the influence of

contextualization on consumer perception. Furthermore, studies have revealed also bottom-up

effects that have impact on the display blindness respectively which can reduce it. When 4 Amount of an increment bid depends on platform used, generally $0.01


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providing a digital signage service, factors summarized in table below, should be taken into

consideration.

Top-down effects

• Person’s expectations towards to the perceived content can reduce display blindness, e.g. for public institutions people expect more relevant information than for commercial entities what makes the displays placed in public institutions more glanced.

• Location does not have any effect on display blindness if person expects some interesting information

Bottom-up effects

• Colourfulness and attractiveness reduces display blindness

• Amount of display time = Long distance visibility makes the probability that person notices the screen higher

• Size of display eliminates display blindness

• Placing display in forward direction captures the attraction unintentionally

• Displays that showed video content tended to capture the eye longer than text

• Displays the in eye height or positioned considerably above the head draw more attention

• Closer distance to other eye-catchers increases display blindness

• Small displays may encourage prolonged viewing in public spaces to a greater extent than large displays

Table 3: Effects influencing display blindness (Müller 2009c, Huang 2008)

2.6.1 Mediating effects

Dennis et al. (2010) also examined the mediating factors on perception and emotions in terms

of digital signage. Based on Puccinelli’s theory (2006), people who are in good mood before

shopping may have better perception of the products and then tend to spend more. Dennis et

al. add that marketers can enhance this process by using sensory stimuli through the digital

signage. They proved that digital signage has significant direct influence on perception of the

mall environment which consequently drives the customer’s willingness to spend more (cf.

Dennis, 2010 Fig. 4 in appendix).

2.6.2 Negative externalities

These days, we are exposed to numerous of advertisements on the streets what causes

information overload, however, the attention of each person is not limited. When the attention

is drawn to an advert, this process represents for the person ‘’attention cost’’. Advertiser does

not directly calculate these costs, because just the internal costs, such as costs for space rental,

campaign design, have to be paid in order to display an advertisement (Bauer, Dohmen,

Strauss, 2011). These factors are called negative externalities (Müller and Krüger, 2007b). In

the previous chapters some approaches competing the negative externalities were already

stated (contextualization, bottom-up effect). In this part, we will focus on some in terms of

market regulations.


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There are tree approaches addressed to negative externalities: maximum permissible values,

fees and tradable certificates (Müller and Krüger, 2007b). The last stated tradable certificates

are according to Müller and Krüger (2007b) a combination of the both previously stated

mechanisms. They consider the auctions for tradable attention certificates with auctions for

time slots as viable when implementing the digital signage. Based on tradable certificates the

amount of attention is sold in the auction for particular location what maximizes the

consumer´s benefit and on the other hand, the distribution among advertisers is optimal

(Müller and Krüger, 2007b). Furthermore, the implementation of these auctions can be

favourable when the automatic software agents are implemented (Bauer et al., 2011). This

regulation of advertising market will on the one hand, reduce information overload for the

consumers, but on the other, it will help the advertisers easier to target them, because just the

relevant ones will be able to win the auction.

2.7 Best practices In this part we will focus on some practical implementations for digital signage. The main

factors, enhancing its utility, were already explained (cf. Chapter 2.6). Müller and Krüger

(2009, 2009b) conducted several studies based on results generated by its MobiDiC digital

sign and iDisplay that include some practical recommendations for every service provider. In

the table below, the summarized customer and advertiser concerns about digital signage can

be found:

Advertisers Customers

• Most important system feature was measurability of advertising access followed by optimization of location

• Most of the advertisers rely on proposed scheduling by system

• Advertisers have problem to design their own campaign

• Advertisers await additional marketing support for digital signage solutions (flyers, promotion in newspapers)

• Before deployment, the advertisers were interested in control (which sign, when, how, statistics) after just in convenience and effort of providers

• Location bears more importance than content

• Taking photo of coupon was faster and more preferred than transfer via Bluetooth or SMS

• Location is very important in order to gain attraction

• Younger generation should be the target generation of these solutions

• Once passers-by understood the system, they liked it and stated to use it in the future

• When the purpose of the camera was not explained, the persons felt to be ‘’securely watched’’

• Passers-by stated to preferred contextual content (e.g. when sign in the shop, convey information about shop discounts)

Table 4: Best practises for service provider

As stated in the table, the applied technology is not easy for each person to operate. Some

participants had even problems to enable their Bluetooth and therefore the camera (heavily


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used by almost all mobile phone owners) was used as main transmitter of information. Vogel

and Balakrishnan (2004) also tested new interactive public ambient display that reacts to

gestures and the distance of passer-by. Their research showed that these techniques are fast

discoverable and useable. Anyway, it is very important to bear in mind which target group

should come across these signs. As already mentioned, mostly the younger generation is the

target audience of these solutions (Müller and Krüger, 2009). For the future, there are

different technologies such as gesture-based recognition (Chen, Qing, et al., 2009) or body

tracking systems, which could be employed in digital signage (Rehg et al., 1997). However,

there is still a long way to bring the system on such a level, which will ensure easy and user-

friendly interface for all consumers. The research studies conducted by Müller and Krüger

(2009) revealed the lack of knowledge and incompetence of retailers to design and configure

their own advertisements, hence the providers of digital signage service need to have a

complex knowledge to offer full-package product to the potential buyer. Apart of already

stated bottom-up and top-down factors, promising techniques for digital signs are represented

below.

It is recommended to use rather shorter words and phrases (Lorrell, 2011). To draw a

person´s attention at POW can be easier than at the POT. The advertiser can use longer words

at POW since the person has sufficient time to process the content. One screen should present

only one message using rather headline-style phrases in order to present understandable and

simple message. The main message/statement should be presented at the beginning, but also

repeated at the end (Lorrell, 2011). As already stated, the use of Call to Action statements can

likewise enhance the overall performance of digital signage. These consist of the verb stated

in the beginning followed by contact information or any information that will enable to

consumer to make use of offered service (Google, 2013b). The close proximity of another

eye-catchers, e.g. pictures can ‘’steal’’ consumer´s attention from the main message, but on

the other hand, the sign enriched with pictures is easier to remember (Huang, 2008). From the

typographical perspective, it´s recommend to use sans-serif fonts and contrasting background

what makes the messages easier to read (IADT, 2011). Consumer is exposed to the screen just

for limited time, meaning that the advertiser has to make the duration of the advertisement

shorter than the time needed for person to pass by. As stated in chapter 2.6, the display size

can reduce the display blindness, but sometimes the enlargement of the screen could be very

costly, hence the enlargement of the text size could be much more feasible. The location of

deployment can be crucial in some cases as well. For the places with a lot of foot traffic it is


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suggested to deploy the screen in above head level, in contrary to places such aisles of

groceries stores, where the deployment directly at the eye level can gain more attention

(Lorrell, 2011). Currently, the main drawback of digital signage (cf. chapter 1.3) is its

diversity of supported formats (iAdea, 2012). Once the screen is deployed, it is necessary to

check which formats are supported. Moreover the proper grammar and check for typos is a

must. Furthermore, one should also consider the aspect ratio, resolution of the screen and a

view angle in order to eliminate any distortions.


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Conclusion Digital signage is a promising and very attractive platform that has already gained its fixed

place between other advertising tools. In this work, several configurations were introduced

(e.g. based on application area, location or delivery system). Digital signage with its adaptive

and flexible CDI cycle surely beats the conventional way of advertising. The main issue,

namely the lack of unified standard will be according to W3C in the next years solved.

However, with the rise of the popularity of this advertising form new drawbacks occurred.

Nowadays, when the advertising space is a scarce resource, digital signage is facing to

negative externalities that can influence their deployment.

Firstly, the local authorities can regulate the amount of advertising space. For the sake of

these regulations the auction systems were recommended (Müller and Krüger, 2007b). With

respect to the auction mechanisms, these seem to be viable in terms of scheduling too, as the

conversion rate is in comparison to classic selection approaches higher (Payne, 2006).

Chapter 2.4 and 2.5 explained the whole background hidden behind this infrastructure such as

pricing, type of orders and payment options. Second, the studies of Müller and Krüger (2009,

2009b) revealed that there are still privacy concerns, when using and collecting the contextual

data. Unfortunately, this data are in terms of interactive digital signage crucial, thus the

service in some cases cannot be tailored to the consumer’s needs. There are several legal

regulations that have to be taken into account. Generally, the person has to have right to opt-

out from collection of contextual data (E-commerce-Act, 2013). Furthermore, the provider of

digital signage platform has to be aware of another factors which can impact the utility of

deployed system. For this reason, there were proposed various bottom-up and top-down

effects which can help the provider to avoid display blindness. Moreover, as the service of

digital signage is becoming more complex, sometimes the provider has to offer full- package

solutions, thus in the last part the summarized best practices can be found.

Finally, one will argue that digital signage is already a mature technology (Chen, Qing, et al.

2009). However, this statement can be applied just on the centrally controlled solutions.

Interactive digital signage is still in evolution and techniques such as hand-gestures or face

recognition have to be still improved. Because of this reason, the future research is still

needed in order to map whole development continuously.


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Appendices Figure 2: Volume of digital signage units shipped

Source: Data: Khatri, S. (2009) Changing Retailer Needs Spur Tripling of Retail Digital Signage Market. 2009. http://www.isuppli.com/Display-Materials-and- Systems/News/Pages/Changing-Retailer-Needs-Spur-Tripling-of-Retail-Digital-Signage‐Market.aspx (accessed 2012-12-10. Graph: Négli J. (2012) Interactive Digital Signage as a Service. eServices. Presentation University of Vienna. Table 5: Types of orders

Time Based order Recurring order Standard order Exposure duration 3 units 2 units 2 units Request activation T17 T1 T1 Request Expiration T20 T23 T30 Cycle duration 3 units 2 units 10 units Exposure frequency 1 1 1 Cycle gap 0 units 8 units 0 units Schedule ID 123 234 345 Data Source: Harrison, J. V., & Andrusiewicz, A. (2003). Enhancing digital advertising using dynamically configurable multimedia. In Multimedia and Expo, 2003. ICME'03. Proceedings. 2003 International Conference on (Vol. 1, pp. I-717). IEEE. gz


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Figure 3: Information flow in learning concept for digital signage

Source: Müller, J., Exeler, J., Buzeck, M., & Krüger, A. (2009c). Reflectivesigns: Digital signs that adapt to audience attention. In Pervasive Computing (pp. 17-24). Springer Berlin Heidelberg. Figure 4: Effect of digital signage on approach behaviour

Source: Dennis, C., Newman, A., Michon, R., Josko Brakus, J., & Tiu Wright, L. (2010). The mediating effects of perception and emotion: Digital signage in mall atmospherics. Journal of Retailing and Consumer services, 17(3), 205-215.

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