It’s not the (Digital Signage) “Medium”, Silly!

Filed Under Advertising, Digital Signage

When critics of advertising on Digital Signage decide to crticize our industry, they generally group everything (locations, venue types, positioning, Operator competence/ quality, content quality/relevance, ad quality/relevance, audience, measurement) into one big picture, hang it on the wall and then go to town by throwing darts over their shoulder.

That’s like saying the TV medium failed an ad campaign because household TVs, on average, aren’t big enough…

Digital Signage is such a complex medium to fully understand and perfect with so many moving pieces that a true disection of what makes for the “best” Digital Signage implementation for optimal advertising use is really a 3 million dollar Accenture report waiting to happen. As an example; the TV business doesn’t have to contend with the idea of “Screen Positioning” in the matrix of whether or not Content or Advertising reached its audience effectively. If the TV business was held to the standards that we are, Nielsen ratings and Media Buyers would have to take into account how big a TV was, which corner of the house it was in and what size of house it was in order to prove their worth as an effective medium and understand the likelihood of where in the house a consumer may have been exactly when that ad played.

Sounds a little silly but I’m exagerating arguments against Digital Signage that I’ve heard in my travels.

I’ll admit that Digital Signage is still immature and has a ways to go to fully be able to support every single advertiser in every single campaign but if you’re going to take a swing at the industry, do it in segments:

The medium (this involves the broad spectrum of the existence of Digital Signage and includes “where are my screens and how are they positioned”)
The Content/Creative - How good, engaging and how relevant is what’s on the screen to the audience that’s in front of them
The Advertising - How good is your advertising and how effective is it on the medium? (here we go back to the idea that you can’t repurpose TV content for this medium)

I’ve gone off on this a bunch of times in the past and you can find many arguments on this blog to support my attitudes.

So it was nice to see a respected duo out of New York actually take a swing at the magazine and newspaper industry in a similar argument to those that I use. This one specifically analyzing the fact that, while Magazine & Newspaper sales may be on the decline, it may not be the fault of the MEDIUM or the CONTENT/CREATIVE as much as it is the fault of the ADVERTISING.

Remember that the ad business is in flux right now and that dollars are shifting everywhere where they didn’t used to be but as Suzanne Grayson says in the article:

“Their (Agency) print advertising isn’t pulling (grabbing attention or producing the old ROI), so they’re shooting the messenger [media] rather than aiming the gun at their own ads,” said Ms. Grayson, partner with her husband in the consulting firm Grayson Associates.

Couldn’t have said it better myself.

Grayson does 31 point “analysis” and scoring on Print creative ads. I like the concept and also liked some of what they had to say about a J&J ad:

One for Johnson & Johnson’s Neutrogena Helioplex Suncare products gained a high score with an ad using more than 300 words, two charts, seven product shots and at least five direct or indirect comparative-superiority claims.

This really goes against that old “Product, Logo, Tagline, Value” drivvle you see out there a lot.

Another great comment, and I have to say this is very typical of Digital Signage ads out there:

the Graysons say they’ve found a host of bland, look-alike ads without much selling power — a problem also common in the beauty industry, with which they’re more familiar. “The automotive category has one ad after another showing back views of cars going through mountains,” Mr. Grayson said. “If you took the logos away, you wouldn’t know what car it is.”

We always have to remember that Digital Signage is as much a below the line (sellling) medium as it is above the line (advertising/branding/educating). It requires a different approach with new creative aptitudes.

So stop with the templates, spinning product shot with price or lame pseudo promotion with no value or call to action for the consumer and let’s get our head wrapped around how to speak to our audience properly for a change.

But whatever you do, don’t just blindly blame the medium itself for problems and misunderstandings that exist on levels the Digital Signage industry can’t do anything about by simply “existing”.

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