To be honest, nobody knows the future of advertising. Digital signs have a slew of new and building trends, but it is impossible to know if the trends will blossom or wilt away into nothing. Here are a few of the top trends that may one day shape the world of digital sign advertising.
Live Streaming Content
This sort of thing started in call centers. They would live stream information such as sales targets. They could show their staff how many sales had been made and how many needed to be made to hit their targets. They also showed things like how many people were on hold and how long people had been on hold. These days, we are seeing a wider variety of live-streaming activities. We are seeing the live streaming of promotional events, live streaming of demonstrations, and even live streaming of news and update content. There are also people who have started live streaming their meetings, as well as social media live streamers who cast their content to digital signs when they are visiting places like music events, standup comedy in theaters and so forth.
Motion-Triggered Digital Signs
This sort of thing was featured in the movie Minority Report, where Tom Cruise walked past a bunch of holographic digital signs and it triggered them. Similar things are happening in the digital sign world. Some retailers are even controlling content based on what people are looking at. For example, if you stand in front of the new super mop, then its advertisement comes on the screen. This sort of thing has become a trend but isn’t as new as some people think. The Epcot Center and parts of Universal Studios in Florida have been using these types of motion-controlled digital signs for decades. They were doing this sort of thing when their screens were regular TVs with those big ugly backs to them.
Digital Sign Menus
This is probably the oldest trend on this list. McDonald’s brought out their digital signs where you could pick your food, order and pay for your food, all without talking to the person behind the counter. These days, there are even McDonald’s locations where they have removed the counter tellers completely and just have a person walking around giving out help if people need it. Almost all their customers are so accustomed to touchscreen buying that most people do not need help. In fact, the most common problems revolve around completing a transaction because a certain type of payment didn’t go through. It is true that other businesses have been slow to adopt this trend, but since McDonald’s has introduced and maintained it so well, it is hard to see how this trend will ever die.
Strong Tech-Forward Trends
An inter-office trend using video chats is trying its best to get off the ground. It isn’t a new idea. In fact, it featured in the TV show Friends, when Monica was dating the millionaire (played by Jon Favreau). Having video calls through TV screens was an idea for a while, but then Smartphones took the lead and people made video calls through them. However, some offices are finding digital sign video calls offer more value because the workers can keep their hands free, and they can use their phones during the video call. This is just one of many emerging technology trends.
There are quite a few of new tech-forwards technologies popping up, often associated with breakthroughs in digital signage software. For example, there are things like lucid mode, the ability to use VPN, video calls, shopping apps and so forth. You can read about the emerging tech trends here: https://blog.kitcast.tv/top-digital-signage-trends/
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