Saturn | The Digital Signage Experts

To be frank, I’m getting a bit tired of seeing the phrase ‘Content is King’. I can’t read a best- practice article on digital signage these days without gritting my teeth waiting for the hackneyed phrase to pop up before I’ve got to the final paragraph. But I can’t help admitting that the reason it’s so over-used is because it’s true.  Maybe its frequency is a sign that our industry collectively feels it’s banging its head against a brick wall in despair at the number of poorly-designed systems still out there.

I’ve just come back from delivering a digital signage content masterclass to an internal communications team to streamline a signage solution for a global pharmaceutical brand. Nothing that unusual there you may think. But in this instance it was for a digital signage system that we didn’t supply and for on-screen content that we neither produced nor specified. It was an unusual starting point and in many respects meant we were starting from scratch.

I have to admit to being slightly daunted by starting with a blank piece of paper – but, as so often happens when we hold masterclasses, the outcomes were surprising and provided unexpected lessons for the team developing the company’s digital signage provision.  

Firstly, it got us thinking about an intriguing question: is digital signage a piece of technology or a communications channel? We agreed, it is most definitely the latter, with technology simply being the enabling factor. It’s so easy to get carried away using all the bells and whistles the software has to offer that your content ends up looking more like a multi-coloured abstract painting than a means of delivering messages that can connect with your audience and inform, motivate and engage them.

Secondly we debated whether digital signage technology could do the work of existing paper-based communications, emails and intranets.  Digital signage is not a replacement for these existing channels - all good corporate communication works best when there is effective integration between channels.  So we should look for ways of using the immediacy of digital signage as a ‘push’ mechanism that dovetails with messaging in other channels.

Looking at some best practice examples among our client portfolio led us to some definite conclusions – one of which was how powerful systems were that had developed a name and visual identity for their digital signage network. It certainly seems no coincidence that such systems generate the best results.

Then we began to explore the nitty gritty in terms of the use of colour, fonts, imagery and video to make the most impact - as well as considering how the behaviour and location of the audience affects the presentation and delivery. How long can we expect people’s attention and are the screens best positioned where they are stationery or moving? The masterclass even concluded by exploring the options for using metrics to evaluate success - often considered to be the holy grail of digital signage.

Whether content is king, reigns supreme, is ruler of the waves or master of the universe, really makes no difference.  What does is a concerted effort to use simple, proven best-practice techniques to avoid ending up with disappointment.  On its own, technology can achieve nothing; it’s how you use digital signage that makes all the difference.