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15-04-2022

What is driving the digital signage market?

ISE Digital Signage Summit will address a number of important industry trends that together make up the ‘New Agenda’ for digital signage. Content Chair Florian Rotberg, Managing Director of Invidis Consulting, discussed the main market drivers. “There are three aspects that are affecting the digital signage/DooH sector”:

Firstly, sustainability. What has changed, especially during the pandemic, is that there’s a greater awareness around environmentally friendly, sustainable digital signage solutions. In the past end customers never really asked about power consumption, but that has changed dramatically. More and more are looking at green signage solutions and that is making a substantial difference. It started in the Nordics but is now also coming to Germany and southern Europe where we are seeing major changes on the demand side.
What is really interesting is that only 20% of the carbon footprint of LED/LCD digital signage comes from its production. The other 80% comes from the five years on average that a device is used. That’s the biggest lever we see. So it’s not about tearing out something you’ve installed and putting in something else – that would be foolish – it’s really about finding more sustainable operational models. That means turning off LED displays at night, for example. Currently the majority of LEDs run 24/7 because it was sometimes difficult to switch them on again in the morning – so instead just the content was turned off but the LED wall was left running, which equates to 40% of its maximum power consumption. Not only does it use a lot of power, it generates a lot of heat, which means the air-conditioning needs to run – that’s a crazy situation. Self-service kiosk terminals on a factory floor or in an office building are often on 24/7 – but there’s absolutely no need for them to run at night if there’s no one there.
Secondly, consolidation. Consolidation is key as projects become more and more global. End users are also looking for more global digital signage integrators. Some really big players are emerging and what is most interesting is that some of the first ones have been valued at over €100 million, which means that a lot of private equity companies have entered the market. It is really taking off and we see dramatic changes in this drive to consolidation.
Thirdly, connected experiences. Pro AV was previously planned and optimised in silos. Now these silos are being broken down to create connected experiences – almost orchestrating the different touch points. Rather than having a touch point here and a touch point there, it is now about looking at the customer journey and making sure it follows a story.
For some years everyone was talking about omnichannel but in reality they were doing multichannel. They optimised each channel individually, but they never managed to connect, to orchestrate them. Now for the first time, the big brands are really able to offer full omnichannel concepts.
The first ones to be able to do so are vertically integrated companies such as Zara, the Spanish fashion retailer, because they operate everything themselves – both the stores and online. If you order from them, a package may sometimes be shipped from the shop nearest to your location rather than from a large distribution centre. In the past, many companies’ IT systems – ERP and warehouse management – were lacking. However, now that their IT systems have been improved, the big brands are able to offer full omnichannel concepts.

These topics will be among those discussed at the ISE Digital Signage Summit on Wednesday 11 May. You’ll find he whole story in the printed issue of SignPro Europe 1-2022, recently distributed all over Europe.

Picture: LedGo-floor: moves when walking on it.