NO TV ads in Digital Signage!

“Can you play the creative made for TV on Digital Signage Networks? Answer: NO”

Each advertising medium has its own way of communicating with the audience. Television media uses both audio & video, while print media uses visuals & so on. In certain scenarios same form of advertisement is used for more than one type of medium as in case of Print Media and Signage Media (i.e. the Banner Media), where the exact same visuals can be effectively used. However the same concept cannot be applied to the Digital Signage & the Television media.

The ads created for Television are designed to grab the attention of a viewer who is most likely stationary. The Ads are deliberately created to capture the viewer’s imagination through creative visuals that includes sound, music, human emotions etc & then associate that imagination with the brand. These Ads are usually of 10 seconds to a few minutes duration, and are best suitable for Television Media. However in the Digital Signage medium even a 30 seconds Ad would still be a lengthy Ad.

Here’s why…. Digital Signage is out door & out of home advertising. Most audiences of this medium are mobile & are on the move. They are shopping in a mall, buying movie tickets, waiting for the lift to get to their office floors, or at a take-away joint or a grocery store. The Ads on this medium have to be visually appealing & of a short duration, preferably with moving content, which would instantly grab the audience attention. As the audiences are mobile lengthy Ads, designed for Television, may not appeal to them as they would not pause for a minute or even 30 seconds to watch the advertisement. Moreover not all displays on the digital signage medium have the audio output option. If television advertisements (which almost always have audio) are relayed on such displays without audio output, then the purpose of such advertising will certainly not be very effective or appealing.

Furthermore Digital Signage advertising is best known for its “Recall” effect. Its USP is its ability to influence the consumer’s buying decision when they are shopping. Research indicates that brand switching occur in-stores as customers are most vulnerable to change while shopping. Digital Signage is effective in capturing the customer’s interest by “recalling” the brand they heard about or have used in the past or if the buyer is already a consumer, it helps in reinstating their brand loyalty when shopping. As “recall” (reminding the patrons of a brand / generating awareness) is the prime objective of advertising on Digital Signage, short duration Ads are the best & most benefiting form of advertising on this medium.

Kiosk Mint, a new age digital signage network, has the technology to support lengthy Ads. However, for effective advertising, Kiosk Mint recommends Advertisers to design short duration Ads for the Digital Signage medium. Ads with visuals, text, animation, video clippings or 2D flash etc… that are visually attractive & which can immediately catch a patron’s attention are the best form of advertisements for Digital Signage Advertising medium.

Footfall Vs Viewership

“Is the number of Footfall the real measure of your Ad’s viewership?”

Every advertising medium has an Audience Measurement system that relies on various techniques, electronic equipments, surveys, research etc to collect audience data and determines the viewership or listenership or readership of the medium using algorithms & metrics. In the case of Digital Signage Medium, “Footfall”, i.e. the number of visitors at a location, is a commonly followed metric for the calculation of the viewership on the medium.

However existing digital signage network operators do not use footfall as a “standard of measurement” to “measure” the audience, but instead they use it as a “standard” to “indicate” the audience on their network. Which means, that if location ‘A’ has 1000 footfall per day and location ‘B’ has 800 footfall per day, and an advertiser’s Ad appears on the digital signages installed at both the locations A & B, then it is presumed that the Ad was viewed by around 1800 viewers on that day. Most existing network operators use this theory to indicate their market presence and the ‘presumed’ audience of the digital signages on their network.

A more reliable approach is to use footfall as a metric, i.e. a ‘standard of measurement’, to measure the audience of an Ad appearing on a digital signage. And to use an algorithm to analyse the footfall information as a metric, to estimate the viewership of an Ad. An algorithm that considers into account that the footfall at a location is spread through out the day and is higher during peak business hours; takes into account that not just a single Ad appears on a screen through out the day but other Ads are displayed as well; and that the footfall information varies from weekday to weekday at every location.

Kiosk Mint uses an algorithm that takes into account the above indicated considerations, and estimates the viewership for an Ad. Footfall information is collected for normal hours & peak hours for each weekday for every location on the network. And the Online Digital Signage Platform automatically calculates the ratio of a single Ad campaign against the rest of the Ad campaigns displayed on a digital signage at any given time. Using the footfall information & the Ad ratio, Kiosk Mint applies its algorithm to match the footfall and the Ad ratio during normal & peak business hours at a location and calculates the viewership.

For example: if a location has 1000 footfall on a day, which is distributed as approximately 30% during first peak business hours & 35% during the second peak business hours and during first peak business hours 200 Ad impression happened, out of which 50 impressions were of Ad ‘A’, then the viewership of Ad ‘A’ during the first peak hours is calculated as (Ratio of Ad ‘A’) X (footfall during the first peak business hours) i.e.

Ratio of Ad ‘A’ is 50/200 X 100 = 25%

Footfall during first peak business hours is 30% of 1000 = 300

Estimated Viewership of Ad ‘A’ during first peak business hours is = 25% X 300 = 75

Likewise the estimated viewership is calculated for second peak business hours & also the normal hours, based on the number of footfall & the Ad ratio during those hours. The collective estimated viewership for a campaign across all the kiosks at various locations where the Ad was displayed, in a day, is presented as the effective viewership for that day.

While conventional network operators, due to resistance to changing digital signage industry trends, continue to present footfall as a direct measure of an Ad’s viewership, Kiosk Mint, using the collected & calculated information and by applying its ‘Audience Measurement’ algorithm calculates the viewership of an Ad per day. Kiosk Mint presents the information to Advertisers in the form of reports, giving them an understanding of their Ad-Campaign performance.