Retail Wire: Digital Signage Draws Attention
This article originally was posted on June 18, 2008 at Retail Wire.
By Tom Ryan
According to a new study, digital signage catches the attention of more people than any other comparable advertising medium. It was also found digital signage to be more interesting than any other medium and more entertaining than every other one except TV.
The survey of 900 adults in July 2007 conducted by OTX (Online Testing eXchange) found that digital signage - defined as videos of electronic images on LCD, plasma or normal TV outside of the home - “catches their attention” for 63 percent of respondents. That’s higher than billboards (58 percent), magazines (57 percent), TV (56 percent), internet (47 percent), newspaper (40 percent), and radio (37 percent).
SeeSaw Networks, a media company specializing in digital out-of-home media, commissioned the study.
Respondents said they noticed digital signage in an average of six locations over the past week. Among the places cited was airports, train stations, elevators, doctor’s waiting rooms, casinos, health clubs, golf courses, restaurants, bars, gas stations, checkout lines and sports stadiums.
Forty-four percent of respondents paid “some” or “a lot of” attention to digital signage. That rated below TV (52 percent) and close to magazines (45 percent). But it was higher than radio (40 percent), newspaper (40 percent), billboard (33 percent) and internet (32 percent).
Asked which advertising medium they found to be “least annoying,” only newspapers (23 percent) were less annoying than digital signage (26 percent). Billboards were also at 26 percent, followed by magazines (33 percent), TV (51 percent), radio (52 percent) and internet (67 percent).
The study also broke out digital signage awareness across 12 Life Patterns. Although all groups were highly aware of digital signage, young urban professionals, college students, mobile affluents, avid moviegoers, and Hispanic families skewed slightly higher.
One clear difference was around text messaging. The survey found that 73 percent of college students and 68 percent of respondents between the ages of 18 and 34 used text messaging versus 50 percent to total adults. And of all respondents using text messaging, 53 percent said they are likely to “text a response” to an offer seen on digital signage.
