Month: May 2022

Product News | October 11, 2021

Interactive digital signage: The future of DOOH advertising

Shows an example of a touch-enabled interactive signage display

There has never been a more exciting time for the digital out-of-home industry. From new emerging formats to the accelerated adoption of dynamic DOOH, the innovation taking place in digital out-of-home advertising isn’t slowing down. As digital signage makes its way into new places and spaces, advertisers need to find new ways of catching the attention of their target audience.

That’s where interactivity can make a real difference. For marketing teams, interactivity presents an opportunity to differentiate their brand with effective and engaging stories. For media owners, supporting interactive content can mean more exciting and engaging content across their network, higher premiums associated with booking this sort of complex campaign, and the opportunity to make a splash with delighted social media posts showing off the campaign in action.

What is interactive digital signage?

While personalization has been a hot topic in digital marketing the past few years, the interactive element is what’s really rising to the forefront. These days, you can find interactive ads on desktop, tablet, and—perhaps most frequently—mobile devices. But online isn’t the only place that you can go wild with the level of interactivity; features like advanced audience targeting and anonymized real-time sensors make DOOH uniquely well-suited to creating powerful interactive experiences.

Put simply, interactive digital signage turns traditional advertising into a participatory activity: it invites consumers to physically engage with the display content and find information that’s relevant to them. Whereas traditional digital signage broadcasts information in a single direction, displaying content regardless of whether or not viewers are paying attention, interactive digital signage turns viewers into users.’

Example: This campaign for Dancing with the Stars Australia invited passers-by to push a button on the digital billboard and follow the interactive video tutorial that appeared on the screen. It’s a fun and engaging campaign, and a great example of the potential offered by interactivity.

A brief history of interactive digital signage

The origin of today’s interactive displays can be traced back to the first commercial appearance of touchscreen technology in the early 1980s. Interactive kiosks in the form of the automated teller machine (ATM) were also coming into widespread use at that time, and the ability for customers to interact in that way laid the foundations for the interactive digital signage technologies still emerging today.

While early advancements in digital signage were focused on improving the hardware—with big leaps in the industry being driven by the advent of thinner, brighter displays, improved graphics, and better overall reliability—the significance of those developments in display technology eventually impacted the content and software side. As responsive and dynamic display technology became more affordable and easily available, the market was flooded with digital signage solutions all competing for consumers’ attention. In response, marketers and network owners have started turning to contextualized, dynamic, and perhaps most importantly, interactive content in order to cut through all the noise and preserve the effectiveness of commercial messaging in the DOOH space.

Watch: An interactive DOOH campaign pulling content from social media

Why make digital signage interactive?

The average city-dweller today probably passes by a good number of digital displays on any given day, and most aren’t interactive. With interactive capability generally requiring additional technology and setup, it tends to come at an additional cost. This is both for the media owners who need to outfit the signage and the buyers looking to purchase more intricate campaigns. Is the added expense of investing in interactive signage justified?

The answer largely comes down to memorability in a crowded advertising landscape. According to a report from MAGNA, interactive video ads get 47% more viewing time than non-interactive ones and are more memorable to consumers, regardless of whether or not they choose to interact. People are also more willing to share personal information in exchange for personalization and value; by displaying content that’s relevant and engaging, your audience is more likely to feel comfortable with sharing their data and your buyers can gain insight into customer behaviors which can help inform their future strategies.

Perhaps most crucially for network owners is the fact that potential ad buyers are convinced of interactivity’s effectiveness: 81% of marketers agree that interactive content grabs attention more effectively than static content and 79% believe that it enhances retention of brand messaging when combined with traditional marketing tactics. With high-end buyers seeking ways to make their campaigns stand out, only those DOOH networks that are capable of the interactivity they desire will be in contention to run their campaigns.

Watch: An interactive AR campaign from JCDecaux and BBC Earth

What you need for interactive digital signage

Good interactive content takes a bit of work to bring to life. Network owners will need to secure hardware capable of powering the interactive content, and also drive that hardware with software that can connect all the right pieces together for the content to run flawlessly.

Extensible software offering an open API will generally be the best choice for interactive signage projects, though it is important too to ensure the solution is secure and reliable. Interactive displays within arm’s reach could become targets for tampering by troublemakers, so it’s particularly important that they are secured.

Finally, the signage needs content to be interacted with. This content takes various forms, dependent on the nature of the display. Interactive billboards, for instance, are likely going to display interactive content provided by a media buyer looking to place a particular promotional campaign. For an indoor display, such as a wayfinding terminal in a mall, the interactive content is likely a concern to be handled by the network owners themselves. This isn’t to say that the content must be created in-house. A number of digital signage content providers specialize in providing interactive content that can be tailored to the specific needs of a given network.

Interactive activation for digital signage

“Interactive digital signage” is a broad category, uniting many very different kinds of projects. Here is an overview of some of the most common types of interactivity that are used.

Touch

One of the most common ways digital signage is made interactive is by deploying a touchscreen. The ubiquity of touchscreens today makes this a safe bet for interaction, as there are unlikely to be many barriers to most individuals simply walking up and engaging with the installation. Touch is commonly employed to let audiences browse information on a screen or manipulate on-screen elements.

Common uses: Wayfinding, self-serve kiosks, special ad campaigns

Example: The LinkNYC network of touch-enabled kiosks gives people in New York City access to phone calls, WiFi, directions, and more, all paid for by advertising on the kiosk.

Check out how Intersection bettered the lives of New Yorkers using dynamic DOOH.

Gesture/motion tracking

Gesture control is a lot like touch with a lot more style and a bit less precision. People can walk up and move their hands in the air in front of the sign, with cameras connected to the installation registering the types and speed of the movements being made and triggering corresponding reactions on-screen. This isn’t a particularly common form of interactivity in the digital signage space, though advances in gesture control and greater awareness of hygiene concerns post-pandemic are seeing it become more common.

Common uses: In-store virtual browsing or shopping, interactive advertising

Example: This campaign by Swarovski uses motion and gesture tracking to turn onlookers into participants in an interactive game.

Social media

Social media has been a mainstay of interactive digital signage campaigns for years now, thanks largely to social being such a great tool both for driving engagement and generating onscreen content. The specific implementation of social interactivity varies depending on the campaign. A typical example involves users posting to their own social accounts using a specific hashtag and having their post appear onscreen, sometimes after a moderation process is completed.

Common uses: Advertising

Example: The #SendingLove campaign, facilitated by the World Out of Home Organization, promoted user-submitted messages of love in cities around the world during the fight against the COVID-19.

Mobile

Increasingly, campaigns are making use of the capabilities of mobile phones to deliver some really interesting interactive content. Special applications or mobile websites are created to grant audiences the ability to manipulate onscreen elements or objects, with audiences prompted to visit or download by visiting a site displayed on the billboard. This can be a fun way to put games up on the screen and encourage mass participation in a campaign delivered to a nearby digital billboard.

Common uses: Ad-supported games, interactive advertising, augmented reality

RFID/NFC

RFID (radio frequency identification) and NFC (near field communication) are often spoken about interchangeably, as they achieve similar things with only minor differences. They involve the use of passive chips that interact with a frequency emitted by a powered device, like a smartphone, to deliver information or trigger a reaction. The technology is becoming more common thanks to contactless payment apps promoted by major cellphone companies but might be a bit of a risky choice for an interactive advertising campaign. Many phones today still do not support these technologies.

Augmented reality & visual recognition

Some of the best interactive DOOH campaigns are also some of the simplest. Installing cameras near a digital display and hooking them up to a suitable PC can allow for some really neat augmented reality campaigns. This can be a fun way to bring onlookers and the world around them right into a fun new experience. Other uses include using cameras to do basic visual identification and have campaigns deliver messaging tailored to whoever they see standing by. Different content, for instance, could be delivered depending on whether the onlooker is an adult or a child.

Common uses: AR, dynamic campaigns

Example: JCDecaux and Telia Estonia promoted the launch of a new TV channel, called ‘Inspira’, with Estonia’s first outdoor AR campaign. With 10% of the Estonian population tuning in to the new channel during the first month, we think it’s safe to say this campaign had a positive impact.

QR Codes

QR codes are a fairly passive form of interactivity, offering passers-by the ability to use their phone to receive information or navigate to a website by scanning a code with a capable app. It is generally used to accomplish similar things to NFC campaigns, but is more accessible. Where phones need to include specific hardware to access NFC content, they just need a QR reader application on their smartphone to access codes.

Common uses: Directions, information and website sharing

Example: This campaign by Google Play and oOh! Media offered users the choice of both NFC and QR codes to access media promoted by the campaign.

Key software capabilities for interactive digital signage

Good interactive content takes a bit of work to bring to life. In addition to securing hardware capable of powering the interactive content, network owners will need to select the best digital signage software to connect all the right pieces together and ensure the content runs flawlessly.

Here’s a look at some of the specific features we think you should keep in mind when shopping for digital signage software.

Extensibility

Many interactive DOOH campaigns require real-time integration with external data feeds, audience analytics tools, and other capabilities that generally aren’t included in digital signage software by default.

Extensible software offering an open API will generally be the best choice for interactive signage projects, though it is important too to ensure the solution is secure and reliable. You don’t want to go to the trouble of integrating a service into your network only to have your players fail to play your interactive content.

Dynamic content playback

Since interactive digital signage is a subset of dynamic DOOH, your digital signage software needs to have the ability to change on-screen content in response to external data or triggers. But even though the number of brands demanding dynamic ad capabilities is growing, not all software is capable of displaying this type of content.

To make sure your network doesn’t miss out on great opportunities, check that your digital signage software supports dynamic playback more generally, and is capable of supporting the specific aspects (touchscreen, gesture control, etc.) of your interactive campaigns.

Mobile device integration or coordination

Thanks to advancements in mobile and DOOH advertising technology, it’s easier than ever for brands to create seamless omnichannel campaigns across platforms. Geofencing and scannable QR codes let users engage with digital kiosks and other touchscreen displays without making physical contact, and can help bring interactivity to projected content, displays behind windows, and large video wall displays.

Less direct methods of interactivity have been gaining traction in the wake of COVID-19, so we recommend choosing a digital signage software that supports this type of approach via mobile device integrations.

As interactive technology gets cheaper and more widespread, it’s likely that interactivity will increasingly be seen as a must-have for many networks operating in the digital space. Investing in the right tech today will put network owners and their businesses on the most productive path in the years to come.

Do you want to build an interactive digital signage network?
Request your demo of Broadsign to see how our software can help!

Product News | October 11, 2021

What’s new in the Broadsign Platform: Sophisticated targeting, creative management and UI improvements

We can’t think of a better way to end the year than with fresh updates to the Broadsign Platform. We’re introducing streamlined creative management, sophisticated targeting tools, and major UI improvements, making the campaign planning and management process for directly sold campaigns seamless for campaign planners. 

Why does this matter? While the activation process for digital out-of-home (DOOH) may only require a couple of minutes, the campaign planning and management process often requires much more time. Discovering available and relevant inventory, collecting data to prove the medium’s effectiveness in meeting campaign goals, and managing campaign creatives are all time-consuming tasks.

This new round of updates introduce a new level of automation that not only reduces the time and complexities of getting DOOH campaigns out the door but also helps make out-of-home (OOH) a competitive and attractive medium for buyers. Let’s dive in!

Simplified creative management and centralized campaign planning

Media owners juggle multiple campaigns and creatives simultaneously, and without the right tools, the creative management process can become complex and error-prone for your teams. Our new creative management tools now allow you to create, edit, manage, and assign campaign creatives with ease. On top of that, you’ll also be able to push your campaigns live – all within a single unified workflow through the Broadsign Platform.

Assign and schedule creatives the way you want to

You now have full flexibility in how you want to assign and schedule creatives to your campaigns. Assign one or multiple creatives to your line items of a campaign, and apply multiple scheduling options to your creatives for all or specific line items in a campaign. 

Simply put, this makes it easier to build multi-message or multi-venue campaigns, simplifies the management of mixed-duration or staggered-start campaigns, provides more accurate alignment between creative strategy and real-world delivery, and makes you less reliant on offline scheduling adjustments. 

Manage your creatives in one place

You can now manage creative bundles for each campaign directly in the new web-based workflow, eliminating the need to go through the Broadsign desktop tools. This enhancement provides your team with greater flexibility by allowing them to access and manage their campaigns from any location at any time. 

We think you’ll also love how intuitive and easy-to-use the campaign planning tools are to adopt. Users of all technical proficiency levels can quickly learn and use this streamlined approach to create and manage campaigns with ease. 

Sophisticated targeting tools that find the best inventory 

Granular targeting shouldn’t be exclusive to programmatic. That’s why last year, we introduced targeting tools for directly sold campaigns executed through the Broadsign Platform, giving campaign planners the same flexibility and comprehensive targeting capabilities as online and programmatic media buyers. 

The targeting tools included the ability to filter your inventory by location and key points of interest (POIs), enabling campaign planners to find the most relevant inventory for each campaign at the click of a button. An intuitive map view was also introduced, allowing you to better visualize your inventory with quick filtering options by area, support for bulk location uploads, and setting radius parameters. 

This year, we’re introducing two powerful targeting upgrades for directly sold campaigns: demographics and criteria targeting. With demographics targeting, you can filter inventory by attributes like age, gender, or occupation to find the screens that will maximize campaign impact. We’ve also enhanced criteria targeting, giving you more granular control over inclusion and exclusion rules. For example, when building a proposal for an alcohol brand, you can now quickly exclude screens that don’t allow alcohol ads from your inventory search in just a few clicks. 

These new additions to the Broadsign Platform not only reduce the manual work required for inventory discovery but also give your team the opportunity to be a more strategic partner to buyers. We’re also excited to share that these enhanced targeting capabilities are now available to Broadsign customers worldwide! 

Additional management tools for an improved user experience

Along with comprehensive creative management and targeting tools for directly-sold campaigns, additional tools and UI enhancements have been added to improve the usability and user experience of the Broadsign Platform:

Inventory package accessibility

Access inventory packages effortlessly through the platform’s updated navigation bar, enhancing efficiency and ease of use.

Centralized settings management

Administrators can now adjust and manage all necessary settings for digital and static inventory, user management, and more directly within the platform’s web-based UI through a centralized hub for control and configuration.

Campaign monitoring enhancements

With the newly implemented progress indicator, real-time monitoring of campaign pacing is now possible, giving immediate insight into campaign performance. This allows for quick adjustments to be made, as needed, to meet campaign goals effectively.

Search functionality and filters

An improved search mechanism, complemented by additional filters like campaign, client or contract names, enables quicker and more accurate campaign retrieval, saving time and improving workflow.

Line item list

You can now access a list of all line items directly through the navigation bar. Operations teams now have a more precise and comprehensive view of all bookings made on your network.

Dashboard customization

Tailor the platform’s dashboard to meet individual needs, ensuring that the most relevant and important information is always front and center.

Interested in testing out these new features? Book a demo today

Product News | October 11, 2021

How Visit Arizona drove a 30% increase in arrivals with programmatic DOOH

Visit Arizona, the official tourism board, launched a programmatic digital out-of-home campaign to inspire consumers nationwide to plan a trip to Arizona. The initiative was a strategic move to engage potential travellers in target markets and communicate with them at every stage of the planning process, from initial awareness to final booking.

Objective

The campaign aimed to build top-of-mind awareness and drive measurable results in the form of increased arrivals, with effectiveness measured through a combination of mobile retargeting and an arrival lift study to track actual consumer visits.

Strategy

Planned by agency of record, Off Madison Ave, OutMoove DSP was used to strategically place DOOH ads across high-traffic venues in key markets, to specifically target the client’s core High Value Personas. Programmatic DOOH was selected due to the ability to target these specific audience segments through a variety of placements. The media strategy maximized visibility and engaged consumers throughout their daily routines, guiding them along the travel planning journey.

Results

Success was measured through mobile retargeting via Native Touch and an arrival lift study conducted with Arrivalist.

High mobile engagement in key markets

Mobile retargeting was used to continue the conversation with consumers who saw the DOOH ads. This retargeting effort was highly successful, with mobile ads achieving a viewability rate of over 90%. The campaign drove strong results in key markets, demonstrating its ability to create a lasting impression and bridge the gap between OOH and mobile engagement.

Significant arrival lift

Visit Arizona saw a 30% arrival lift, exceeding the national average of 23% for similar campaigns. This result confirms the campaign’s strong influence on consumer travel decisions and its effectiveness in translating ad exposure into real-world arrivals.

“At Off Madison, we are thrilled with the success of Visit Arizona’s programmatic DOOH campaign. By strategically placing digital ads in high-traffic venues across key markets, we not only captured the attention of potential travellers but also drove significant results. Our collaboration with Broadsign and the deployment of a multi-faceted media strategy enabled us to surpass the national average in arrival lifts, reinforcing the power of innovative, targeted OOH advertising. This campaign is a testament to our commitment to engaging audiences in meaningful ways and transforming inspiration into action.” – Kriss M. Scheid, Associate Media Director, Off Madison Ave

Want the campaign highlights? Check out the infographic below.

Product News | October 11, 2021

From screens to sales: How retailers can unlock the power of in-store media

In-store retail media is evolving rapidly. What was once a simple network of screens has become one of retailers’ most strategic assets—a channel that blends shopper intent, media influence, and real purchase behaviour in a way no other environment can. In our recent RetailWire webinar, Broadsign’s Global Head of Retail Media, Jonathan Franco, and retail media expert Colin Lewis explored why the store has become essential to a unified retail media strategy, how retailers can use data to transform in-store content, and the practical steps teams can take to measure, scale, and fully own their in-store activation.

Let’s dive in.

The store is becoming retail media’s biggest advantage

As expectations grow for retail media leaders to deliver meaningful, incremental revenue, retailers are reassessing where the most valuable shopper attention truly lives.

According to Jonathan, retailers today face enormous and often unrealistic expectations to generate significant profit growth for retail media. That pressure is pushing many to rethink their foundational assets. 

For brick-and-mortar retailers, the store is that differentiator. 

“The store is the most influential part of retail media, simply because that’s where most purchasing decisions happen.” – Colin Lewis

Digitizing the store is no longer optional. It’s becoming the engine that unlocks new growth and helps retailers compete with digital-first giants. And it’s not just about screens. Jonathan emphasized the importance of a fully digitized environment – ESLs, smart carts, upgraded POS, audio, scan-and-go tech – all contributing to richer data, better control, and more monetizable shopper touchpoints. 

Retailers who make these investments aren’t just modernizing operations. They’re creating a growth engine that directly addresses the pressure to deliver new revenue.

Data turns screens into smarter, more relevant media

Static screens aren’t enough anymore. Relevance, driven by data, is what makes in-store media meaningful for shoppers and valuable for advertisers. 

“The future isn’t about more content — it’s about smarter content. Precision wins.” — Colin Lewis

Colin explained that smarter content means using the right signals at the right time to reach the right shopper, turning every screen into a targeted, high-impact touchpoint rather than just a visual backdrop. Leading retailers are already driving stronger outcomes by using:

  • Inventory signals
  • Dayparting
  • Dynamic templates
  • Location and mission-based messaging
  • Weather and event triggers
  • Automated content variations across hundreds of stores

Jonathan notes that when retailers digitize their stores, the opportunity is twofold: they improve operations and unlock new retail media revenue, as data-enriched content performs far better than static loops.

You Don’t Need Perfect Measurement to Start

One of the biggest misconceptions around in-store retail media is that retailers need full end-to-end attribution from day one. Colin challenged that idea, emphasizing that retailers can focus on demonstrating early wins, which builds confidence and momentum for more advanced measurement later. 

“Measurement doesn’t have to be solved to get started. What matters is proving value quickly, then levelling up.” – Colin Lewis

The key to success is starting with simple, foundational measurement frameworks that can be both effective and manageable, reinforcing Colin’s point about getting started without waiting for perfection. Jonathan emphasized this, highlighting that retailers can begin with foundational measurement frameworks that are simple yet effective:

Phase 1: Start with practical basics.

  • Proof-of-play
  • Directional sales life insight
  • Store-Level A/B Testing
  • Traffic and Mission-Based Audience Proxies

Phase 2: Layer sophistication over time

  • Incrementality models
  • Marketing Mixed Model (MMM)
  • Closed-loop attribution
  • Standardized retail media reporting.

Perfection isn’t required to launch; progress is what matters.

In-store must be part of the unified retail media strategy 

Retail media networks often overlook a critical point: in-store only reaches its full potential when it’s integrated into the broader retail media ecosystem. 

“Once you’ve done all of this, in-store cannot operate in a silo. It has to be unified with on-site, off-site, merchandising, and marketing.” – Jonathan Franco

Retailers who break down silos across merchandising, media, and operations unlock:

  • More consistent shopper messaging.
  • Better advertiser insight.
  • Cross-channel optimization.
  • Higher monetization potential.

This internal alignment across a retail business is what allows in-store to connect digital intent with physical action – the holy grail of retail media. 

What retailers should prioritize next

If retailers want to fully own their in-store activation, the next steps are clear:

  1. Treat the store as a media channel, not as an operational asset: Align teams and processes accordingly.
  2. Use data to drive contextual dynamic content: Move away from static playlists.
  3. Begin measurement immediately – even if it’s not perfect: Prove value, then expand. 
  4. Build a tech stack that supports flexibility and scale: Composable, real-time systems win.
  5. Bring in-store, online, and off-site together: A unified strategy unlocks the most value for retailers and advertisers.

By taking these steps, retailers don’t just implement a set of best practices—they actively transform their stores into powerful media engines. These actions create a foundation for meaningful shopper engagement, stronger advertiser partnerships, and sustainable revenue growth.

Your in-store media advantage starts now

Owning in-store media isn’t just about placing screens across your stores. It’s about building a connected media ecosystem that influences shopper decisions at the moment of purchase, supports brand partners with meaningful insights, and unlocks a sustainable new revenue channel.

Retailers that take ownership today won’t just keep pace with the industry; they’ll lead it.

Want more retail insights? Watch the full webinar recording here.