Big Growth in Retail Digital Signage Predicted

Display and Design Ideas reports on its 2006 At-Retail Media Survey focused on visual merchandisers, store planners, designers and brand marketers. The results include some bullish responses to digital signage:

Digital signage may see a boost in the industry in years to come, as 69.8 percent of respondents said that digital signage would be used by "significantly more" or "slightly more" retailers in the next three to five years. Just more than 9 percent of respondents said that digital signage would be used by "virtually all" retailers in the next three to five years. Vendor-retailer relationships may need to improve for digital signage to really take off in the retail industry; however, as 50 percent of respondents reported that "vendors are not at all involved" in providing custom content for digital signage, and 66.7 percent said that "vendors are not at all involved" in providing financial support for digital signage programs. Nearly 42 percent of respondents would like to see the ability to measure effectiveness (ROI) among the technological aspects of digital signage they would like to see improved.

There's an interesting implication in the responses that retailers believe that vendors should both provide content and financial support for in-store digital signage.