The COVID-19 pandemic has boosted interest in digital signage solutions. The significant growth experienced across the digital signage market is driven by the technology’s ability to create unique and sophisticated customer experiences via targeted messaging that reaches huge audiences while minimizing direct person-to-person interaction. The widespread adoption of video as a tool for communication and collaboration within enterprises further accelerates digital signage market growth. Moreover, the decline in screen prices implies that more screens have become available and affordable to a larger customer base, supporting the dominance of video communications across a network or campus.
The digital signage ecosystem is quite complex and fragmented, comprised of display vendors, software companies, media player manufacturers, advertisement agencies, audio/visual (AV) integrators, and technical support services. Also, the emergence of affordable turnkey bundled solutions and platforms, as well as integrators who take charge of the entire digital signage deployment—from concept to ongoing maintenance—supports growth across all segments of the market, such as retail, transportation, hospitality, corporate, education, and government.
Verizon has simplified the digital signage experience with the delivery of a complete turnkey solution that earned Frost & Sullivan’s 2020 Global Product Line Strategy Award. The affordable and versatile solution includes a reliable media player that connects to an HDMI compatible display and an online portal featuring extensive design content and campaign management tools, all of which is hosted on Verizon’s extensive and secure wireless network. This innovation has proven to be especially useful during the COVID-19 pandemic when the need for effective yet safe customer engagement has never been greater.
Verizon’s end-to-end digital signage solution supports customers across a broad range of industries and settings, especially those affected by the pandemic the most, (i.e., businesses, retail, banking, hotels, hospitals, shopping malls, restaurants, college campuses, transit hubs, sports arenas, and concert venues). Digital signage provides contact-less customer engagement and can be connected where Wi-Fi is limited, provides information and wayfinding, creates compelling brand experiences, and streamlines visual communications. By embedding a fourth-generation (4G LTE) connection to its Wi-Fi-connected media player, Verizon creates its own hardware by combining a router and a media player to solve core issues around connectivity. In fact, Verizon’s 4G LTE media player can connect to any HDMI-compatible display or sign. Verizon delivers campaigns over its fast and reliable 4G LTE network to ensure that traffic does not run on any corporate network. It also provides unlimited storage and a media playback function—making it a complete one-stop-shop. As a single provider for hardware, software, and connectivity, Verizon guarantees superior security and simplifies the user experience. Furthermore, Verizon includes standard data price plans in its offering. Enhanced tools for the signage administrator include real-time device alerts, remote screenshots, remote reboots, and a companion mobile application.
Potential buyers may need guidance in the relatively new but fragmented digital signage market, typified by low barriers to entry where hundreds of software providers and a vast sea of hardware offerings create too much noise. Traditionally, enterprises have deployed visual communication solutions in silos, failing to consider the benefits of an enterprise-wide, centrally managed solution. As a result, control rooms, conference rooms, and lobby displays are often operated from different systems, thereby increasing technical support costs and creating security issues for IT departments. Concurrently, these solutions, which are all hardware-based, are expensive, unreliable, non-scalable, and inflexible.
Companies and organizations will also need to understand the long-term cost benefits of shifting from expensive hardware in favor of a software-as-a-service-based solution where hardware and software work seamlessly together. Also, vendors must educate customers on the advantages of an enterprise-wide solution—specifically the benefit of being able to scale when and as needed, thus mitigating the cost of the transition.
