Kris Konrath, Author at Blog by Convergent

Tips From DSaaS Experts

Chances are, you already have some guidelines that come to mind when designing creative content: stay away from red, ensure your content is engaging, know your audience, etcetera, etcetera. But what would the experts say are the non-negotiables when creating effective content specific to digital signage? Is it the layout of the messages? Possibly. Is it the color scheme or clever wording? Could be. How about the eye catching branded content that really draws the viewer’s attention? You’re getting there. We sat down with one of our experts to discuss some of the secrets of the trade. Here’s the skinny, […]

Blog

The Color Connection

Human beings prefer our lives to be colorful – literally. As The Ultimate Guide to Using Color Psychology in Marketing says: “Color is an essential tool because it has an impact on how we think and behave. Color directs our eye where to look, what to do, and how to interpret something. It puts content into context. It helps us decide what’s important and what’s not.” Understanding how we react to color is, not surprisingly, critical to design. But it may interest you to learn that there appears to be an evolutionary component to our color preferences, which is even more compelling when […]

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The Human Brain: Hardwired for Motion

We human beings are a brainy bunch. Our brain is the largest relative to body size among all other vertebrates. The cerebral cortex is greatly enlarged in humans and is the seat of complex thought. But in today’s modern world, it’s easy to forget that the brain has been key to our continued existence. “The brain . . . is designed to solve problems related to surviving in an unstable outdoor environment and to do so in nearly constant motion (to keep you alive long enough to pass your genes on). We were not the strongest on the planet, but […]

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Brick and Mortar Still Matters

BRICK AND MORTAR STILL MATTERS For brick and mortar, delivering on a good customer experience in all stages of a shopper’s journey is a challenge retailers are always trying to crack. Download our guide and see how digital signage helps solve your customer experience problem in your physical store.

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What Motivates Employees (Hint: It Isn’t Money)

A big challenge. The Holy Grail. What keeps HR people up at night. Those are only a few descriptions in a handful of articles covering the struggle to understand what engages employees — and how to create workplaces that offer them what they need for motivation and maximum performance. What engages them varies by the study, but two elements seem clear: Money isn’t the answer. Pay and benefits are important, but not the most deciding factor. More personal aspects of the workplace, such as people and purpose, play a critical role. While we’re not undertaking a comprehensive review of the […]

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What’s Keeping Retailers Awake at Night? NRF Had the Answers

I’m back from retail’s Big Show — last week’s NRF convention and expo in New York City, which hosted nearly 35,000 attendees, offered hundreds of sessions and showcased miles of retail technology, including Convergent’s digital signage capabilities. We were one of only a handful of digital signage providers with a booth, so we were busy with meetings and visits and made a lot of great contacts, all having something interesting to say about the industry in general and their businesses in particular. Here’s a taste of what we saw and heard while we were there. Retail challenges are top of mind […]

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(Not So) Good to Great: What a Walk through the Mall Revealed about Retail Signage

The holidays are over, and as we enter 2017, we’re gearing up for NRF’s Big Show, retail’s largest trade event of the year. That’s fitting, given the amount of time I spent in the mall last month, searching for the perfect gifts for my friends and family. I hit a bunch of stores, many of which I wouldn’t normally enter, but that gave me the perfect opportunity to check out their retail digital signage. I saw some great examples of it. A couple of stores were using street-facing signage to effectively capture attention and drive store traffic. Others were leveraging […]

Strategy and Measurement

Myth Versus Reality: How Content, Not Advertising, Drives a Great DOOH Network

If it feels like you’re seeing more advertising on digital screens in doctor’s offices, airports and malls, you’re right. After slower growth in 2014, digital out-of-home (DOOH) providers booked revenue gains of 11% in 2015, the industry’s highest growth rate since the Great Recession, according to PQ Media’s US Digital Out-of-Home Media Forecast 2016. And consumer exposure to DOOH networks increased 4% in 2015 to about 51 minutes per week, “continuing a multi-year upward trend that places DOOH among the fastest-growing segments of the broader media industry,” the report says. Even with that good news, the industry still has its […]

Digital signage

The Best-Laid Plans: 3 Keys to a Successful Digital Signage Pilot

Pilots have been a part of the buyer journey in digital signage for some time. In the early stages of digital signage, they were used to prove that the technology worked. But as the industry has evolved, we know that the software, screens and players do their jobs. Yet we still get lots of requests for pilots from retailers who want to see how signage looks or make sure that it works before committing to a full roll-out. Let’s be clear: we like pilots. In fact, we think they’re essential. They allow you to test equipment, content and processes in […]

Digital signage

Big Data and Digital Signage: Are They Finally Going to Get Together?

Digital signage has been around for some time now. The concept has been validated and now it’s just a matter of continuing to develop and perfect it. Seamlessly incorporating data into digital signage messages has been on the rise for several years, too. As the ability to integrate data into signage has moved from a simple weather pull or RSS feed to more complex applications, the question has become: How do we better leverage Big Data? As a marketer myself, there’s a big appeal to big data. It gives me the information I need to deliver the most relevant message […]