Digital signage study shows adoption skyrocketing as bank confidence plummets

This article is brought to you by Retail Technology Review: Digital signage study shows adoption skyrocketing as bank confidence plummets.

A survey of 167 large and mid-sized banks, including 119 European and 48 North American banks representing 137,000 retail branches, provides a new understanding of bank attitudes and actions toward digital signage projects.

The survey, conducted by John Ryan, a global provider of large-scale managed digital merchandising networks for retail banking organizations, offers the most comprehensive look yet at the adoption of digital signage in the retail banking industry. The study questioned marketing, IT and retail executives in detail about the role of the retail branch, Point-of-Sale (POS) strategies and their experiences and attitudes about digital signage.

The study found that adoption of digital signage is skyrocketing. Of 167 banks surveyed, 108 are already piloting some form of digital signage and another 28 intend to do so within the next 12 months. More than half of banks surveyed have plans for further network rollout -- with many in the next 24 months. In addition, nearly three-fourths of respondents view digital signage as essential or important to in-branch marketing over the next three years -- mainly due to important advantages over paper-based marketing at a time of rapidly growing competition for financial customers. The overwhelming majority of respondents (93%) agreed that banks' adoption of digital signage will continue to increase.

While banks' chief motivation for piloting digital signage is to increase revenue, nearly half surveyed had no formal system in place to measure pilot program results. As a result, more than one-third have no plans to extend their pilot program further, citing frustration about high capital costs and the inability to prove ROI. Another looming factor is the ability to create a steady stream of content. Cost, sufficient FTE availability and ease of use of content management systems were top content-related frustrations reported by 75% of respondents.

According to Nancy Radermecher, President of John Ryan, "based on the survey data and the hundreds of interviews, we believe bank executives are frustrated with digital signage pilots because of the hidden operating costs and demands of day-to-day network management. The research also shows a lack of collaboration between marketing and IT departments in the decision process."

As the result of these findings, Radermecher recommends banks adopt a more deliberate approach to launching a digital signage network pilot and suggests a digital signage pilot be driven first and foremost by the bank's business strategy.