What is Digital Signage? The Ultimate 101 Guide

The one-line definition of digital signage: Digital signage is a type of signage that displays information, messages, or any other content on a digital screen rather than on an acrylic or polycarbonate board.

Need us to explain a bit more?

Alright, let’s help you understand the meaning of digital signage with this example.

Let’s say you are driving down the road. You must be crossing at least half a dozen large billboards showing advertisements for the latest iPhone model in the market? If that signage is a digital screen instead of a PVC board, you are actually staring at digital signage.

Here’s the difference between traditional signage and digital signage:

Image: (Left) An acrylic door sign shows the conference room number. (Right) A digital door signage displays the room number, the meeting agenda, current meeting duration, upcoming meeting schedules, date & time, and other dynamic information that can be updated on a need-basis.

Digital signage is also known as electronic signage. Just like a television or a computer, it runs on electricity (and quite often with the help of the internet). Here, printing is not involved.

Usually, it is intended to send a specific message to a set of people. These people can be internal teams of an office, students of a school, or potential customers of a brand. Based on the end objective, you can decide your digital signage content.

Whether you hit a supermarket or visit the airport, these digital displays will be staring at you and sending you some messages. Today, almost every domain has embraced the potential of digital signage. These industries use different technologies like projection, LED, and LCD to display videos, images, or broadcast live content.

Screens have remarkably replaced paper marketing and minimized its prominence. Businesses are now focusing on a paperless approach to put out the word.

What is a Digital Signage System?

From the above definition, it is clear that digital signage is any screen that we use for commercial or public use to display some form of digital content at large.

But, these screens are not the sole component; there is a particular technology working at the backdrop. That is why we often refer to the entire technology as a ‘digital signage system.’

There are three primary components of any digital signage system:

1. The digital signage hardware
2. The digital signage software or the digital signage CMS
3. The digital signage content

A. Digital Signage Hardware

The digital signage hardware consists of-

1. The Digital Display or the Screen: A signage screen is just like your mobile or TV. It is a screen that displays information. It is a screen that displays information. In fact, you can convert your televisions into digital signage tv. However, most people tend to use commercial-grade screens for electronic signage as they offer better life span and visual output.
2. The Digital Signage Player: Many find it hard to understand what a digital signage player is. Well, the digital signage player is nothing but a media player (often a small box that can be connected to your display). This hardware has its own software that drives functionalities like downloading the content from the CMS and rendering the content in various formats like video, image, HTML, etc.
3. Display Mounts: Mounts and cables are required to attach your displays to the wall or hang them from the ceiling.

B. Digital Signage Software

The brain of the digital signage system is the digital signage software. The software helps process the data and display it on the screen without much hassle.

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