How digital signage and AI are revitalizing retail

Artificial intelligence is booming in the digital signage sector, as in many other industries. But when talking about AI the range is very wide. We must distinguish between bots and truly 'intelligent' software that can 'learn'.

Bots are fixed schedules in which an event Y defined follows an event X. For example, to a mother of 30 years with a young child entering a bank is shown a different advertisement on a signage screen than a couple of 60 years that he joins the same bank. artificial intelligence, instead, works more openly, with action variants, links, calculating correlations, comparing the results, using machine learning… The result is continuous optimization.

Using high-resolution cameras, variables such as body posture can be read., facial expression, head movement, gaze direction and dwell time, in order to find correlations independently and take them into account in future visualizations.

The solutions of digital signage software current ones use up to 20 recognized characteristics of a person to calculate the content of the emission. All this in fractions of a second.

Personal and anonymous data

Such a detailed recording of personal characteristics with the help of high-resolution cameras naturally raises concerns.. I can allay these concerns to the extent that no personal data is collected.

Smart digital signage software doesn't care about personal data. It is completely irrelevant who the people recorded are.. What interests the artificial intelligence son, among other things, recognized movement patterns, clothing styles, age or sex.

In the case of the mother of 30 years with a small child on the bench, this means: digital signage software doesn't care about the woman's name or who she is; what interests him is that she is a woman, have a son, when do you go to the bank, how it moves or how long it stays in place, how she is dressed and how old the algorithms estimate she is. This information fills a table, a database. The image can be deleted again immediately.

That is why it is necessary to clearly distinguish between personal data, which of course must be protected, and anonymous data. Image analysis only transmits recognized patterns in the sense of an anonymous survey in table form. A person in front of an AI camera is just a table of characteristics followed by an evaluation and a result, in this case the display of adapted advertising.

If I record purely quantitative personal characteristics and store them independently of the individual video sequence, This is anonymous and impersonal data.

No videos or images are stored either.. The amount of data would be too large for this and the individual video sequence is of no interest. What interests, however, is the result, that is to say, software decisions. Because artificial intelligence is closely linked to machine learning.

You should know that in the case of AI in the digital signage sector, we are talking about large networks, not just two or three stores. Video sequences from many thousands of broadcast points are evaluated. These assessments are used to calculate future results. In this sense, AI constantly learns from the set of signage content. The larger the networks, better and more accurately and quickly you will be able to learn the software correlations and correspondences.

AI and digital signage improve physical commerce

This set of 'reproduction patterns' offers marketing strategists almost inexhaustible possibilities.. Points of relevance and individuality are important here: advertising and information messages can be reproduced more accurately than ever.

Let's take the example of a bank again.. He wants to attract new young customers and advertises 'the traditional way' with paper posters for his young account., They hang everywhere in the bank. But a person doesn't like this. 75 years that now enters this bank. Maybe this customer is bothered by advertising.. Or you simply do not feel well cared for and wonder: Does this bank want me as a client??

This is where smart digital signage comes into play.. This bank customer 75 years can receive information about a retiree plan, while the teenager receives information about his first free payroll account and the young mother about a savings plan to 'study at a leading US university'.

These examples show how AI solutions and digital signage help target customers individually and, therefore, to capture them in a friendly way. Everyone receives advertising adapted to their age and life situation.

Thus, The proximity bank can position itself for a very wide audience. This is transferable to the entire retail sector.. Clothing stores authentically target customers of different ages. A bakery attracts customers with display advertising. And a supermarket chain promotes next week's offers, always in a different way, depending on the target group that passes in front of the exhibitor.

A perfect customer journey

This thought experiment can be taken even further. If you take the entire customer journey, For example, the result can be fine-tuned by linking the data on the screen with other, such as sales data from the checkout area and the online store, store pickup patterns, those of movement in a store or the time spent on certain online product pages, and including them in the calculation of the result.

Connected to in-store digital signage solutions, advertising posters can be individualized and better adapted to the target group.

The future will be about providing the customer with relevant information from the first point of contact, wherever it occurs, and accompany you in your online and offline experience in an informative and entertaining way. Digital signage not only contributes enormously to this, but it is also the key to revitalizing retail.

Pablo Trains

Business Development Manager de Concept International Spain