Article

All about the content: A strategic blueprint for DOOH networks

Keith Kelsen, author and longtime digital signage industry insider, offers the first in what will be a monthly series on content for digital out-of-home, "It's All About the Content!"

March 25, 2010 by Digital Signage Today

• Identify the brand colors of the company, product, etc.
• Colors are usually designed to work well together and live in harmony within compositions.
• Use color bracketing, which is using the colors' opacity to deliver gradient shades of each color.
• Use gradients, which is using gradient backgrounds to create a sense of space around products.

2. Font usage

• Utilize the brand's font guidelines to ensure continuity among other marketing materials. There will typically be only one or two fonts used on the network.
• Vary the usage of the font to create visual texture in contrasting ways that are appealing and balanced. Combining bold and light weights will help keep the viewers' attention on the right words.
• Select three or four font weights, such as light, regular, semi-bold, and bold.

• Ensure that one is consistent in how products are photographed or videotaped, so the look has continuity from one product to the next.
• Maintain high quality and resolution of product shots to ensure high quality of all content on the network.

• Create a shorthand language for the network with icons to help guide the viewer around specific themes. Depending on the network, these can fall into a number of categories. They can be seasonal, departmental, contextual or emotional.
• Animate icons in specific ways to enhance network continuity.
• Icons need to be consistent. For example, all icons may relate to a specific look and feel. They may be bold or soft, or bright or pastel, in nature.

• Transitions add movement to the screen and can direct the viewer's attention to one place or another on the screen.
• Transitions need to be seamless within a piece of content and among other pieces of content.

• Determine which screens within an environment are designed to serve a specific purpose. For example, one may have screens on an aisle end (endcap) or at the cash register. Each type of screen may be treated differently to accomplish one's goals.
• Determine what onscreen zone layout may be appropriate for each type of screen to help serve the intended purpose.

• Structure the zones on the screen. In some networks one may want to have an onscreen zone with main content, another zone with secondary content and potentially a third zone with informational content.
• The main zone is usually the product or the main advertisement.
• The secondary zone typically relates to the main zone in context and tells the viewer what to do next.
• The informational zone could provide weather, news, the date, or the time.

• Themed messaging can be useful according to the type of network. For example, in a corporate communications network one may want to have themes based on the department so viewers understand the type of message being presented.

• Determine the content specifications. Setting the standards for acceptable deliverables will save a lot of headaches. Determine what formats, codecs and sizes are acceptable and whether the deliverables will be high definition, standard definition, or both.