Digital Signage in the Store Atmosphere: Balancing Gains and Pains

As traditional retailers are becoming more adept at using digital technology to sustain against e-commerce retail models, digital displays are at the forefront to enable a rich digital shopping experience for their customers in-store. While previous studies have evidenced that digital signage (DS) can impact strategically relevant retail outcomes, a limitation is that the vast majority of the messages are not adapted to their audience. Therefore, one of the major challenges contemporary DS applications face is not to overwhelm customers with information not relevant to them. In response, there is a new wave of DS that allows for interacting with and adapting the content to people passing by the screen(s). The growth of interactive and intelligent DS presents a fresh set of opportunities, but also challenges in terms of ethical concerns and legal restrictions, that this chapter further explores. Learning Outcomes Innovative technologies, such as DS, can engage different human senses and play an important role in enhancing the store atmosphere. The majority of DS networks feature content that is generic and is rarely tailored to the audience passing by the screens. As a result, digital displays are often ignored. DS coupled with sensors and Artificial Intelligence allow for more relevant and personalized experiences. Relevance through personalization can help retailers overcome display blindness, but challenges in terms of legal restrictions and ethical concerns exist to unlock its potential. Nontouch interaction technologies, such as voice assistants, gesture controls, facial recognition, and augmented reality, present new ways of interacting with digital screens.