In one of the chapters of Superstore , a series that follows the daily life of an American supermarket chain, a kind of virtual assistant appears. It’s a kind of crappy fix to keep angry workers happy because one of their employees has been laid off. “Corporate” has turned it into an image on a screen, which greets consumers and with which you can interact in a limited way. It is, in a shabby way, a digital signage bet.
The decisions they make from the management of the hypermarkets of that television series should never become a guide of what to do in marketing and customer service, but the inclusion of the screen already revealed a trend, that of growing interest in positioning screens interactive and dynamic signs in stores.
Digital signage had a lot of potential and could serve to accomplish many things, so much so that it began to be a kind of recurring element and always present in the lists of things that can be done – or that should be included. Even so, the in-store experiences used to be a long way from the early adopters’ big success stories and positioned closer to the version that served as a comedic element in the television series. They stayed in a bit I want and I can not. At least until now.
The digital transformation and the adoption of new tools and new standards is taking digital signage one step further. The screens that show things, no matter how colorful, have remained somewhat in the first phase of the change and now a commitment to much more complex elements, more interactive and with more potential to surprise the consumer and achieve engagement is expected.
What is being presented in the Mobile
Artificial intelligence allows creating much more sophisticated assistants, with the capacity to do much more, and 5G opens the door to faster and more capable connectivity so that these new services reach consumers without fail. In fact, 5G is the inevitable protagonist for another year of MWC , the Mobile World Congress that is being held these days in Barcelona.
It is also the key to understanding why digital signage can become more sophisticated. Companies are presenting hologram solutions at the Mobile, with which consumers can interact and which are presented in 3D. Its creators speak of “high-performance digital services” and their potential in areas such as education or healthcare. Actually, they can also be incorporated into areas like marketing.
For example, you could introduce yourself as a retail assistant or turn the windows of a network of stores into settings for a fashion show that is actually taking place hundreds of miles away. 5G allows transmitting in a three-dimensional way and opens new doors to telepresence. Thus, the MWCapital has presented how holograms are used in a kind of high-level video calls, as reported in La Vanguardia .
For this, the Newtonlab Space company, responsible for the holograms presented, uses the devices of the American company Portl, which allows a person to be shown in a kind of screen-box two meters high and creates an illusion of reality, with a person in three dimensions. “The hologram is 3D, it has volume and shadow. It is a fairly reliable reproduction ,” Eduard Martín, director of 5G at Mobile World Capital Barcelona, explained to the media during the presentation.
