How Color Can Influence Emotions

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It’s something that graphic designers and interior decorators live and breathe every day: Color. Not only color itself but also what they can do with it, i.e., what influence it can have on human emotions and behaviors. So, if you’re using digital signage to attract attention and compel people to take some kind of action, color can help you achieve that goal.

Let’s review some of the colors that are favorites for inspiring feelings.

Red. Red is a primary color that can evoke strong emotions and increase heart rate, passion and intensity. But red doesn’t stop there. Red can also stimulate appetite, create urgency and encourage impulse shoppers to buy.

Orange. Orange is a secondary color that is associated with excitement and enthusiasm, and is often used to help draw attention, create a call to action and motivate impulse shoppers. If you’re friendly, cheerful and confident you might want to wear something orange—it’ll go well with you.

Yellow. Yellow is a primary color that represents optimism, shows clarity and is associated with youthfulness. It can be used to increase cheerfulness and grab the attention of window shoppers. Although it’s the most eye-catching of colors it can also cause eyestrain and induce feelings of frustration.

Green. Green is a secondary color that is associated with wealth and represents money. It is also a relaxing color, denotes nature and is connected to environmental issues. It represents new growth. Green is specified for night vision equipment because our eyes are the most sensitive to it.

Blue. Blue is a primary color that can enhance productivity, which is why you might see it used in corporate businesses. It can create a sense of security and trust, inspire calmness or serenity and, unlike red, can actually curb appetites. Blue is also associated with feelings of sadness.

Purple. Purple is a secondary color often used to soothe and calm. It is routinely used in beauty products and can be associated with creativity, imagination, wisdom and royalty. Purple is also described as mysterious.

The strategic use of color in your digital signage content can help attract patrons, establish a connection with your brand, arouse a particular feeling and persuade people to act. And don’t forget, displays featuring IPS (In-Plane Switching) technology provide a 178-degree wide angle of view where colors remain accurate and consistent, so even casual passersby will be drawn to your message.

Using Digital Signage to Connect With Emotions

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After last Saturday’s historic blizzard, a friend from Minnesota commented that she has never more longed for the May flowers that April “showers” are supposed to bring. And that just the sight of a budding tree would lift her spirits with the promise of life returning.

If we think about a visual experience that can brighten someone’s day, and then apply it to digital signage, we see that our amazing displays have the ability to connect with people’s emotions, magnify them or change them, depending on the content we use.

A large 4K UHD display excels as a simulated window. If your building has an area without a view, think of the digital art you could create for a virtual window—breathtaking natural vistas, sparkling cityscapes, magnificent mountains—and then change it up from time to time.

Or suppose you have a large lobby in a corporate headquarters. As employees enter the building how can you get them to feel appreciated? A video wall showing clips from a recent team-builder outing or company event could work. Your employees will appreciate seeing themselves on the big screen, and the recognition is sure to boost morale even further.

Maybe you’re a retail store for outdoor adventure gear. Treat your customers to a high-res sunrise campsite tour in Yellowstone, or shredding the slopes in Vail. You’ll get them daydreaming about that vacation they’ve been putting off. With a touch-enabled display they could tap on products and get details instantly. If beacon and Bluetooth enabled they could buy them on the spot.

Are you a luxury-performance automobile dealer? Consider a custom-made display to beautify your showroom with footage of your flagship vehicle in action. What do your customers want? To be in the driver’s seat. Get their adrenaline flowing and the goosebumps rising.

On another note, a hospital stay is no fun for anyone. Here’s where large displays can do a world of good. Do you have a solarium in a children’s wing? A large video wall can transform into the observation window of a deep-sea aquarium exhibit. The kids can get really close, and the wonders of the sea will widen their eyes, and broaden their smiles.

When you think about it, there’s really no business environment where you couldn’t use digital displays to tap into people’s emotions. And it doesn’t have to be all feel-good and thrill rides. Nonprofit organizations could use stirring images to further their cause, enhance fundraising efforts and turn visitors’ heartfelt concern into action.

This is a fun exercise in visual brainstorming and we could go on and on. Try it yourself. Grab your team for half an hour, tell them what you want to accomplish, and watch them conjure up content ideas to engage, inspire and make any day look even better.

Next week we’ll talk about the psychology of color, and how to use it to engage customers and influence their purchasing decisions.

How Different Generations Consume Online Content

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We talk a lot about technology and hardware, so this week we’re turning our attention to content. Why not? After all, content is king. So how can businesses create content that not only appeals to their customers, but drives them to action? It begins with drawing insights from internet usage across generations.

Baby Boomers engage with health and news related content more than any other generation. Generation Xers mostly prefer lifestyle, finance, travel, business, and automotive while Millennials (people born between 1981-1997) engage most with entertainment, technology, and educational content.

Surprisingly, Baby Boomers spend the most time online: 20+ hours per week. The majority of Gen Xers and Millennials spend between 5 and 10 hours per week.

Desktops and laptops are the preferred content vehicles for all three generations. Mobile comes in a close third for Millennials and Gen Xers, followed by tablets. Baby boomers prefer tablets to mobile.

For videos, shorter is better, especially the older the target. Over 60 percent of Millennials and Gen Xers and 70 percent of Baby Boomers prefer them to be 5 minutes or less.

Facebook leads the way for content sharing in every generation. Google+ comes in second for Baby Boomers while Generation X prefers Twitter. Millennials prefer Instagram and Snapchat while Baby Boomers are rarely on these platforms.

In the realm of commercial displays, knowing the customer will determine what kind of content should be created. For example, content that drives to deeper engagement, like downloading an app or scanning a QR code on a smartphone will be better received by digital natives like Millennials and the more tech-savvy Gen Xers. A more appropriate call to action for Baby Boomers could be something like a simple push to a website.

While the Internet can be considered the great uniter, there are some key differences in the way different generations use technology and how they spend their online time. These differences can shed light and inform content creation that appeals to specific demographics and is uniquely actionable to different  generations.

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Should You Upgrade to 4K?

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A lot of our readers are using Full HD digital signage in their businesses. It’s a great format with bright, beautiful images that attract and engage customers. For many applications Full HD is very effective and will continue to be so. But some of you are wondering if switching to 4K UHD would be a good investment, and if the ROI would be worth it. Depending on your business, it could very well be. Let’s take a quick look at the benefits.

See more. 4K UHD is able to show intricate details that become very noticeable on large screens. It’s four times the pixels of Full HD, with 8.29 million pixels compared to Full HD’s 2.07 million. 4K UHD can enhance the look of important branding elements, product representations, graphics and other aesthetics.

Get closer. 4K UHD will allow your patrons to get a lot closer to the screen without seeing the pixels that make up the image. With a 98-inch Full HD 1080p display, for example, people would need to be at least 13 feet away before the pixels would disappear. But with a 98-inch 4K UHD display they could be as close as seven feet. With 4K UHD you could have a much larger display, even a video wall, in a smaller space.

Do 2×2 with one. 4K UHD can let you do more with one display. It can allow up to four Full HD 1080p feeds to be displayed simultaneously on one screen, all in their native resolutions, eliminating the need for additional displays, cables and switches.

Show your true colors. Colors can look more accurate in 4K UHD. That’s because the 4K UHD color gamut and color depth are greater than Full HD. 4K UHD is able to render colors that cannot be shown accurately in Full HD and, therefore, could more faithfully reproduce branding and products.

Make HD look better. 4K UHD can make lower-resolution images look better too. Through a process called upscaling, a 4K UHD display can deliver near-UHD image quality with 1080p and 720p images. So the same content you’ve been using on your existing displays will look even better on a 4K UHD display.

Is 4K UHD in your future? Connect with us on our social channels and let us know.