Digital Signage 101: How It Works, What to Show, and How to Start

\ Digital signage is around us everywhere. You see screens in a mall, at an airport, while buying your coffee in a neighborhood cafe, or heading to a meeting in an office. It’s a trendy communication technology reshaping the way messages are delivered.

\ Versatility is what has driven the high demand for digital signage. Sure, the majority of businesses make the most of it as a powerful promotional tool first. However, its use goes well beyond just commercial interest. Schools, hospitals, museums, public spaces - anywhere communication happens, digital signage has a place.

\ What’s digital signage, the tech behind it that works best, and how to get started - the answers to these questions are below.

Simply put, digital signage is the use of displays to communicate any type of information. It’s a system made up of 3 essential parts: 

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1. a display itself - a screen where everything shows up. It could be anything: from a TV hanging on a wall to an LED screen on the side of a building. 
2. software, or a Content Management System (CMS), allows signage users to control what, how, where, and when is displayed. 
3. hardware - a media player that grabs information from the software and sends it to screens.

\ These pieces work together. After creating content in the software, it’s stored and scheduled for display. The software sends the content to a media player, which has the role of the link between the software and the screen. The media player then ensures that the content is displayed exactly as planned, pushing it to the display automatically. So, whenever you make changes, they are reflected on the screens right away. And, of course, every update doesn’t require manual adjustments.

\ It’s important to mention that digital signage is no longer a complex, enterprise-only solution. Now, with easy-to-use networking hardware like Apple TV - something a lot of people and businesses already have for streaming - and cloud-based platforms like Kitcast, it’s a whole different story. Digital signage has gone very far from being a mega-complicated system. Thanks to tech and software that have flipped the script, it has become available to companies and organizations of any size, with any purpose in mind.

You walk past ≈1,000 digital promo content pieces a day. How many do you actually remember?

\ Probably not many. Most of them are perceived by the human brain in such a way that they blend into the background. They’re a part of the digital noise we’ve all learned to ignore.

\ Digital signage drastically changed this perception of content. First, it owns the space (with no distractions). Digital signage is usually placed exactly where the target audience is. Content is placed, front and center. Second, digital displays are bigger, brighter, and hard to ignore. It’s perfect for high-traffic environments demanding high impact.

\ The third and most important superpower of digital signage is content versatility. You can actually use it to convey any format of information:

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• Images
• Videos 
• Web pages 
• Dashboards
• Social media 
• Menu
• Directions and maps
• Live feeds and real-time data 
• Any content type that can be shown on-screen - A comprehensive list of what can be featured via digital displays can occupy a couple of pages. High-res visuals like crisp product shots, motion content, news feeds, menus, or metrics - you name it. The thing is that - if it exists digitally, screens can display it.

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In recent years, advancements in LED and 3D display technologies have brought a new wave to promotional strategies. Brands have realized that there are more influential ways to engage customers - dynamic and immersive. The jump from traditional Direct LED backlighting to advanced OLED and QD OLED screens has significantly enhanced picture quality, allowing for more vibrant displays. This evolution supports the growing trend of large-scale screens with ultra-high-definition resolutions, including 8K and even 16K, providing unparalleled visuals.

\ 3D and transparent screens have totally changed the game in advertising. Brands continue to quickly pack their marketing strategies with screens of all sizes. The goal - to catch attention with that "WOW" factor and not to lag behind the competitors.

\ Many companies fully take advantage of the massive creative potential digital signage brings in all its forms. Take Xbox’s campaign with a giant LED-powered Sphere in Las Vegas, for example. In the same way, PepsiCo, Marvel, Samsung, Sony, Nike, and plenty of other brands use 3D LED digital signage to deliver eye-catching out-of-home (OOH) advertising experiences.

\ And here’s the thing: digital signage isn’t only about pompous marketing campaigns on gargantuan screens. It isn’t exclusively for big-name brands with massive budgets. Digital signage is becoming just as accessible as it is essential to digital communication. With smart digital signage like Kitcast, which requires no learning curve and is zero-touch, combined with widely used plug-and-play hardware like Apple TV, virtually any company or organization can use it. Schools, gyms, offices, gas stations - it’s totally adaptable to whatever space it’s placed in. The only 3 things required to start showing content: a screen, a media player, and software.

There are a ton of options for digital signage hardware out there: from Chromecast (great for personal use, not so much for business) to Raspberry Pi (cheap but doesn’t scale well or last long). Each has its pros and cons. But when you start looking for something that’s reliable, cost-effective, and isn't a tech jungle, the list narrows down quickly.

\ This is where Apple TV comes in. While it’s widely known as a set-top box for streaming your favorite shows, it easily gets repurposed to digital signage hardware. And it has the specs to back it up.

\ Apple TV is a serious piece of hardware. Lightweight, compact, and high-performance. This digital signage player has a robust A15 Bionic chip (yup, the same one in some of Apple’s top-end iPhones), so it handles anything from dynamic video loops to high-res images with ease. It’s a small box but packed with processing power, giving you lag-free performance.

\ It’s all about the tech under the hood - the device has got that signature Apple reliability. Apple TV runs on tvOS, which is super stable, and it’s built for seamless integration with other Apple products and services. That means, once you’ve got an Apple ecosystem in place, setting up your digital signage on Apple TV feels pretty effortless. Take Kitcast, for example. It’s built specifically for Apple TV, so it runs on tvOS like it was made for it (because it was). Setting up takes minutes, which is exactly what you want when you need pain-free digital signage.

\ One of the biggest perks of Apple TV for digital signage is its scalability. Apple devices support Device Management (MDM) software. With MDM, you can deploy, configure, and manage all your Apple TV signage players remotely, saving time and effort.

\ With Apple’s Automated Device Enrollment (ADE), you don’t need to manually configure each Apple TV unit. Once you add new devices to your MDM platform (like Jamf, Mosyle, or Apple Business Manager), they auto-configure themselves right out of the box. In short, you get faster rollouts and deployment of new signage locations within minutes instead of hours.

\ Plus, with AirPlay, Apple TV boasts dual functionality. Use it for digital signage, or throw content from your phone or laptop onto the screen in no time when necessary.

\ If we speak about cost-effectiveness, to put this in perspective, other hardware options often come with big, expensive boxes, tons of wiring, and high maintenance costs. Apple TV is space-saving, energy-efficient, and easy on the wallet.

\ Now, add Kitcast into the mix of Apple TV’s perks and it gets even better.

\ Kitcast is based on the philosophy that setting up and running digital signage should be without technical barriers. This, paired with its cool tools for creating content, like 500+ templates, built-in widgets, Canva integration, and even an AI assistant to help you out with designs, makes it the perfect sidekick for Apple TV in its digital signage function.

\ Returning to scalability, Kitcast plays nice with MDM services. It makes deploying on a large scale, to several hundred screens, a matter of several clicks. Set it up once, and for future rollouts, you get an automated deployment process.

\ Beyond that, Kitcast offers a powerful feature set that puts it ahead in digital signage. Screen zoning helps maximize display space for multitasking content. Add flexible calendar-based scheduling, tag-based screen targeting, and UI that removes friction, and you get a digital signage system that doesn’t throw up roadblocks.

\ Getting started with digital signage, using the example of the Apple TV + Kitcast duo, obviously demonstrates that setting up digital signage doesn’t have to be a heavy lift or a brain teaser.

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\ Setting up Apple TV for digital signage is literally out of the box. You simply plug it into your display and connect it to the internet. After that, you can link it up with your digital signage software and you’re good to go. The same story is with Kitcast. It offers a 5-minute setup journey with a smooth onboarding process. Simply sign up with Kitcast, install the app on your Apple TV, connect screens, and you can either upload your media or use Kitcast’s widgets or templates. From there, you can handle your digital displays the way you want from one centralized, cloud-based platform. Simple as that.

The reality is… it’s a current big thing. Considering how many world-famous brands are jumping on the hype of using massive and standard displays in their strategy, it’s definitely a trend. Digital signage became an important channel of communication, alongside other digital sources of getting information. The thing is that digital signage fits into any space and purpose. You: have a message to deliver, digital signage: frames it.