As your screen network grows, there’s the risk that brand consistency will start to slip. One site might be running an outdated offer while another has swapped it for a local message that does the job but doesn’t fit style guidelines. There might even be a third waiting for head office sign-off and not hearing back for a week. This usually happens because the content workflow is clunky.
A recent Salesforce report revealed that the majority of marketers (85%) say that customer expectations are higher than ever, while 68% say it’s harder than ever to acquire new customers. This underscores the need for consistent branding across locations and screens, not only to drive brand recognition but also to meet those high expectations.
If you manage screens across retail, betting shops, hospitality venues, or visitor attractions, your digital signage should protect your brand. Consistency is key, but it shouldn’t come at the expense of speed and flexibility.
Read more: If you’d like to learn more about managing digital screen content across locations, take a look at this article.
Digital Screen Services supports clients with signage that’s consistent and impactful. Here’s what we’ve learned about brand consistency and the value of implementing guidelines across multiple sites.
Use templates to reduce variation
Templates help keep multi-site screens on brand by providing a starting point for any message or promotion. Consider a set of templates to help local teams with content for common use cases. These might include:
- Promotional offers
- Queue updates
- Event reminders
- Stock-out messaging
- Welcome screens
- Wayfinding prompts
Templates for your digital signage content have two benefits. The first is that your visuals stay consistent. The second is speed, as teams can more quickly create something that fits brand guidelines.
A well-built template locks in the things that should not change, such as typography, spacing, branding, motion rules, and call-to-action wording. The template should leave room for the elements that will change, such as product information, prices, dates, event times, or local messages.
Asking local teams to make these small updates is much more effective than asking them to design something from scratch. This ensures brand consistency while reducing the amount of work needed for sign-off.
We can work with you to develop these templates to ensure consistency across all sites. Additionally, we can handle content changes ourselves based on information from head office or local teams, further streamlining the sign-off process.
Build a brand kit
There’s the risk with brand kits that they just create another layer of admin. However, done correctly, this is a handy tool to use alongside templates. Here’s what you should include in a brand kit:
- Different logo styles in common formats (JPEG, transparent PNG, SVG, etc.)
- Colour palette with hex codes
- Chosen fonts
- Imagery guidelines
- Brand voice and messaging
- Usage guidelines
- Templates and collateral
This helps to limit local improvisation that could result in poorly cropped logos, inconsistent colours, and poorly worded calls to action. We encourage our clients to submit brand kits to us when using our managed content service, but we can also support the creation of these.
Don't let approvals turn into a bottleneck
This is where a lot of estates get stuck. Every team wants control over what goes live on screen, but if every asset needs the same level of review, your process becomes too slow for the environments screens are meant to support. Time-sensitive content does not wait while people chase feedback in a lengthy email thread.
A better approach is to approve the system and not just the individual asset. For example, content that uses a template with set guidelines for copy and imagery shouldn’t need a full approval cycle. Reserve heavier sign-off for unusual creative, sensitive messaging, or new campaign formats.
This gives you governance in the right places without slowing down local teams. This helps avoid improvisation or missed opportunities.
We can easily schedule content ahead of time so there’s no rush to get something live. But we understand that things don’t always run smoothly, and sometimes a promotion needs to go live urgently. That’s why we’re available 24/7, to ensure you never miss an opportunity.
A quick sense-check for your current setup
If you are reviewing how your estate handles digital signage, ask yourself:
- Can we launch an update quickly without someone building a new asset from scratch?
- Do local teams know what they can change and what should stay fixed?
- Are our most common content types templated already?
- Do we have a proper brand kit for screens, not just general marketing assets?
- Are approvals focused on high-risk content rather than every routine update?
- Do campaigns go live and expire on schedule across all relevant sites?
If the answer to most of those is no, the issue probably isn’t your screen hardware. It’s the content workflow around it. We can help you streamline your digital signage content to ensure quicker roll-out of on-brand content across your estate.
To see how it might work for your brand, get in touch to book a demo.