In an entertainment, retail or food service environment, pop-up ads or coupons can appear on a customer’s smartphone as they shop. Beacons can even be used in a mall environment or shopping district to detect when a customer is near – not yet in – a store, and use that information to bring that customer in. For example, a business can see via beacon that a frequent customer who has opted in to promotions is a few doors away, shopping in another store. The location can push a promotion to the customer’s smartphone that tells him to come into the store in the next hour for a percentage or dollar amount off a purchase. 

Biometrics

Biometrics using facial detection tools is another way of gathering data. The ability to determine information such as a customer’s gender and age group can help target digital signage advertising toward a specific demographic in real time, but this can be difficult to do without instantaneous connectivity. 5G will make this seamless.

For example, using biometrics, a retailer can see what age group and gender are shopping in a store at any given moment, and can push digital advertising that appeals to the customer demographics in certain areas of the store. This gives the ability to create a more personalized, instantaneous branding campaign on a digital display; such as in a department store, a child would be interested in ads for toys and games, whereas an adult would be more interested in seeing sales on housewares.

Wearables

Wearables like smart watches and fitness trackers allow technology to be literally wrapped around the wearer as the device collects and disseminates data based on a person’s touch, body and location. Currently, wearables remain a highly personal device, with a wearer controlling the content via apps, but future uses could allow integration with digital signage, especially as 5G allows more seamless data streaming.

For example, a wearer may be looking for a restaurant reservation via a smart watch app as he or she walks around a mall or retail area; the app will show popups for open reservations, while the smart watch alerts digital signage in the area to display dining options.

Other wearable technology of the future is smart clothing, which provides wearers with fitness and biometric data, but can have other applications as well. As someone wearing a smart clothing item goes into a store, a trigger in the clothing item might “talk” to a digital display nearby, indicating what clothing brand the person is wearing, and digital displays would instantly show ads or sales for clothing items of the same brand.

RFID

5G combined with triggers like RFID will let businesses reach their audience in real time, helping to boost their sales and better service their customers.