Digital signage
in Vancouver

Every extra language version takes display time from the others. That makes it a per-location decision rather than a brand-level one:

• Where the customers read it, it earns. Prices, hours and what you actually do — that is all a second version needs to carry. Translating everything doubles the upkeep and, within two months, means neither version stays current.
• Where they do not, it only subtracts. The same second version on a location whose customers do not use it reduces how often the main message appears, in exchange for nothing.
• Alternate, never side by side. Two languages on one frame halve the type size and become unreadable in both. Six to eight seconds each, full size, works.

The practical setup is that content is built once centrally and the language version is assigned per screen. That way a campaign goes out in one action, and the location on a street where a second language matters shows it while the one across town does not.

The way to decide without guessing is to ask the people at the counter which language customers open with. That answer differs by branch far more than most head offices expect, and it is the only input that actually matters.

What follows from a small kitchen is fairly precise:

• Bulk offers do not work. Not because of price — because there is nowhere to put it. «Three for two» on anything large is a discount on a problem.
• The same person comes several times a week. Which means the screen is read by the same eyes repeatedly, and content that has not changed stops registering faster here than anywhere else.
• Today decides. Someone shopping for tonight is choosing between dinner options, not between shops. What is ready now beats what is cheapest.

There is a second consequence of the towers that is worth planning for: the pattern is sharply bimodal. A morning burst on the way out and a longer evening one on the way back, with very little in between. The middle of the day in a residential tower neighbourhood is quieter than the same street would be downtown, and that is not a sign of anything wrong.

One more thing follows from everyone being on foot, and it is easy to get wrong: weather changes the evening, not the morning. People leave at a fixed time regardless; they come home differently. On a wet evening the trip becomes one stop instead of three, and being the one stop is decided by what is visible from the pavement in the dark.

Count how many of your regulars come more than twice a week. If it is most of them, your screen has a different job from a shop on a high street: not to introduce you, but to give a reason to stop tonight.