Synect work in Forbes & PNAS Shows the Future of Digital Signage

Synect CEO Yahav Ran shares how our solutions affect, measure, and optimize behavior following recognition from Forbes and the scientific community on the power of visual communication following coverage of our work in Forbes and PNAS.

Synect’s CEO, Yahav Ran, speaks with the press at Orlando International Airport (MCO) during the launch of Evenflow Crowd Radar.

At Synect, we’ve spent plenty of time discussing the difference between digital signage and visual communication. One of the key distinctions is passive versus active messaging.

Digital signage is passive. Providers put up a screen. Passengers might look at it. They might not. The onus of engagement is on the viewer.

Visual communication is active. We understand that our content is responsible for capturing passengers’ attention. We create strategies to influence, optimize, and measure their behavior. Our clients know that passengers get the message because their behavior changes. Passengers spend more money in the terminal. Lines move faster. Compliance with policies and guidelines improves.

This was the case with our award-winning Evenflow Crowd Radar implementation at Orlando International Airport (MCO). Forbes and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) recently featured our program, focusing on its active communication strategies and results.

Evenflow breaks new ground in visual communication by leveraging principles from behavioral science to positively influence passenger behavior. Synect collaborated with a team led by researchers from the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, the London Business School, and the Yale School of Management to implement a scientific program exploring how content strategy impacts passengers’ responses.

The program A/B tested different types of content to analyze outcomes and effectiveness based on real-time measurement of passengers’ responses and physical positions.

LiDAR sensors support anonymous crowd tracking.

Synect installed Evenflow Crowd Radar at MCO with dynamic messaging updates to test and measure the effectiveness of different visual communications on influencing passenger behavior. The solution captured passengers’ behavioral changes using anonymous crowd-tracking technology. Learn more in our case study.

The science team reported their research in PNAS, a peer-reviewed journal of the National Academy of Science. Their article summarizes the project, the science, and the results.

The program was a massive success, making a statistically significant impact on passenger behavior.

Content that emphasized communal and personal benefit increased responses by up to 16 percentage points. In contrast, authoritative nudges were shown to be ineffective. These findings strongly suggest that an applied content strategy will tangibly influence passenger behavior, simultaneously proving which types of content are most effective.

More recently, the program was featured in Forbes, where Dr. Dafna Goor, Assistant Professor of Marketing at the London Business School and a leader from the science team, shared how business can use visual communication and messaging strategy to gently influence behavior. Dr. Goor writes about the Evenflow team’s analysis of data from over 57,000 passengers between November 2020 and January 2021 to demonstrate the impact of visual communication and nudges on viewer behavior.

Evenflow is a perfect example of the power of active messaging. Active communication requires planning: clearly defining the desired behavior and outlining strategies to affect, measure, and optimize responses.

Airports and other organizations can start creating a content strategy by setting a clear goal, creating high-impact visuals, and preparing messaging that emphasizes the benefits that the desired outcome brings to the viewer or community. Stakeholders can measure behavioral changes with LiDAR or other crowd-tracking technology. Those measurements can be used by content designers to optimize visuals and messaging to increase the impact over time.

It helps to know that all communication encompasses three parts: the sender, the message, and the receiver. It’s the sole responsibility of the sender to ensure the receiver has acknowledged the message.

Key methods for accomplishing this are:

• Building a clear, coherent, engaging content strategy

• Using a dedicated, noise-free communication channel

• Monitoring receiver feedback to track message reception

The Evenflow program uses LiDAR to track and monitor behavior, which allowed MCO and Synect to measure acknowledgment and responses to the content.

If your visual messaging isn’t clear, isn’t acknowledged, or the response isn’t measured, there’s a chance your content is simply turning into noise.

The best way to stop making noise is to create meaningful visual communication strategies from the beginning. The future of digital signage isn’t about technology. It’s about content strategy and active visual communication.