Basics are mistaken for differentiators in digital signage
Digital signage products often frame foundational features as if they are competitive advantages.
Easy to use interfaces, built in content caching, offline playback, and drag and drop content management are frequently highlighted as standout features.
In reality, they are just basic expectations. Any platform that fails here is frustrating to use and quickly loses relevance.
Right now, many products try to sell usability as a premium benefit. That is like advertising that a car has brakes. Everyone assumes they work.
Usability should be assumed. Reliability should be assumed. Basic content management capabilities should be assumed.
Marketing them as unique strengths only highlights that the product is meeting the minimum bar, not exceeding it.
The industry narrative needs to shift.
Real differentiation cannot come from meeting foundational standards. It comes from higher level value.
Foundational capabilities will soon become ubiquitous. Hardware is improving, making it easier to develop player apps, and most digital signage CMS features are relatively easy to implement, as is clear from the market, where more than 500 products already offer these basics.
Even if open source solutions do not cover everything yet, they will in the coming years. Self-hosted, reliable, plug and play digital signage will soon be accessible to anyone, much like WordPress has made running a blog easy.
Platforms that rely on basic features for positioning risk becoming irrelevant.
The future belongs to products that carve out a niche.
Platforms must define the specific problems they solve, the workflows they enable, or the audiences they serve in ways that generic solutions cannot.
Usability and offline playback are necessary but not sufficient. True differentiation comes from delivering value that cannot be copied easily and from solving problems that matter deeply to a particular group of users.
Shifting the conversation in this way pushes the industry to move beyond the basics and focus on what truly makes a product stand out.