Almost every shopfront has the same unused asset: a big pane of glass facing a footpath full of people. Most businesses fill it with a printed poster, a faded A-frame, or a normal TV that looks great at 8am and is unreadable by 11.
High brightness window displays are built specifically for that spot, and they are one of the few marketing purchases where the effect is visible from across the street on day one.
What "high brightness" means
Screen brightness is measured in nits. The TV in your lounge room is usually 250 to 400 nits, which is plenty in a dim room. Behind glass, in daylight, competing with reflections and the sky, it looks like a grey rectangle.
A high brightness commercial display runs at 3,000 to 4,000 nits – roughly ten times a domestic TV. That is enough to stay crisp and readable in direct sun. They also handle heat properly: a window is effectively a greenhouse, and a normal TV will overheat and shut down there, often voiding its warranty in the process.
The other differences matter less at first glance but matter a lot over three years: commercial panels are rated for long daily run times, they can be mounted in portrait without issue, and they are designed to be serviced.
What the numbers say
Digital window displays attract around 400% more views than static printed signage in the same position, largely because movement catches the eye at the edge of vision in a way a poster never does. Retailers that add window displays commonly report foot traffic increases in the region of 28%.
Treat those as indications rather than promises – a screen cannot fix a bad offer. But the mechanism is real: more people look, so more people stop, so more people come in.
Which businesses get the most from them
- Real estate agencies. The classic use case. Listings update automatically, the window works after hours, and it removes the weekly job of reprinting and re-hanging cards. It is also the one shopfront people genuinely stop and read.
- Retail. Promotions, new season stock, sale pricing. Change the message at 9am without printing anything.
- Dental, medical and allied health. Services offered, health fund arrangements, new practitioners, "accepting new patients". Softens the front of what can be an intimidating door to walk through.
- Cafes and takeaways. Breakfast until 11, coffee and cake in the afternoon, dinner specials from 5. A window screen sells to people already walking past, which is the cheapest audience you will ever get.
- Gyms, salons and studios. Timetables, intro offers, before-and-after work, staff profiles.
Mounting: ceiling, wall or pole stand
How the screen is mounted matters more than people expect. Ceiling-hung units suit shopfronts with a suspended ceiling near the glass and keep the floor clear. Wall or frame mounts suit narrower windows.
Floor-mounted pole stands are the most flexible option, and the one we recommend most often. The screen sits at eye level on a slim pole, and it can be repositioned or angled without drilling into the shopfront – useful in a leased tenancy where you would rather not alter the structure. They also look deliberate rather than improvised, which matters when the screen is the first thing customers see.
Content: keep it short
The single biggest mistake with window displays is treating them like a website. Someone walking past gives you two or three seconds.
- One message per screen. Big type, high contrast.
- Movement, but slow – subtle motion draws attention, frantic animation reads as noise.
- Price or offer visible without squinting from three metres.
- Rotate a small number of panels, not fifteen.
Vertical (portrait) usually beats landscape in a window, because it matches the shape of the glass and the way people scan a shopfront.
How our packages work
Bold Media Group supplies high brightness window displays as fully managed packages: the commercial screen, the mount or pole stand, installation, the media player, and the content design and updates. It is a monthly cost rather than a large upfront purchase, and our team makes the content changes for you – you do not need anyone on staff learning software.
If you want to see what it would look like in your window, we will come out, take a look at the glass, the sun aspect and the footpath traffic, and give you a straight recommendation on size and position. Book a site visit and we will bring the numbers with us.