Digital signage works best as a two-way conversation, not a one-way broadcast. One of the easiest ways to turn passive viewers into active participants is to run a contest on your screens. When you give people a reason to create, compete, or vote, they stop scrolling past your digital signage software and start paying attention to it, because they have something at stake.
This guide walks through why contests are such an effective gamification tactic, the types of contests that work well on screens, and how to plan, launch, and judge one without adding a mountain of extra work to your team’s plate.
Why Gamification Works on Digital Signage
People today are not just consuming media on their phones, tablets, and the screens around them; they are also creating a huge amount of it. Some researchers argue we have already moved past the Information Age and into a Participation Age, one defined by user-generated content, selfies, and crowdsourced creativity. Audiences are primed to make things and share them, so digital signage contests simply meet people where they already are.
Gamification takes that appetite for participation and channels it toward your organization’s goals. It works because it borrows the same mechanics that make games fun: clear rules, a finite time frame, visible progress, and a reward at the end. Applied to signage, that might mean a leaderboard, a photo submission gallery, or a simple call to action with a prize attached. For a deeper, step-by-step breakdown of the mechanics of gamification, including ideas across seven different markets, listen to our podcast episode, Gamification Ideas for Digital Signage.
What Is a Digital Signage Contest?
A digital signage contest is any structured competition that lives on, or is promoted through, your screens. Viewers submit an entry, whether that is a design, a photo, a caption, or simply a correct quiz answer, and the best or fastest entries win a prize. Winning (and sometimes runner-up) entries are then displayed on the signage itself, which closes the loop and gives the whole audience a reason to keep watching.
Contests are a targeted, structured form of gamification. Where a broader gamified campaign might track ongoing behavior, like reducing paper use or hitting a sales quota, a contest is typically shorter, entry-based, and built around a single creative or competitive hook.
The Benefits of Running a Digital Signage Contest
When someone sees their own submission on the screens in the lobby, break room, or hallway, it is hard for them not to feel engaged. Adding a tangible reward and public recognition raises the stakes even further, and it tends to have a snowball effect: winners talk about their prizes, which makes everyone else want to enter next time.
- Increases engagement, because people pay closer attention to content they might appear in or have voted on
- Builds a sense of community and friendly competition across teams, departments, or classes
- Generates a steady supply of fresh, relevant content for your screens with minimal effort from your team
- Supports broader goals, like boosting participation in wellness programs, safety training, or benefits enrollment
- Reinforces your other messaging by giving every screen a natural, built-in call to action
That last point matters. A contest is really just a more compelling version of the call to action you are probably already putting on your signage. Instead of a generic prompt, you are offering people something they actually want to do.
Types of Digital Signage Contests to Try
There is no single right way to run a contest. The best format depends on your audience, your goals, and how much creative freedom you want to give participants. Here are some of the most effective formats.
Design contests
Invite your audience to create their own message, image, or short video for the screens. Design contests are especially popular around the holidays or a company milestone, when people are already in a creative mood. Give participants a theme, a submission window, and a handful of basic design guidelines, and let them run with it.
Photo and video contests
Ask people to submit photos or short clips tied to a theme: a school mascot sighting, a favorite team memory, a workplace pet, or a sustainability effort in action. Photo contests are low-effort to enter, which tends to drive higher participation than more involved formats.
Caption contests
Put an interesting or funny image on the screen and ask viewers to submit a caption. It is a fast, lightweight format that works well as a filler contest between bigger campaigns, and it rewards wit over design skill, which broadens who is willing to enter.
Trivia and quiz contests
Post a quick question or two related to company news, a recent training module, campus history, or general knowledge, and reward correct answers with points or raffle entries. This format doubles as a training reinforcement tool, since it nudges people to actually retain what they learned rather than just clicking through a module once.
Scavenger hunts and hashtag challenges
Send people looking for something (a QR code hidden around a building, a mascot statue, a specific display) and have them prove they found it with a photo or a check-in. Alternatively, create a unique, easy-to-track hashtag and challenge people to use it on their own social channels for a chance to win.
Voting and bracket contests
Let your audience choose the winner. Submit several entries, whether they are designs, photos, or ideas, and let viewers vote for their favorite directly through the signage or a linked page. Voting contests are a great way to extend engagement, since people come back to check standings and see if their pick is winning.
How to Plan and Launch a Digital Signage Contest
A successful contest depends less on the format you choose and more on how clearly you plan and promote it. A few fundamentals will save you headaches later.
Set clear rules and guidelines
Spell out the theme, submission deadline, format requirements, and any content restrictions before you open entries. Vague rules lead to a flood of unusable submissions and disappointed participants who feel like they were never told the real requirements.
Choose meaningful, gamified rewards
Gift cards and certificates work, but so do less obvious prizes: an extra half day off, a casual dress day, a food truck lunch, or a donation to a charity of the winner’s choice. Award prizes immediately once a winner is chosen. Delayed rewards kill the buzz that gets people talking about, and entering, the next contest.
Promote the contest on your screens
Your signage is both the venue and the megaphone. Announce the theme and deadline well ahead of time, remind people as the deadline approaches, and use a QR code or short URL if the rules are too long to fit in a single message.
If you want a broader plan for how a contest fits into everything else you put on your screens, see our guide to building a full digital signage content plan.
Judge quickly and showcase winners fast
Draw a contest out over three or four weeks, choosing a new winner each week and displaying that entry the following week. Your team should always have final say to make sure every winning entry fits your brand guidelines and screen requirements, but try to keep the turnaround short. The faster a winner sees their work on screen, the more momentum you build for the next round.
Design Tips to Share With Contest Participants
Give entrants a short checklist of design basics before they submit, so you are not stuck rejecting entries that had no real chance of making it to screen. A few essentials to include:
- Contrast and legibility: if a message cannot be read at a glance, it will not work on a large screen
- Simple, legible fonts: larger text reads more easily from a distance than a small, decorative typeface
- The 3×5 rule: keep text to roughly three lines of five words, or five lines of three words, to avoid clutter
- High-resolution images and video: anything blurry or low quality will look worse once it is blown up on a large screen
- A real-world preview: have entrants view their design from at least five feet away before they submit, and adjust anything that does not hold up
Turning Contests Into an Ongoing Content Strategy
If a contest generates more strong submissions than you can use in a single round, consider making it a recurring feature rather than a one-off event. A steady stream of audience-created content takes pressure off your team, since you are curating and scheduling rather than creating from scratch. This works especially well as part of a broader employee engagement strategy, where recognition and participation are built into the culture rather than treated as an occasional event.
Contests also scale nicely across different audiences. A hospital might run a Fitbit step challenge for staff, a university might run a mascot photo hunt for students, and a corporate office might run a benefits enrollment raffle, all using the same underlying contest mechanics with different themes and prizes.
Gamification Ideas by Market
Contests are only one piece of a larger gamification toolkit.
- For a full set of tactics organized by industry, from sales leaderboards in corporate offices to reading challenges in K-12 schools, check out our infographic, Digital Signage Gamification Ideas for 7 Markets.
- If you want a quick-reference list of general best practices, our 10 Gamification Tips for Digital Signs infographic is a great one to keep on hand.
- And if you work in education specifically, 6 Digital Signage Gamification Ideas for Schools is built just for that audience.
Get Started Today
A well-run contest gives your audience a reason to look forward to your screens instead of tuning them out. It costs relatively little to set up, it generates content your team does not have to create from scratch, and it builds a genuine sense of community around your organization. Whether you launch a simple caption contest or a month-long design competition, the goal is the same: give people a chance to contribute, and they will stay engaged with everything else you put on screen.