I mean, the lit-up signs are for visibility. In some countries pharmacies are assigned strict working hours by the government, so it's useful to see at a glance if a pharmacy is currently open without having to walk right up to the door (and night shifts may require ringing a bell in some of them, so that's also helpful to convey that they are in fact open).

The fancy animations are just because when signs went from neon-lit to LEDs it turned out not all pharmacists have good design sensibilities. At least as far as I can tell.

Ok, so this might be an americanism, but the green cross says "cannabis dispensary" to me. At least around me, the medical marijuana industry is somewhat separated from the medical industry, and dispensaries are entirely different establishments from pharmacies. Pharmacies (and other medical establishments) use different symbols. If they were to use a cross to indicate a medical establishment, the red cross would be recognizable as a generalized symbol, but apparently it's heavily protected by the Red Cross.

But that's just my context, so I don't have much of an answer beyond "this is what it means 'round these parts"

Edit: added info from below

Here in Portugal, most display useful info like date, time, outside temperature (with varying degrees of accuracy), as well as services provided by the pharmacy or some general (often season specific) health recommendation.

The use of a bright green sign is, of course, to seek attention, but it's also useful to quickly spot an open place at night, when most are closed and only a few remain opened longer in each town/city neighborhood (called "farmácias de serviço", i.e something like "pharmacies in service"; they usually rotate between themselves each week). Nowadays you can check which places are available at night through a nice website, but the signs remain a useful thing, nonetheless.

The animations are just a culture thing now, I'd guess. Different pharmacies employ different animations, some wackier, some less, though there are very common animations for sure, such as the one where a 3D cross is animated rotating on multiple axis at the same time, making a nice spin back to its original position.
Why? I dunno, they break up the usual info display and help grab attention? I dunno, you get used to it and it mostly gets filtered into the background hehe

Here's the best video I've seen: https://youtu.be/xeN4A_Pr2SU

There are some that flash super bright, and super fast, in winter, when driving home in the dark, it feels like I'm on the verge of an epileptic fit, must be a nightmare for those who have to live with that shining in through their windows.

Also very common in South America.

They don't exist in Germany.

Can't really contribute as in Germany most pharmacy signs are pretty static and look kind of like this: https://cdn.pixabay.com/photo/2014/06/30/20/59/pharmacy-380780_640.jpg

But I also wonder why there's so many pharmacies in France. In almost any city I've been to it's hard to not have a green flashing cross in sight.

Because they are cool, that's why.

Yo! I’ve been wondering the same thing! I saw those all over Greece and they’re wild. Thought they were like cannabis shops or something lol.

You're missing out, those are the tamer ones these days. https://youtu.be/x6Alv2Z347c?si=c_a2IkCBLB4AL4zo

A compilation in reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/musichaiku/comments/153qvqo/pharmacies_in_europe_and_their_rave_signs/

No one has hacked them to run porn on yet?

It's not enough that they're cross. They want you to be cross too!

I’ve seen them in southern Europe on vacation, but never in the Nordics. Allways thought it was a Iberian/Latin thing (FR, ES, IT, PT). Guess they are more common than I thought.

Maybe some of Europe’s surfeit of demo coders had to make their money somehow, and one of them persuaded a pharmacy that paying them to make them a sign with graphics that spin in eyecatching ways would be a good idea, and the rest was history?

"annoying" is the "made you look" of advertising.

Loads in Morocco as well, they have loads of pharmacies due to all the French influence.

That's fucking annoying to look at.

I don't think we have those in the US at all.

Anyways it's probably like that because it's eye-catching. Eg it's an ad

Never seen anything like this in Turkey. We have a simple red on white "E" (first letter of Eczane=Pharmacy) with maybe very timid color change animations, time and/or temperature switches.

As others have pointed out, these look like quite the distracting and cyberpunk dystopian ad signs, most unexpected for a core health institution.

Because they're easy to recognize and consistent? It's honestly more weird that other areas of the world haven't followed suit.

Could you elaborate on "all over Europe"? We don't have those in Sweden, it looks very very tacky.

In how many countries have you seen these?

I'm pretty sure that's just kind of a tradition, I don't remember exactly tho

Must be a continental thing. Here in noggieland we have a simple illuminated green cross.

I saw a lot of those in Tenerife and it felt really weird. That is completely absent where I live.