There is a lot of discussion going on in recent weeks surrounding the term digital out-of-home compared to digital signage. Some say digital out-of-home is a subset of digital signage where DOOH is related to advertising networks. Others say digital signage is not related to advertising and is a different category than digital out-of-home. Veterans to this space must remember the cyclical nature of our industry and the compulsive need gurus-of-the-week have to give a new name to digital signage.
(more…)
October 27th, 2009
Daniel Parisien
DOOH expert Lyle Bunn continues to diligently cover digital signage industry growth, extracting data from the latest studies and analyzing trends.
In his recent post he estimated, among other things, that the volume of unique ads played across all DOOH networks in North America in 2009 exceeds 1,000,000. Lyle further quotes a research company that puts the total number of DOOH displays in North Amedica at 900,000.
Lyle’s latest numbers are definitely useful to industry players and they most certainly will have an effect on new would-be venue owners, operators, suppliers and resellers researching the industry. However, as exciting as the numbers may look, it is not likely that they will serve as a catalyst to entice agencies or adverisers to put more money into DOOH space. (more…)
October 2nd, 2009
Nurlan Urazbaev
The concept of standardizing and packaging ad space from multiple DOOH networks to make media buys easier for agencies is becoming more and more prevalent. For this post I borrowed a smart headline from Rob Gorrie of AdCentricity, who commented on the overview of DOOH aggregators published on Digital Signage Today.
The idea of media aggregation is a relative novelty only in digital signage. Traditional media started using web sites for aggregation of media properties in the late 90s. Online media agencies began doing that almost since the beginning of Internet advertising. This trend was followed by the idea of cross-media exchanges and auctions, all of which successfully collapsed when the tech bubble burst.
What we are seeing today is a re-birth of the idea of media- and cross-media buying platforms, on a new qualitative level. However, when it comes to digital signage, its specific nature inevitably causes ‘aggravation’ of aggregation, at least in its early stages. If we follow Bill Yackey’s overview on Digital Signage Today, it becomes evident why.The trick with digital signage aggregation is that it has little value without an automated campaign execution (see points 4 and 5 in the workflow described in Bill’s article). (more…)
July 22nd, 2009
Nurlan Urazbaev
Industtry analyst Lyle Bunn says 2008 was a decisive year for digital signage. Lyle published an excellent review of the year that starts with: “… After several years of sustained hard effort industry maturity was evident on a broad range of fronts.”
If you have not had time to read the abundant news on digital signage throughout the year, don’t get upset, just read this one article and you’ll know almost everything you need to know about the state of the industry and the outlook for 2009.
Getting back to the subject of what name should the industry adopt that Brian Dusho and I discussed in the previous post, Lyle confirmed that ‘digital signage’ is currently the most used name, despite the attempts of various groups to introduce other names. Besides, ‘digital signage’ doesn’t have the connotaion of being part of ‘out-of-home’ media. The latter has lately become rather a liability than an asset, as Outdoor/out-of-home bucket is ‘the last one to plan and the first one to cut’ when it comes to media plans and budgeting.
Click here to read Lyle Bunn’s article.
December 2nd, 2008
Nurlan Urazbaev
A few years ago, the first web portal for our industry named itself aka.tv, citing the fact that no single name was universally accepted at the time. Aka.tv’s home page still lists many names the medium went by then: narrowcasting, captive audience networks, electronic display networks, electronic billboards, digital media networks, out-of-home media networks, digital in-store merchandizing, retail media networks, place-based media, digital signage, intelligent visual information systems and datacasting.
Looking back, most of the names ended up to be short-lived, as they failed to resonate with providers or their clients. Out of the initial aka.tv list only ‘digital signage’ remains in heavy use, the rest got either extinct or were modified; for instance: ‘out-of-home media networks’ evolved into ‘digital out-of-home’, ‘out-of-home video’ and ‘alternative out-of-home’ (e.g., in PQ Media reports). ‘Place-based media’ was backed by Nielsen, but did not fly either.
So, unlike the clearly defined traditional media and Internet, we remain for the most part a ‘no name’ media segment in the eyes of agencies, although many advertisers recognize the potential impact of communicating with consumers when they leave home. (more…)
November 29th, 2008
Brian Dusho
Amid the gloom-and-doom economic news pouring on us daily from all the front- and home pages, it is reassuring to see that the leaders of digital out-of-home media are staying the course.
The OVAB Digital Media Summit will take place in NYC as planned, on October 29, and is widely anticipated to be an unprecedented, watershed event that will lay the groundwork for bridging the gap between the Madison Avenue establishment and DOOH advertising networks in the US. (more…)
October 6th, 2008
Brian Dusho
The Audience Metrics Guidelines that the Out-of-home Video Advertising Bureau (OVAB) has been working on for the past year are now ratified and will be presented at the OVAB’s Digital Summit on October 29 in New York. The event will bring together major players on Madison Avenue with members of OVAB, which today include some of the largest digital out-of-home networks and vendors in North America.
Although I was involved in the reviewing of the Guidelines and provided some input as well, I cannot disclose any details of the document until the official presentation. Essentially it is a set of principles long-used in mainstream media buying that are applied to standardize the DOOH ad space and make it easy to plan and buy. The result is a simple formula to calculate the audience metrics in a way that would make sense to media buyers and their clients. The ultimate goal of OVAB is to turn DOOH from an alternative media option, an innovation, into a commodity, i.e., a line item on the media plan, with appropriate budgets allocated ahead of time, and not as an afterthought.
 
As Suzanne Alecia, President of OVAB, explained, the Guidelines are not the actual standards yet, but once adopted by members, they will lay the foundation for ‘best practices’, which will then gradually evolve into standards by way of wide-spread usage by the selling and the buying parties. (more…)
September 30th, 2008
Nurlan Urazbaev
“Madison Avenue is bracing for the worst ad slump since 2001 as a drop-off in consumer spending is likely to lead marketers to rein in their budgetsâ€, reports New York Post on September 21. “The anticipated drop in spending in 2009 comes on the heels of a slight decline in 2007 and a more noticeable dip so far in 2008, according to industry data,†writes New York Post’s Holly M. Sanders. Most major press relayed a similar sentiment in the wake of last week’s meltdown on Wall Street.
New York Times quoted the CEO of WPP: “In the last couple weeks, you could smell the fear in New York,†said Martin Sorrell, chief executive at the WPP Group, which owns agencies like Grey, JWT and Ogilvy & Mather, as “institutions that were regarded as invincible have gone down or had to be bailed out.â€â€
The downturn in ad spending had started well before the “Black Sundayâ€: “… the Nielsen Monitor-Plus division of the Nielsen Company reported last week that ad spending in the first half of 2008 fell 1.4 percent compared with the same period a year ago. The laggards included ads in national magazines, down 3.1 percent; national newspapers, down 8.1 percent; and spot radio, down 10.1 percent,†says New York Times.
Reports forecast that traditional media is going to be the segment worst affected by the financial crisis, followed by online display advertising, which had already suffered a 6% drop in the first half of 2008, according to Nielsen. Display ads on the Internet have been largely dependent on financial and insurance advertisers. (more…)
September 23rd, 2008
Nurlan Urazbaev
NBC Universal and Google announced a strategic partnership that would give the largest search advertising company access to cable TV ad space inventory, Ad Age reports.
The move, if successful, could enable smaller marketers, who have been using Google’s paid search ad engine AdWords and who have not been able to afford TV ads before, to buy air time on a number of NBC’s cable outlets, bypassing traditional media sales channels.
According to Ad Age, when the system is in place, it would allow ‘non-traditional’ advertisers to upload their own content and target it to cable TV households based on the desired geographic markets and viewer profiles using an online interface, thus avoiding agency overhead and media buyer commissions.
In addition, these new advertisers would be able to receive high-tech metrics via Google TV Ads application, which can report second-by-second set-top-box data, says Ad Age: “That measure has become more popular as companies such as Starcom USA, TNS and Nielsen have offered plans to help advertisers get more precise data about how viewers watch TV, skip across channels, and use digital video recorders.” The network TV ad space will not be affected by the deal, Ad Age reports.
This collaboration could give NBC Universal a much needed edge against its “Big 4″ rivals amid continuing fragmentation of TV market, while providing Google with a revenue stream from traditional media. (more…)
September 14th, 2008
Nurlan Urazbaev
In recent years, many business owners have made a leap of faith and ventured into installing a digital signage network in their real estate. Many of them failed, some succeeded, some – succeeded big time. The prospect of boosting one’s business with digital signs is so enticing that digital signage suppliers are being overwhelmed with inquiries from small, medium and large-size enterprises. While the general idea is pretty simple – install screens, attract attention, promote-upsell-cross sell, the actual business models, content strategies and implementation tactics are still being tested by trial and error, causing a lot of entrepreneurs to sit on the fence until clear cut recipes for success are easily available. Â
Ken Borusso of Visual Incite published a very useful article in digitalsignagetoday.com on why should a business consider digital signage and how it is different from TV. (more…)
September 11th, 2008
Nurlan Urazbaev
Previous Posts
Brian has spent the last four years working with retailers, advertising/ media companies, and technology companies to develop successful business models in the digital signage industry and assisted in the formation of several of the industry trade organizations. He is an active member in 
Nurlan is director of marketing for BroadSign International. He has been with BroadSign since day one and brought along a lot of media expertise from his diverse career that ranged from a reporter to a radio executive, entrepreneur and owner of a media consulting company. He is a staunch proponent of standardization and ROI measurements for digital signage advertising.