Archive for October, 2007
The traditional “impression”, or “opportunity to see” an ad is no longer enough to prove the efficiency of advertising at retail, says Dick Blatt, President & CEO of POPAI, a point-of-purchase advertising trade organisation. Mr. Blatt told a POPAI digital signage conference in Montreal on Thursday that big advertislng dollars have started to pour into shopper marketing. He cautioned, however, that the problem the industry was facing now was how to keep these budgets in the absense of reliable metrics.
POPAI, among other trade bodies, has been working on establishing metrics to equip advertisers with insights into the real effect of their in-store initiatives.
A recent POPAIÂ MARI Proof of Concept research was the first attempt to measure the level of engagement shoppers have with the marketing-at-retail (MAR) displays.
The research revealed that only 20 percent of the MAR material was passed by shoppers on their journey. Only 4 percent of the material was both passed and seen, meaning that marketing waste in the measured stores was a shocking 96 percent.
POPAI used the findings to establish a new metric: impact ratio, that will be expressed in percentage points and will reflect shopper engagement as opposed to just an “opportunity to see”. The details of the research can be found HERE.
According to Dr. Hugh Phillips, a professor of McGill University who spoke at the same conference, many marketers and retailers are aware of the acute oversupply of advertising messages in stores. There are 4,624 display items in an average-sized supermarket in the UK and 4825 displays in average US stores, with up to 12,000 items in a megastore (POPAI studies). Some chains started cleaning up the store environments by reducing the amount of advertising materials.
Dr. Phillips, an expert on the cognitive psychology of shopping,  said shoppers have developed mechanisms of coping with the clutter by engaging a ‘deselection’ process, shielding themselves from the overload and reacting only to signs of potential relevant information. He found that shoppers may start reading the message only after they have singled it out on a subconscious level, by using indicators like color, shape and size.
The practical conclusion for digital signage networks? Digital signage enters an already busy environment in retail, and, to be successful, entrepreneurs should take the in-store clutter into account. Although digital signs has the unique potential of helping to clear the static display mess and stand out with its full-color and full-motion messages, they will still have to compete with over 35 other types of advertising, and will be perceived according to the same laws of shopper psychology.
In the long run, as Dick Blatt put it, those who understand that digital signage should be treated as ‘just another medium’, and measured as such, will prevail in making it a key part of a marketing mix.
October 26th, 2007
Digital signage ads are less annoying and are more relevant to the viewers than any other types of advertising, a new study by OTX (Online Testing eXchange) revealed.
The results of the study are wrapped up by Marketing Charts:
“Most adults say advertising on digital signage catches their attention – and they consider such advertising unique and entertaining, and less annoying than both traditional and online media, according to a study by OTX (Online Testing eXchange) conducted for SeeSaw Networks.
The “Digital Out-of-Home Media Awareness & Attitude Study†is the first to compare digital out-of-home media to other media, SeeSaw said.
Shortcuts to charts in this article:
- Advertising considered interesting and entertaining, by medium
- Advertising considered annoying, by medium
- Advertising catches attention and is unique, by medium
- Those who pay “some†or “a lot of†attention to advertising on mediumÂ
- Media attributes, 18-34-year-olds vs. general adult population
Among the findings of the study:
- Awareness of digital out-of-home media is high:
- Some 62% of adults have seen digital signage in the past 12 months – levels similar to billboards (66%), magazines (67%) and newspapers (63%).
- That compares with 92% for TV, 75% for radio, 78% for internet and 10% for mobile phones.
- On average, people notice digital signage in six different kinds of locations during their week, giving advertisers the opportunity to intercept people at various touch points.
- Digital out-of-home advertising is engaging:
 
- Respondents found digital signage advertising to be more unique (58%), interesting (53%) and entertaining (48%), and less annoying (26%), than other media.
- Some 63% of those who have seen digital signage say it attracted their attention, compared with 58% for billboards, 57% for magazines, 56% for TV, 47% for internet, 40% for newspaper, 37% for radio and 10% for mobile.
- 44% of adults say they pay some or a lot of attention to digital signage advertising, placing it ahead of traditional billboards, the internet and mobile phones, and on par with magazines, radio and newspapers.
- Reaching young people is a strength of digital out-of-home media:
- 75% of 18-34-year-olds have seen digital signage in the past 12 months and notice digital signage in seven different locations during their week.
- This demographic finds the advertising on digital signage to be more unique (63%), interesting (57%) and entertaining (53%) than advertising on other media and rates the media even higher than the general population across these measures.
Oct 25-07
October 26th, 2007
Media owners say the share of revenue from advertising is increasing relative to revenue from ‘end-user spending’. MARKETINGWEB says half the media executives polled in Accenture’s Global Content Study 2007 said advertising, driven by growth in digital advertising, could become the most prevalent business model within five years.
Traditionally, media revenues have been split between end-user spending (65%) and revenue from advertising (35%). End-user spending is defined either as subscriptions to media or buying media off the shelf, reports MARKETINGWEB.
“Regarding analytics, one of the major benefits of digital advertising is its measurability, which allows advertisers to track impact and Return On Investment (ROI) for their spending. As such, expect to see a shift in the way digital advertising is priced. While 39% of our respondents said that Cost Per Thousand (CPM) pricing would remain dominant, a combined 33% believe that Cost Per Transaction (CPT) and Cost Per Action (CPA) pricing would be more Important,†the researchers said.
The same trend was confirmed by Sir Martin Sorrell, CEO of the second-largest media communications group, WPP. Sydney Morning Herald quoted his speech  at the International Advertising Association lunch: ”Measurability was an area of increasing importance to clients, who were increasingly unwilling to pay for the rising cost of television”. He said that in five years he hoped to have half, instead of the present one-third, of his revenue from media that could be measured easily, such as internet advertising, and the tools that measured its effectiveness, writes Sydney Morning Herald.
According to MARKETINGWEB, Accenture’s Global Content Study 2007 surveyed more than 100 decision-makers in the media and entertainment sectors, including television, film, music, radio, video games, publishing interactive entertainment and advertising. It polled executives across North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific, to gauge their views of where the greatest opportunities and challenges will come over the next five years.
The previous year’s survey gave a different picture, with only 38% of respondents seeing advertising as a leading revenue stream. The researchers attributed the increase in optimism to the “strong traction that digital advertising has experienced, particularly in onlineâ€. The trend has been driven by the success of search-based advertising on the internet, which is complemented by video-based brand advertising.“The promise of this digital revenue format has been buoyed by major deals in the online space, including acquisitions such as Google and DoubleClick, Microsoft and aQuantive, Yahoo! and Right Media, Publicis and Digitas and WPP with 24/7 Real Media,†Accenture said.
I would add that for digital signage, which is an integral part of digital advertising, given its expansion in retail, such metrics as Cost Per Transaction (CPT) and Cost Per Action (CPA) will be be growing in importance compared to Cost Per Thousand Impressions (CPM).
Spend on advertising worldwide is estimated to be around US$500-billion, and is dominated by TV, newspapers and magazines.
Some traditional advertising executives fear that their skills might become redundant, as technology players dominate digital advertising, MARKETINGWEB says. Sir Martin Sorrell, chief executive of WPP and a respondent to the survey, labelled certain internet advertising providers as “frenemies†to traditional agencies. Thus they are seen as both “friend†and “enemy†to traditional media players.
According to Sydney Morning Herald, Mr. Sorrell described Google’s unique position as both a seller of services to WPP – the company buys $US450 million ($500 million) of “stuff” from Google each year – and a potential competitor for its media business by experimenting in selling newspaper inventory and setting up a creative services division to rival his advertising agencies such as JWT and Ogilvy & Mather.
“The biggest issue facing people in this room is the technology issue,” he said, describing Google as a “frenemy”. He pointed out that in just a few years Google’s market capitalisation had grown to four times that of the four main communications companies: WPP, Omnicom, Publicis and IPG.
He said Google’s proposed $US3.1 billion acquisition of the digital ad agency Double Click had prompted a rash of me-too purchases, including Microsoft’s $US6 billion takeover of the digital advertising and infrastructure group aQuantive and his own purchase for $US600 million of the search marketer 24/7 Real Media, Sydney Morning Herald wrote.
Describing another key trend, Martin Sorrell also pointed out that “the East” (Asia)Â posed even a bigger threat – or opportunity -Â to traditional agency business. “The thing that worries me is not what those PhDs are doing in Berkeley, Stanford or Harvard but at Beijing or Bangalore. I think we are about to see other things happen that we don’t even understand yet, emanating particularly from the eastern part of the world,” he said.
Wall Street Journal earlier this week quoted Mr. Sorrell as saying that, as part of his long-term strategy, WPP aims to increase its business in the fast-growing emerging markets to reduce reliance on the less-dynamic U.S. and Western Europe. He said WPP gets about a quarter of its $12 billion in annual revenue outside those markets and aims to raise that share to a third over the next five to 10 years.
Related topics: see the Digital Signage ROI category.
October 24th, 2007
According to the Cinema Ad Council, ad spending in movie theaters grew 15% in 2006 to $455.6 million, driven by strong ticket sales and the digitization of ad content distribution.
Advertising Age reports that the out-of-home advertising market has been growing as “spending shifts from traditional billboards to more accountable digital platforms,” and reached $6.8 billion in 2006. The majority of these dollars were spent on in-store networks and digital billboards.  Movie theaters have managed to lure marketers by selling the big screen as an alternative to cable networks or multiple-market billboard buys, says Ad Age.
What I find interesting is that movie theatre advertising represents one of those ‘captive audience’ phenomenae, where longer ad formats could work really well: Â
“…with in-cinema pre-shows often running 20 minutes of content and ads, there’s more inventory for movie marketers to buy. The pre-shows started out as a place for marketers to get extra mileage out of their 30-second TV spots. Now major marketers such as Coca-Cola Co., Procter & Gamble and Geico are creating custom, short-form content often 60 seconds or 90 seconds in length. Movie theaters are the only place to catch new Geico ads starring the popular cavemen now that the ABC sitcom is on the air.”
Ad Age quotes Stu Ballatt, senior VP-marketing and research for Screenvision, who says the long-form approach is helping drive growth of movie advertising. “It’s a continuing trend for people to place new creative into the cinema that isn’t necessarily used elsewhere or maybe is launched in cinema and then moved into other media,” he said.”
Main categories advertising in cinemas have been family restaurants as well as retail and package-goods personal-care products, Ad Age reports.Â
October 19th, 2007
Digital signage as a medium appeals to advertisers because of its potential to deliver both pin-point targeting and unprecedented levels of accountability. What may be this industry’s dirty little secret, however, is the fact that a large number of networks that are currently enjoying success do not have the proper reporting in place to provide this accountability to the marketers they service.
As my colleague Nurlan has been saying for years, digital signage has a strong advantage over broadcast media because of the fact that it can account for every ad played on every screen. Imagine if you could track with certainty every single time a commercial is displayed on every TV screen in the DMA when this TV set is on and tuned to the proper channel. Such tracking would be worth a lot of ad money, but it is not feasible for broadcast TV (except by way of expensive metering of sample audiences).
Well, the good news is that, in digital signage, near-real time tracking of each ad play on each screen (not just a player) can be a standard and automated procedure.
In order to take advantage of this, networks need to put in place the four components of a properly accountable digital signage reporting system:
1. Provide Proof of Display, not just proof of play. Proof of play is the term used in digital signage to describe the summary playback reports and the raw play logs. Proof of play is the equivalent of tearsheets in newspapers and of online impressions and click-through reports in pay-per-click marketing. While it seems obvious that proof of play should report on which ads were actually displayed on each screen and when, most of these reports only register which content was played by the playback device at best, not on the screens connected to it. If one or more of the screens are off or disconnected from the player, the proof of play would not detect that in many cases. This leads to the wrong count of ad plays, distorted count of impressions and the wrong conclusions in the post-campaign analysis. So by saying ‘provide Proof of Display versus proof of play’ we want to stress the importance of reporting of what really matters: playback at the screen level.
2. Audited Play Logs: most digital signage playback devices produce raw play logs that track what ad played, the date and time when it played and the duration of time it has played. In order to validate the accuracy of the entire reporting system, these play logs will need to be audited by a third party. Again, these audits register what’s being played on the actual screen, and then the results are compared to the play logs.
3. The Campaign Plan Report: the purpose of the campaign plan is to be able to provide a promise to the media buyer before they sign the ad contract. Using the characteristics of the network, one can generate a forward-looking plan that estimates how many times the ad will play in each targeted location. Having a Campaign Plan report with planned ad plays numbers will make it easier for you to justify your initial billing estimates.
4. The Campaign Performance Report: the campaign performance report aggregates the raw play logs for that campaign and presents the total results of the campaign against the “promise” made in the campaign plan report. The comparison between the planned plays and the achieved plays is how performance is calculated. The first 3 components are what make this report the basis for invoicing the media buy, make-goods or invoice reconciliation.
Based on my experience, the vast majority of digital signage networks out there do not have even two out of the four of the above components of a fully accountable digital signage reporting system.
Some networks charge a flat fee for a week-long, a month-long, three month-long, etc., campaign, based on approximate “impressions”, without providing any proof of play (or providing just an affidavit). Since the ways the impressions are calculated vary from network to network, such campaign cost estimates (and CPM values) are highly questionable.
Some provide a proof of play report, or play logs. As I mentioned earlier, most of the play logs, however, only report the fact that the player was on when the ad was supposed to play, not what played on the screens.
How is the industry getting away with it? I think the answer lies in the inherent appeal of digital signage as a medium. We see that even without any standards and metrics, retail digital signage and digital outdoor billboard networks are attracting more ad dollars every year. I believe that, similar to the world of Internet advertising before it, digital signage will soon undergo a rapid shift where the wheat will be separated from the proverbial chaff.
The question for network operators then becomes: will your network be ready in time for this shift?
October 19th, 2007
We are getting really solid expert feedback triggered by the discussion and by the following questions from Darin Gilstrap posted last week:
“Since there are several media math formulas currently being used to calculate digital signage media buys, I truly wonder which formulas are really apples-to-apples. Can you charge a national advertiser a flat ad-spot rate/per month/per location across 500, 1000, 2000+ locations? As a network grows do advertisers hesitate to pay more based on network growth? What about niche audiences for example women-only, Hispanics, African American networks, do they garner higher rates based on tighter targeting.”
Rob Gorrie of ADCENTRICITY sells digital signage advertising to major media buyers. Here are his insights from the frontline trenches:
RG: Love this question – right in line with the type of mature answer buyers need. Here’s the long answers:
Media formulae – there’s no one size fits all…and that’s part of the secret…our medium is NOT a commodity, nor is it a “rate card”. A bunch of Omnicom clients (execs) I deal with relate this space to TV/Broadcast and feel it’s a trailer buy to a TV spend, which is measured against a quasi GRP. On the other hand, some of the guys I deal with in the WPP camp throw it in to outdoor, as a subset, which is measured on……..something 
(perceived passerby traffic)…
Others think it’s a subcomponent of online digital advertising, especially with the rise of online video.
One of my advisors probably had the best comment when he said: “your medium is everything BUT TV. It has the dynamic nature of the Internet, the recency/FMOT of point of purchase, the localism of newspaper, the frequency of outdoor, the POTENTIAL relevance of magazines, the qualitative measurement capability of none of them with none of the problems of TV”….FYI, he was one of the instrumental characters in launching a large number of specialty channels on TV. This, of course, brings us to our industry identity crisis problem..if we’re something of every medium, but none of them at the same time, what are we? (this is another discussion and part of why media buyers have such a hard time understanding what we are/can provide – and we don’t explain it well).
End of the day, everything in our space can be boiled back down to 2 baseline common denominators:
1.)Â CPM Audience (cost per thousand “impressions” on gross audience)
which is a 30+ year old metric. Regardless of how old or irrelevant
this number is, it’s STILL the baseline for COST comparison across media
- TV = $17-$27/CPM on survivor (40 million gross on monthly =
$500K+/spot). Magazine = $15 CPM on readership of 10 mil’ish. Digital
Signage = $5/CPM at C-Store….makes it easy to compare COST but not ROI
or performance or impact.
2.)Â CPM Ads Served (Cost per thousand ads served) – New School
Internet ratings. Works as an ROI comparative but means little on media
evaluation/effectiveness. Great for quantitative analysis on media
impact or “pseudo-efficiency” on spend. Using the above mentality; TV =
$500,000,000/thousand (1 ad = $500K), Magazine = $50,000,000/’000 (1 ad
= $50K). Digital Signage $50/’000 (1 ad = 0.05) – we’ve run campaigns
that serve 5 million ads in 4 weeks for very little…it gets a little silly.
EVERY other metric can be boiled down to one of these two. What we should be striving for is a pseudo comparative metric close to GRP, which every other traditional, measured medium tries to emulate. This will take a couple of years and, quite frankly, can’t be accomplished by 1 network on its own or one category of network (e.g. just pharmacies) – it’s completely dependent on the needs of the campaign.
Once you know this, you can reverse-engineer everything else. We don’t really care what people need to evaluate on so we provide them everything….down to cost per ad served per gross audience reached. It’s a little overboard, but it means a buyer can evaluate a $ figure immediately based on what they need to evaluate it on to prove a good
buy to their client.
So what does that mean to your network, taking learning from above? As I’ve said before, Media buyers care about 3 things; Efficiency, Effectiveness and Reach. I won’t go into all of them but the big one is TARGETED reach.
So to the questions:
“Can you charge a national advertiser a flat ad-spot rate/per month/per
location?”
Yes.
It boils down to CPM Viewers, whether you like it or not. Let’s take $200/venue/month/spot. And let’s pretend we’re talking about a Convenience store chain that sees 2000 ppl per day/venue on average. (60,000 gross audience per month/venue). If you’re charging the above $200/venue, you’ve effectively saying to the advertiser that your media is worth $3.33/’000. Now let’s say that you’ve got 500 Convenience stores on that average (30,000,000 gross audience). You’re still charging $3.33 at $200 a month per spot at 500 locations.
Realistically, 30,000,000 is worth a hell of a lot more than 60,000, especially if you want to start competing with the measured mediums, but Digital Signage isn’t mature enough as a holistic base to command that yet, nor do buyers trust it as a viable mass alternative or placeholder.
What’s more valuable?…a single, 1 day, $30,000 full page ad in the financial section of a newspaper that has a full paper “readership” of 1.2 million or a $60,000 Digital signage spend that serves 800,000 ads in 2 weeks in urban financial targets on various networks with a gross audience of 4,000,000 (targeted/net audience of 740,000)?
Give it 2 years and price inflation will occur naturally based on demand and finite inventory. Now, to top this off, you have to remember that the real value is in the actual TARGETED reach that an advertiser can get through the access achieved with your network. You should always really be selling on audience access as opposed to venues because that’s all a buyer really cares about…the more targeted your network is to their needs, the more likely they are to buy on it.
Where the REAL power comes in is with frequency. How many times can we make that audience on average see that ad without media fatigue? Does your audience come to your venue once a day or once a month? It’s a bit of a science and it gets really complex when you decide to merge 10 different categories together in one campaign (C-Stores, pharmacies, grocery, bar, etc).
Q: “As a network grows do advertisers hesitate to pay more based on network growth?”
No. actually, agencies and brands WANT more growth. 500 locations means nothing to them in the grand scheme of things. They can moan as much as they want (and trust me they will) but if you follow the above and your demo is what they want, you end up holding the cards. As above, if 30% of those 30 million gross audience are EXACTLY who they need to reach, you’re in the driver’s seat. Don’t fall for the “I reach X on TV” argument either…realistically, if you know the stats, less than 46% of people even stay in the room (or change channel or start chatting or look at their laptop) during a TV commercial and of those 46%, the recall is 21% versus a 35%+ recall on Digital Signage.Â
In addition, TV’s “ad acceptance rating” is very low whereas I have studies that show acceptance on Digital Signage up to 60%. And of that TV audience, that’s GROSS…not really even targeted based on the GRPs they’re buying. End of the day, each brand only has so much dough, however….you need to make sure your content is relevant and up to date, otherwise the impact of your ads is zero because there’s nothing for the audience to look at or be entertained by.Â
Lastly, the media agencies aren’t buying because of scale. If they’re making 15% on this and you’re trying to sell them a 50K program, they make $7500 for a ton more effort than buying a newspaper spot (which is a phone call away). The media agencies want the networks to grow too to buy on 10,000 locations because it means the buy gets into the millions and they start making some real money based on their efforts. As hard as they push you down on price, the harder they push the less they make for their efforts
(we sell on gross not net).
Q:”What about niche audiences for example women-only, Hispanics, African-American networks, do they garner higher rates based on tighter targeting”
RG: This is my favorite question. Yes and No is the best answer I can give, however. North American brands and media companies are disasters when it comes to targeting minorities or economic subsets. There’s been some great articles on ad age about this recently. They (we) aren’t very good at understanding how to effectively speak a different language other than “BRAND”. And a brand means something different to each targeted group. We’re learning, slowly, as the population changes and there are certain brands and agencies that have learned to capitalize on this trend.Â
Reality is, however, that you have to be smart about your sales efforts on this question. Despite the fact that they’ll deny it left, right and center, “Coke’s” media company will not see value in paying more for your “targeted” network of 500 locations versus someone else’s based on profiling of that nature. They’re VERY smart statisticians and very good at what they do, but it’s too small to be on their radar to have impact if they decide to target a particular group.
On the other hand, there are other brands who are second tier who LOVE the ability to get to this level, based on their product, service or campaign that no one pays attention to but are so perfect for Digital Signage (e.g. a inner city doctor’s network).Â
They also will realize more out of advertising with you than “Coke” will so…. Longer term, you can charge them more and, if you get enough of them, you get to turn down the “Coke’s” of the world on cheaper pricing, as attractive as they are, because your network is more effective for others and you don’t have to cater to their needs….the “A” list clients aren’t always what they’re cracked up to be. The old saying that “beauty is in the eye of the beholder” still holds true. If you have a niche that is attractive to a particular advertiser, they’ll chase you if you can prove value and effective returns.
October 15th, 2007
Andrey Kazakov asked this question last week: “Is there some special license that needs to be obtained to operate Plasma screen network in Canada (and particulary in BC)? I intersted in contacts with small scaled Digital Signage network operators in British Columbia
Cheers,
Andrey”
Rob Gorrie of ADCENTRICITY provided the following substantial answer:
Let’s separate out the 3 types of screen networks that reside under the caption “OOH” (Out Of Home):
1.) Outdoor Digital (roadside (rural/urban) digital signage “LED” type boards)
2.) Place-based (LCD/Plasma screens in Doctors offices, Restaurants, Health Clubs, etc)
3.) Retail (Digital LCD/Plasma in Convenience Stores, Grocery, Pharma, etc)
Retail and Place-based are pretty green field right now. There aren’t a lot (if any) “Government”/”CRTC”/”FCC” rules governing the operations of these networks because, fundamentally, these are closed networks, operated privately….so no one in the regulation business really has a foothold here. It’s also too small for their scope and it’s too new so the regulatory business hasn’t caught up to it yet. If we are all responsible about how we operate these networks, they never will have to get involved in our industry.
The only areas you have to be aware of is on the content/advertising side. E.g. you can’t “rebroadcast” someone else’s signal or program without getting permission or paying for it. In addition, there are industries that are very governed, such as pharmaceutical advertising, that have very stringent rules as to what you can/can’t say on the screens.
The “Outdoor” side of Digital Signage is a different game (Big Outdoor LED signs). Not only are these subject to their own “laws” as to how they can operate, those “laws” change from province/state to province/state and city to city. You don’t necessarily need a “license” in all areas but you do need permission from municipal, provincial/state and federal regulatory bodies, depending on where your signage is located. The US also seems to be more amenable to this form of advertising than Canada.
Different provinces/states also have different concepts of what Digital Signage is. Some only allow still image transitions on the digital boards and others allow motion. You have to operate each accordingly.
As for Digital Signage Network operators in BC, I know a couple and would be happy to introduce you if you want to send me an email at rob {at} adcentricity.com. I’m very interested in meeting some more Networks there as well Andrey as it seems that most of BC lags behind the rest of the country in Digital Signage Network implementations and I’d love some more coverage past the rockies.
Regards”RobÂ
Thank you Rob!
October 15th, 2007
There is a lot of talk in the industry around whether or not digital signage networks should participate in the Emergency Alert System. Although digital signage networks are not yet obliged to do so (they are not included in the list of media that are required by law to participate in the EAS), this looks like a temporary situation that may soon be legislated, given the growing reach of digital signage.
Even in the absence of the legislation many networks have recognized the need to incorporate the EAS or other types of emergency alert systems. Often the nature of the venue demands this functionality (for instance, student campuses, hospitals, arenas, etc.)
Today the proactive network owners are approaching this “need†in a way that makes them responsible for gathering the information, putting the information in a content format and then wanting to push this information to the screen, thus disrupting the current program. There is definitely a tremendous value in providing this service, when it’s done right, but at what cost?
My concern is that on occasions the network owners will not be able to implement the alerts within acceptable time-frames. How long will it take to get the information? What should be the response time limit? What format should it be displayed in? What content needs to be associated with it? Who should approve the message and the final output? After all this is sorted out and the Send button is pressed – the emergency could be over and who is now liable?
Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) is an ‘XML-based data format for exchanging’ messages between alerting technologies. It ‘allows a warning message to be consistently disseminated simultaneously over many warning systems to many applications’ (definition by Wikipedia). We should evaluate this process as an option to our industry as it may be a more reliable and appropriate technology, and create a standard process for delivering emergency alerts to Out-of-Home Video Networks.
October 15th, 2007
Most of the big flat panel guys are in the game now when it comes to digital signage, though only a handful appear to be going at it hard — LG being one of them.
They had a big presence at the DSE show this spring in Chicago, and now they are doing a three-city road show focused very specifically onese kinds of opportunities.
Called TransVolve, the shows are set for tomorrow in New York and then the following week in LA. BroadSign will have people who will be hanging out and staring longingly at the free open bar at the show in LA.
LG’s description:
Learn from LG and other industry leading digital signage hardware, software and services companies how to maximize the use of digital signage to drive customer loyalty, increase profitability and drive sales. Grab the attention of your customer and don’t be left behind as you “Transvolve” your message to the public.Â
You have to register to attend and for all you freeloaders out there, it will greatly enhance your chances of getting in if you are actually IN this industry and might buy something. You could win a flat screen just by showing up, so bring you sister’s mini-van.
More details and registration here …Â
Eric Kanagy, who blogs about his journey with his start-up RedPost, went to the Chicago show last week. He noted attendance was not all that great, so hopefully time and a little publicity will jump up the numbers.
October 15th, 2007
In continuation of the earlier discussion on how to sell your ad space, we received an answer to the following question posted by Darin Gilstrap:
“BroadSign Bloggers: Since there are several media math formulas currently being used to calculate digital signage media buys, I truly wonder which formulas are really apples-to-apples. Can you charge a national advertiser a flat ad-spot rate/per month/per location across 500, 1000, 2000+ locations? As a network grows do advertisers hesitate to pay more based on network growth? What about niche audiences for example women-only, Hispanics, African American networks, do they garner higher rates based on tighter targeting.â€
Here is the expert answer from Jeff Dickey, Founder/VP Business Development, SeeSaw Networks:
“While standards have yet to be agreed upon, one emerging currency for digital signage buys is CPM, where the impressions are determined using the combination of a validated traffic number multiplied by an awareness number. This formula truly brings an apples-to-apples comparison to digital out-of-home media buys that span multiple digital out of home networks.
National advertisers are reluctant to buy on flat rates simply because not all locations are equal, even within the same network (different demos, different traffic, etc.). Some networks have gotten away with requiring nationwide/network-wide buys, but those days are numbered as the advertisers push toward more specific buys with greater and greater levels of targeting.
If the research is available to support the demographics of female, Hispanic, or age groups — even better if the demographic data can be day-parted — a premium can definitely be applied to the better opportunities the advertiser has to reach their target audience.â€
Jeff Dickey, Founder/VP Business Development, SeeSaw Networks
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October 13th, 2007
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