Posts filed under 'How to: Digital Signage Tips'
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).
No affiliation with a big-name agency platform can resolve this issue, as such platforms deal mostly with the planning and buying aspects, and campaign execution is always based on a manual workflow. In all other media except digital signage campaign execution is a relatively mature process that does not involve complete and complex control at the receiving end. TV sets are controlled by viewers; radios are controlled by listeners, static billboards are updated once in a few weeks/months and are at the mercy of weather and vandals; magazines and newspapers are beyond control once they are distributed; PCs are controlled by users, etc.
Only in digital signage it is required and expected that one must enforce playback to a single screen in a network, fully control what’s showing when and account for it. Add several other networks – and you have a nightmare tech challenge for automation. Most traditional media and cross-media aggregators do not realize this until they try to do something with digital signage… And when they do… many of them give up the idea.
The solution is also obvious – DOOH aggregators must connect their cross-network planning and buying interfaces to a cross-network campaign execution (traffic) tool. My next statement is self-serving, but also true: there is only one such tool on the market today and it is called BroadSign Open API. So far it works only with BroadSign-powered networks (total of 160+networks in 25 countries), but this is only the first step. The technology is there. I invite you click here to learn more.
July 22nd, 2009
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.
Nevertheless, despite the confused identity, since aka.tv was launched, the medium has quickly expanded into a two-billion-dollar-plus sector, with a growth rate of 27% per annum in 2007 (PQ Media Report) and forecasted CAGR of 12.9% from 2007 through 2012 (PQ Media Report). That’s impressive, considering the recession (it was factored in the report) and the fact that digital signage is thus far largely off the radars of major media buying houses.
The recent Digital Media Summit organized by OVAB in New York showed that Madison Avenue finally succumbed to the two-prone pressure – from advertisers and networks, and is now ready to consider digital signage for inclusion in media plans.
However, as I see from my discussions with marketers, agencies and networks, the continuing identity crisis keeps preventing the industry from getting a legitimate seat at the media buyers’ table.
While agencies say they are ‘ready’, they are still structured by silos, or ‘buckets, neither of which gives digital signage any visibility. If we do not proactively help them define the appropriate category for our sector, we risk staying buried somewhere deep in the ‘out-of-home’ or ‘alternative’, or ‘digital’ buckets and, as such, being eligible for nothing but ‘crumbs’ versus real ad dollars.
Due to the fact that we are currently a subcategory of a category, or even a subcategory of another subcategory, most planners are also largely unaware of digital signage. And, as the saying goes, ‘if you’re not on the plan, you’re not in the buy.’
The question is, should we keep hiding within an existing category, or simply create one of our own and get the attention our medium deserves? A separate category would have a much better chance to distinguish itself from other media by clearly stating its unique value in implementing marketing strategies.
The next question is: if we push for a separate category, how should we pitch it, what name would reflect its true identity? Should we promote ‘digital signage’, which is already the most wide-spread and proven term inside the industry, or make a brand new one?
Speaking about a new name, what quality makes digital signage so valuable to advertisers? Undoubtedly, the fact that it reaches people when they are at a location other than home, when they are in a ‘consumer mode’ and are not so opposed to advertising messages, as when they are at home. Following this logic, why not name it ‘location-based media’? Or revive the ‘place-based media’, but make it a stand-alone category this time?
PQ Media in its latest report adopted the general name ‘digital out-of-home media’ for the industry and subdivided it into ’video advertising networks’ (VANs), ‘digital billboards’ and ‘ambient advertising’. This classification makes sense and is in line with recently increased usage of ‘digital out-of-home’, but if we go along this path, we will inevitably find ourselves back in the Out-of-home/Outdoor category, which is “the last one to plan and the first one to cut”. Even certain influential members of the OVAB (Out-of-home Video Advertising Bureau) are now doubtful about the ‘out-of-home’ part in the bureau’s name for the above-mentioned reason. Besides, ‘video advertising networks’ can be confused with online networks (just ‘google’ it and see what comes up).
Our trade, by all conservative estimates, is one of the fastest-growing media with unrivaled effectiveness, and it fully deserves a clear voice, a distinct name and an independent media buying category. It all starts with a name that may either help it soar, or stall acceptance by the advertising community. How do we resolve the identity crisis and get to play with ‘the big guys’? I would like to know everyone’s opinion.
November 29th, 2008
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.
Here are a couple of insights from the article:
- While some business owners are undecided about the value of digital signage, large broadcast media companies have been acquiring and consolidating network ad space for the past two years.
- The value of digital signage CPM is much higher than that of broadcast media, even though the numbers are comparable. Digital signage delivers viewers who are prequalified by targeting, are less distracted, are near the products advertised, and are more likely to make a purchase.
Ken also explains the difference between broadcast TV, cable TVÂ and digital signage programming models.
This is a great update on the subject BroadSign’s Brian Dusho wrote about in 2005: Loop Vs Playlist: How to target Your Digital Signage Audience.
You can read the full article by Ken Borusso here.
 You can also find the Power Point Show of BroadSign’s presentation on a similar topic at Screen Expo Europe 2006 here.
September 11th, 2008
DOOH Forum by Media Post, April 23, 2008, the Yale Club of New York, NY, NY.
This was probably the most authoritative conference on DOOH. It gathered some of the best brains from the digital signage and mainstream advertising industries. The Forum was the first event on digital signage organized by Media Post, with the Wall Street Journal as the main sponsor. There was almost no tech-talk. The focus was mainly on how advertisers and agencies are changing their view of this fast-spreading medium, the barriers to its broad adoption by media buyers, and the increasingly important role DOOH is playing as an alternative to the stagnant TV. The DOOH Forum was followed the next day by the Outfront conference – reflecting on how traditional media (namely, network TV), is adapting to the changing realities.
The DOOH Forum was also the most sold out conference I have ever seen. All the seats at the tables were taken early, then the organizers had to make extra rows of chairs in the back, and when those were filled, the balcony got packed to the limit.
You can see the list of speakers and the agenda here.
Here are some highlights and observations from the discussions:
- Several speakers (including outside analysts) named DOOH as the’hottest medium’ today, and it is spreading even faster than internet in its early days, because of its ability to reach consumers when they are away from home, its unintrusive nature, and its proximity to point of purchase and point of decision.
- After a few years of soul-searching, two terms seem to have stuck to the wall to describe the industry: ‘digital out-of-home’ and ‘digital signage’. Some still insist on using the term ‘place-based media’, but Google Search doesn’t return many results on that one.
- Agencies are now under pressure from both ends – advertisers and DOOH networks – to include digital signage in the media mix, so they are finally starting to embrace it as part of an “integrated approach” to marketing strategy, or “360 degrees marketing”. The issue everybody is struggling with is the metrics currency: what is the currency unit they should use while planning, buying and reporting on campaigns. At this point it takes agencies several times more effort to allocate a few million $$ to a DOOH campaign compared to quick and easy multi-million-dollar TV buys. The issue of commission is also not resolved in favor of DOOH yet, and that makes agencies reluctant to use it overall.
- The new Audience Metrics Guidelines developed by OVAB are expected to be endorsed by the AAAA and ANA by the end of this year and adopted by networks and agencies as a common currency for negotiating DOOH buys.
- Although DOOH has an enormous potential in achieving the ultimate goal of advertising: ‘move the merchandize’, the whole traditional media planning and media buying infrastructure is built around the CPMs and GRPs that are based on Nielsen ratings – which in turn are based on elusive “impressions”. The accuracy of the current media effectiveness measurement was best described by Mr.Jack Wakshlag, Chief Research Officer of Turner Broadcasting System. On the second day, at the Outfront conference, after a few hours of detail-heavy scientific discussion of existing TV audience measurement methodologies involving Nielsen, TNS and IAG, Mr. Wakshlag exclaimed: “All I want to know is who is watching my ads. I (still) cannot get a straight answer!”.
- As for who watches TV ads: a speaker asked how many people in the audience watched a full commercial pod lately. Three raised their hands, all three turned out to be media buyers…
- Speaking about the current metrics system, OVAB’s president Suzanne Alecia said on the panel: “It took TV 50 years to come up with C3 (average commercial minute ratings, as opposed to program ratings, (NU)); it took Outdoor 100 years to come up with Eyes On (a method of determining how many passers-by actually looked at the billboards, as opposed to just passing traffic numbers (NU)); and it took us 18 months to achieve better results with our Audience Metrics Guidelines” (for the whole DOOH industry).
- Nielsen is introducing audience measurement methodologies for digital signage and conducts field studies with several DOOH networks. See details here.
- Arbitron is using its PPM device for audience measurenment in DOOH. The company is also testing the use of PPM for verifying proof of play data delivered by networks run on BroadSign Suite platform.
- Several speakers made it clear that even if the new ‘perfect’ metrics were introduced now, it would not cause agencies and national advertisers to start buying DOOH space immediately. Everybody openly agrees that “impressions” are a very deficient way of measuring a campaign, but the 70 billion-dollar TV advertising industry rests solely on them, and the inertia among traditional media buyers is still omnipresent. Therefore, in order to get to the negotiating table now, experts recommend to ‘not try and be too clever’ and to ‘dumb your offer down’ – i.e., show impressions, CPMs, reach and frequency, so you could be compared to TV or print.
- In the meantime, Nielsen’ 50-year-old monopoly on audience measurements seems to be eroding quickly – even in TV. A number of smaller companies with advanced technologies are making their way into the space. As media is going digital, including TV, measurements are increasingly based on digital technologies as well, thus becoming cheaper and providing data that is richer and more accurate. With TV in the US switching to digital in February 2009, the only analog medium left will be print.
- The old formula is: what gets measured – gets bought. However, for decades, traditional media has been able to get away with “impressions”, that provided the basis only for a semi-intelligent buying decision. These days are numbered, says Tim Hanlon of Ventures, Denuo. ‘Digital’ changes everything. No medium will escape granular metrics.
- There is a growing understanding among media buyers and planners that working in traditional silos (TV, Radio, Print) is a thing of the past. Many agencies have adopted an integrated approach (also known as 360 degrees marketing), when they carefully examine the client’s needs first and then create strategies across multiple media, including online and Outdoor/Out-of-home. The attitude towards new media is changing to more positive nowadays.
- Tip: if DOOH ad sellers want to be considered for a media plan inclusion, they should talk to everybody involved: agencies, media buyers, planners, advertisers (directly). As the whole media industry is in transition, there are no more clear-cut recipes for getting on media plans. If you can prove you can deliver a certain demographic in certain markets, you may be heard. Even better, if you allow the buyer to cherry-pick demos in addition to broad buys. Getting the attention of a strategic media planner increases your chances for success, industry insiders say.
- A lot of buyers are sitting on the fence, waiting for others to take a lead in DOOH. But, according to Tim Hanlon (Ventures, Denuo), buyers are ‘fast followers’, not pioneers by nature. Once a few major buys happen, the competitive pressure will trigger a domino effect.
- DOOH ad space aggregators like SeeSaw have a bright future as a single point of contact for buyers, as long as they manage to offer standardized buys by demographics and markets.
- The entry of big traditional media players like NBC, CBS, Viacom, Clear Channel, JC Decaux, Publicis, WPP, Omnicom, Wall Street Journal, Nielsen, Arbitron and others into DOOH makes both advertisers and buyers pay attention, brings national scale, and facilitates entry for other viable DOOH sellers. It is also a sign of a growing market maturity and consolidation.
- DOOH is doing very well in the recession.
- The lack of new, DOOH-era creative is still a big issue. Many networks have to set up their own creative shops to deliver the best value to clients. Re-purposing TV commercials is unacceptable, but most advertisers still have no clue.
- The long-awaited tipping point for digital signage is now.
Also, read Joe Mandese’s coverage of the Metrics panel discussion here. And a detailed coverage of the discussions by digitalsignageuniverse.com here.
April 28th, 2008
Digital signage network operators that depend on ad revenue are leaning towards becoming media companies, rather than being technology providers. Today’s battle for a piece of the advertising pie forces networks to allocate much more effort to finding a viable business model, building their ad space, training an ad sales force and breaking into advertisers’ media plans. Therefore, having to deal at the same time with in-house software or issues related to running an ‘on-premise’ software application is becoming too much of a burden.
In this respect the maturing digital signage industry is following the path of traditional broadcasting, where most of the technical and IT responsibilities are outsourced, leaving networks ‘leaner and meaner’ in their competition for ratings and ad revenue.
Software as a Service (SaaS) model that has become popular lately in industries like accounting, CRM and sales performance management, is appealing to many operators of ad revenue-driven networks, especially in retail as it can satisfy their demans for rich functionality without being cost-prohibitive.
I spoke to many networks who came to our booth at the Screen Expo Europe 2008 in London, and a vast majority of ad revenue-based companies appears to be looking for an outsourced, hosted solution. At the same time, there is a large number of closed networks (such as those in banks or corporate environment), for whom an ‘on-premise’ solution is a better choice.
BroadSign has published a white paper on the subject: ”Grow Your Digital Signage Business, Not Overhead: How a SaaS Solution Can Help. You can download it here.
February 8th, 2008
We receive many questions as to whether Internet connectivity interruptions affect advertiser compliance. The short answer is: in most cases they do not, but other problems that may be disguised as connectivity issues, do.
The reality of running a digital signage network via the internet is that connectivity issues will arise. They might be unexpected network hiccups, planned downtime by the ISP, or stalled routers. Advertiser compliance does not have to be affected if a system is disconnected from the internet. For instance, BroadSign Players are only connected to the Internet when they poll the server for new schedules or content. So, if there is no connection, the player will keep playing the latest updated content according to the latest schedule updates. The worst-case scenario, therefore, is that the player will miss an update while the connection is being restored. However, considering that new schedule and content uploads are usually done well in advance, the likelihood of compliance being affected is very low.
To illustrate this point, most of advertisers want their campaigns scheduled for a prolonged period. If you schedule it for a 2-3 month period, the campaign will keep playing regardless of a connection. If the connection is interrupted, the only thing affected would be the near real-time network performance reporting. But when the connection is restored, all reports are updated with the next poll.
Sometimes, however, what seems like a networking issue may be due to hardware failure. When hardware fails, advertisements can no longer be seen on the display which qualifies as a non-compliance. Excessive non-compliance requires that advertisers receive make goods or have invoices adjusted in order to compensate for missing ad plays. One of the big challenges of remote monitoring is that it is impossible to detect the difference between a network issue that will correct itself and a hardware issue that will not.
This is why the industry has standardized remote monitoring systems with built-in programmable thresholds. For example, if BroadSign players are connected using a third party’s internet connection, lenient thresholds may be selected; for example, “warn me if a player’s connection has been down for more than one hour”, and “escalate the issue to critical when the system is down for over 24 hours”. When business DSL is used, immediate notification of connection issues may be more appropriate; in this case, “escalate the issue to critical after as little as two hours of down time”. While a thresholds system is not perfect, when combined with a system that provides historical data on a site’s behavior, it is possible to monitor a very large network without a large workforce.
For example, if a site shuts down its systems, or prevents playback intentionally or even unintentionally, the site’s history will indicate whether or not a technician should be dispatched. A proper remote monitoring system will display the history of unexpected shutdowns at a particular location. Even if on-site staff shut systems down after hours, which does not affect compliance, performing a hard shutdown introduces undue wear and tear on player hardware. Over a period of time, this increases the chance of hardware failure. If the system’s network status has been escalated to critical, the history of unexpected shutdowns may indicate that the hardware has failed. If, however, it is accompanied by the history of regular MIA reports, overriding the thresholds for that site is recommended in order to ignore regular and repeating behavior.
On the other hand, the industry-accepted method of determining advertiser compliance is to have the network audited by a trusted third party. We are working on proof-of-play audit projects with media measurement giants Nielsen and Arbitron. They measure compliance by correlating their play logs with BroadSign proof of display logs. BroadSign Suite measures its own compliance levels on a per-campaign basis which can be viewed via the campaign performance report. Since campaign performance results are compiled from proof of display logs, an audited network can provide a higher level of comfort to advertisers and makes it easier for them to justify their rate cards and billings.
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January 29th, 2008
“The concept is simple: Take the millions of lines of time-stamped playlist data from the signage network, place them alongside the millions of lines of time-stamped sales data from the POS, and compare. Look for patterns that reveal which bits of content are having an impact on sales,” writes James Bickers of Self Service World magazine and digitalsignagetoday.com in his article, recapping the latest approaches to measuring digital signage campaigns effectiveness in retail.
James is focusing on the fact that POS data analysis can help one define which type of content or specific content version resulted in better sales – and I totally agree with that. I would add, however, that, apart from the content, you can also test-change-analyze-change-test, etc. – all kinds of scheduling variations: was the day part picked right?; if there were several day parts, which one worked best?; was the frequency (loop saturation) right? was the overall loop length set right?; did the ad adjacency to other content play any role? did competitive ads or their absence have an impact?, etc.
There is more and more talk nowadays about reinforcing this type of campaign effectiveness analysis, that, by definition, can be done only in e-commerce and in retail digital signage. When such applications are standardized and mass produced they will pave the way for digital sigfnage to become part of mainstream media.Â
November 7th, 2007
Ken Liao from SeeSaw Networks sent this great response to Daniel Parisien’s post “The Dirty Little Secret of Digital Signage: Proof of Play vs. Audited Proof of Display“:
“Daniel – great topic. We, at SeeSaw, whole-heartedly agree with the industry moving toward much greater accountability. It is refreshing to see your position that proof-of-play goes beyond logs of a playback device and needs to focus on playback at the screen level.
While we generally agree with your four components of an accountable digital signage reporting solution, we would respectfully add two additional factors: traffic and awareness. Traffic is represented the foot traffic passing by a specific location (the potential viewers) and awareness represents the percentage of people that are aware that a digital signage device is in place, displaying content. Everything in the system can operate perfectly, playback on the device is logged correctly, screens are on and displaying ads correctly – but without foot-traffic and awareness, there is no measurement of how many people actually SAW an ad.
By adding these two data components, the advertiser now has a more complete picture of their digital signage campaign’s performance. As Tom (Muniz) mentions, it’s imperative that standards be put forth by those looking to lead this industry.”
I think Ken brings a highly valid point: in order to get reliable impressions numbers, you need to measure the audience and match that data with the proof of play (rather, proof of display, as per Daniel’s definition).
The problem is, in the real world, a lot of networks have neither accurate proof of display stats, nor regularly updated audience measurements. The audience surveys are very expensive and are usually done only once in a few months or once a year at best. So, the accountability becomes fuzzy.
This could be resolved first of all by improving the proof of display reporting process, and, secondly, by implementing digital monitoring of viewership.
Digital cameras that capture every instance of a customer looking at a sign, the duration of eye contact, often even the age, gender and ethnicity of a viewer are already available on the market. The monitoring is real-time, and various types of reports can be generated based on that data. This new technology allows networks to deliver the ad impressions numbers as “hard” data, as opposed to the “soft” data, when only a sample of audience is polled by way of traditional exit interviews and then the results are extrapolated to the whole “universe”.
Such proof of performance can be sufficient to analyze the effectiveness of media spending in a non-retail environment. In retail, however, the ultimate goal is sales lift (see the previous post on the topic), so the campaign performance picture would be completed if sales conversion data is added to the two previous tiers, i.e., proof of display and audience measurements.
Earlier this year I proposed draft definitions of ”the three tiers of accountability” for in-store digital signage:
Tier I:
Proof of ad delivery: How many times was my ad displayed on the targeted screens, in what markets, locations, sites, and over which period of time? Such analysis requires robust proof-of-play reporting mechanisms. This level of accountability is critical for justifying billing per campaign and reconciling invoices. It also facilitates pricing your airtime, if you want to base it on the cost per ad play.
Tier II:
Proof of audience delivery: While my ads were served, how many customers had the opportunity to see them, or actually saw them? The trick here is: you cannot prove audience delivery without having accurate proof of ad delivery first.
Tier III:
Sales uplift measurement. This is the crowning achievement of advertising effectiveness analysis that has become easily available so far only in Internet advertising (when it is combined with e-commerce) and at properly set up in-store digital signage networks. It requires correlation between ad campaign data and POS data.
November 2nd, 2007
… for sales, and, may be, a little bit of branding along the way.
11 out of 12 experts quoted in Laura Davis-Taylor’s article “Branding or Sales Lift? Having it Both Ways” spoke in favor of using in-store digital signage for generating sales lift, while the branding function is performed in the background, as an ancilliary process. The article was published in the October issue of the Marketing At Retail magazine and continued the ’branding vs. sales uplift’ debate that, according to Laura Davis-Taylor, is still raging in the industry.
Frankly, I wonder why the debate is still even on. There are already so many existing vehicles for branding, why misuse digital signage airtime when it is best suited for closing a sale?Perhaps there are a lot of agencies and individuals with deeply vested interests in expanding their branding expertise and services into the lucrative world of retail digital signage. Even then, I see no contradiction here: if branding originates somewhere else, use digital signage to extend that campaign and to actually sell the product. What I don’t see is how digital signage can be used as a primary brand-building vehicle.
My naive thoughts: selling can exist without branding, but can branding exist without selling? And, after all, is there a better way to complete a branding effort than to make a sale?Â
However, I am glad to see that common sense prevails.
Here are some eloquent expert quotes selected by Laura Davis-Taylor, a renowned retail media consultant, from the RetailWire BrainTrust Query results:
Professor John Greening, Sector Head, Advertising; Associate Professor, Medill Graduate School of Integrated Marketing Communications at Northwestern University:
“Marketers need to look at in-store for what it is rather than trying to transfer another medium’s strength and weaknesses onto it. In the store, aperture is different. At home, I’m in ‘lean back mode’ and looking for a distraction. In the store, I’m ‘leaning forward’ and trying to accomplish something-shopping or buying. So, if the media is not helping me do what I need to do while there, it may end up being distracting or aggravating.
The effectiveness of any medium is always the message. So what we need to do is rethink what types of messages we serve up at each point in time of the brand experience. What makes sense in-store? The message of ‘branding’ in-store gets confused because in the glory days of TV we were all about maximum entertainment. Anything price and item or sales focused was seen as sacrificing the brand. Not true if that information is helping me make a decision on the spot in a store.
Valuable, helpful information at the point of purchase builds the brand in a direct way (like direct-response TV does) while still focusing on results generation. And TV entertainment spots (AKA branding messages) are not the kind of messages that will do this. So the answer is that the brand CAN be built in a store…Just in a different way that’s tied to results!â€
Mark Lilien, Retail Technology Group:
“Some marketers push ‘brand-building’ instead of ‘sales’ because deep down they don’t know how to build sales more productively. So they go for the ‘easier goal’: gross rating points. The accusation: it’s easier to buy an audience than to get an audience to buy.â€
Philip Straniero, Executive in Residence, Western Michigan University:
“As a Trade Marketer by profession, I am always slanted to take the side of increased sales lift. This is surely a result of my training and a point of view that in-store investments need to deliver increased sales lift and reach a return on investment hurdle rate. I also think that there are ways that these types of tools can be used to grow brand equity with the consumer but the advertising message must be tailored to an inclusionary (not a primary) focus of the in-store advertising.â€
Bill Robinson, Senior Executive, QuantiSense:
What do shoppers want, especially when they are in the store? In my experience they have very little need to hear about the brand, unless the brand message is tied to something useful. Usually they want some information about a product or a line that they are interested in. Unfortunately, in-store product information is woeful in almost all stores. Product marketers, if you use your new displays and interactive gadgets to provide this type of useful information, sales will increase. And yes, build your brand in the background, unobtrusively.â€
Nikki Baird, Managing Partner, RSR Research:
“In-store digital media is about sales and brand building and entertainment for the shopper. But the implementation costs should be justified by the sales lift alone. If you can get enough value out of your implementation from the promotional opportunities to justify the investment, then the rest – ‘soft’ benefits from a business case perspective – are a bonus.â€
Don Delzell, Principal, Retail Advantage:
I believe that the primary reason sales lift is the dominant use of in-store media is that the brand objective ( at the retailer level) has already been met. The consumer has already chosen to shop there, and the beneficial value of reinforcing the belief system through additional brand message delivery is relatively low – particularly when compared to the opportunity cost of using that time and space for an objective not met.
If the retail brand objective isn’t sustained by the shopping experience, using in-line screens to deliver it isn’t going to change the overall consumer affect. We need to reinvent the content so that it accomplishes both purposes. If the product being presented manifests the brand message (and shouldn’t it?), it is possible to script the content so that both product specific messages and brand reinforcement are delivered.â€
James Tenser, VSN Strategies:
“The shopper media environment offers layers of higher value for brands – measurable interactions, purchases, and repeat purchase behavior – that should be more valuable than gold to brands. Don’t let the glowing screen fool you. This is not TV. Shoppers view in-store media on their feet, in a distracting, highly stimulating environment, while engaged in a utilitarian, decision-intensive chore. If we deliver and document customer actions, ranging from ‘show me more information’ on up to loyal behavior, we should expect brands to pay lavishly.â€
And, finally, as Laura Davis-Taylor put it herself:
“But think about this: Whatever your perception of branding is, it is a means to an end, and that end is sales. Do we spend millions and millions of dollars on marketing to create positive brand perceptions just for fun? No. We do it to ultimately translate into business and dollars. Do stores want to expand on “store as media†just to give people cool places to go? No. They want them in stores and coming back, often buying more. … Branding is one of the many tactics …, but sales will always be the ultimate goal”
I want to thank Sara Dechamps for helping me retype these precious quotes from the hard copy of the magazine.
November 1st, 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
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