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.

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.

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 TV 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.

The sea of decisions that must be made before spending the capital to deploy a network can easily lead an operator towards focusing on technology instead of focusing on building an effective communication medium.

My team and I (BroadSign Solutions) have had the benefit of repeatedly following the digital signage learning curve vicariously through the hundreds of entrepreneurs that have evaluated BroadSign Suite for its application to their business. This includes many of the members of OVAB and other industry leaders and pioneers. While there are many variables involved and decisions to be made to develop a digital signage network, there are not so many that they can’t be listed in a blog article, such as this. In order to create an effective communication medium, arguably the only real purpose of a digital signage network, a network operator must make all the decisions in the design of a digital signage network from the perspective of the audience. Since the experience of the audience is first and foremost a function of the venue, let’s list some example venues so we can see the variety of digital signage applications and use them as examples:

• Transportation: trains, airplanes, buses, in transit, boarding, unboarding, arrivals, departures, ticketing, lounges, concourse, …
• Retail: supermarket, convenience store, big box, outdoor facing, entrance, checkout, aisles, departments, freezer, deli, …
• Healthcare: hospitals, doctors, dentists, veterinary, surgery, waiting areas, in rooms, …
• Hospitality: hotels, resorts, casino, outdoor facing, lobby, elevators, in rooms, …
• Food/Drink: food courts, quick-serve, restaurants, coffee, bars, clubs, buffet, restrooms, …
• Outdoor: pedestrian, automotive, train line periphery, downtown, highway, tourism destination
• Active: ski, golf, gym, skate park, chair lift, pro-shop, cart, lobby, change rooms, …

The above list is by no means comprehensive, so it is easy to see that digital signage has virtually unlimited amounts of applications. So if I am going to deliver on my promise in the intro of this article, I must answer the question:

What is the common framework for all the different applications of digital signage?

We can start with the workflows and processes involved in the growth and operation of a digital signage network, since this is universal to all of applications:

1. Deployment / Operations

a) Planning and Selection

Before a deployment project can begin execution, one must select the technology vendors and service providers. This usually involves standardizing on a software platform, a small set of playback devices models, display technologies and to select a team of integrators to perform on-site installation and maintenance. One good practice at this stage is to create an operating system image that is pre-configured with the playback software and system drivers so all player PCs can be treated as identical interchangeable clones, i.e. a toaster.

b) Survey and Profiling

A site survey is performed to identify the tasks required for permanent installation of the display on location. For example, locating parts of the venue’s structure which can withstand the weight of the display equipment and the location where the player PCs will be installed and the whole wired together and connected to a network. It is also at this stage that the display units that represent the channels at that location can be built up in the software and categorized according to geographic location, demographic or other criteria for later use in targeting advertisements. Typically, the catalog of criteria used for targeting/grouping is defined by marketing for usage by the ad sales team.

c) Installation and Commissioning

If the site survey is completed and comprehensively planned, installation should simply be step-by-step execution by certified professionals. One or more players are installed at the location and they are plugged into a power source and a network source. The display technology is installed and is connected to the player. Approximately 50% of BroadSign powered players are collocated with the display while an equal amount are stored in a dedicated location and wired to the displays via a video distribution network such as video-over-cat5. If the network supports audio, the same statistics apply to the sound system. Activating a newly commissioned site is often the easiest aspect of the deployment process which is associating the player PC system to the display unit profile created in the earlier step.

d) Monitoring and Troubleshooting

Once a new site is commissioned, all the players installed at that location are added to the monitoring and troubleshooting pool. In the field, several revenue-compromising issues could arise that need to be dealt with as quickly as possible. There are 3 main classes of issues:

1. Content issues: content is not downloaded yet, content errors such as missing codecs, content play time is truncated, etc.
2. Display issues: display is not powered on, display is not on the correct input, display volume is not functional, etc.
3. Player issues: player is missing in action, player is having difficulties polling, player has restarted unexpectedly, etc.

While most issues are either solved automatically by the software, e.g. content downloads, or for notification purposes only, e.g. player restarted unexpectedly, some may require you to send personnel on-site to replace units. One example of this is if the notification is the result of irreparable hardware failure. Since, from a remote monitoring system, it is impossible to distinguish connectivity issues from hardware failure (since both mean the player is no longer polling the server), programming monitoring thresholds is integral to proper issue escalation so you don’t spend an inordinate amount of money dispatching field technicians. Of course, another part of protecting against these costs is to select extremely durable hardware.

2. Media Placement / Advertising

a) Loop Strategy

A network’s content strategy is primarily driven by the nature of the audience at the venue. The first part of a content strategy is to determine the loop length, which should be equal to the average audience dwell time. The logic behind this is that each slot in the loop has an equal opportunity to be seen by the average viewer. In some cases, the loop length is based on other criteria, but this is typically combined with a default loop saturation (how many times the message appears in the loop) that achieves the same objective, e.g. a 6 minute dwell time location may have a 1 hour loop, but ads scheduled to play 10 times an hour by default, which means they play every 6 minutes.

The next step is to determine how much non-advertising content is necessary in the loop, where the rest of the loop is reserved for advertising (either promotional or for sale to third party advertisers). This non-advertising content should be beneficial to the audience and should serve the purpose of the real-estate owner, which may or may not be the network owner. For example, an office tower network may wish to have business news and a healthcare network may run health related content. Acquiring and licensing this content should be factored in as part of a network’s operational costs and is integral to its marketing strategy.

b) Ad Inventory and Rate Card

Typically, a media company will price its ad space by calculating its costs, adding a profit margin and then distributing that value to its prime day parts and locations. This means that, as long as that primetime is sold, the company will remain profitable. Assuming that primetime is desirable by advertisers and easy to sell, this also means that any remaining time that is sold is also pure profit. The next stage is to create a rate card for the network in a currency that allows advertisers to compare it to other media, for example a CPM value.

The rate card is intimately tied to the content strategy and campaign execution capabilities of the software platform. The rate card is a catalog of media packages chosen by marketing and sales to represent typical media buys on their network. As media packages are used to book campaigns, they carve out of the available ad inventor. Sales management is expected to monitor ad inventory, or avails, in order to focus the sales team on undersold venues and to resolve overbooking conflicts. Typically, a media package has the following components:

• Pricing, e.g. a CPM value
• Targeting criteria, e.g. a specific demographic or market
• Flight duration, e.g. 4 weeks
• Slot duration and frequency of appearance in the loop, e.g. 4 slots of 15 seconds each
• Other premium options, e.g. sponsorship, adjacency rules, exclusivity

c) Content Management and Campaign Execution

Digital signage is a communication medium and is one of the best media platforms for targeted campaign execution. The campaign execution workflow has 4 main components:

1. Campaign: this is the stage at which you reserve slots in a series of targeted display units, for a defined flight period, day part and frequency in the loop. Refer to the earlier section on rate card and ad inventory for more details.
2. Content: once content is created, it is uploaded into the system and undergoes quality control and approvals. It is at this stage that the content is ensured to playback properly (required formats) and will be of acceptable quality for the display (required dimensions)
3. Schedules: content is tied to a reservation via playback rules, such as play times (time range, date range, week days), e.g. the same campaign can have a schedule for the “coming soon” creative of a movie trailer and a different schedule for a “now playing” version.
4. Categories: another class of playback rule that helps define the content’s position in the loop. Categories can be used for separation, segmentation, preemption or synchronization, e.g. separate Coke ads from other ads in the beverage category or set a sunblock ad to synchronize with the beginning of the weather segment.

d) Effectiveness Measurement

In order to determine CPM, first one must conduct some formal research by a respected third party media research company, such as Arbitron. They perform compliance audits, which measures the effectiveness of content delivery to the display, and they also perform viewership analysis, which measures the effectiveness of audience delivery after the message leaves the display (and sound system, if applicable). These and their other services will help a media company’s sales and marketing efforts, for example to describe a media package as a compelling and measurable audience.

In an advertising sales environment, campaign execution is preceded by a proposal and contract negotiations. During this stage, an insertion order is generated which contains the price breakdown of each campaign in the media buy and the all-important planned number of impressions and ad repetitions that they will generate. During and after campaign execution, an affidavit report is generated which compares the original planned amounts with the actual amounts as measured by the software.

In a non-advertising network, effectiveness measurement is more directly measurement of sales uplift, which may involve correlating ad play times with sales records from the point of sale.

Effectiveness measurement (ad delivery, audience delivery) is key to getting on the media plan, but it is even more important for the media research to yield outstanding results; this is directly a product of great design decisions.

Let’s chunk down design decisions into 3 categories:

1. Audience Experience: the content and audio-video presentation must be built to harmonize with the reason the audience is at the venue, e.g. end-cap signage in retail brings awareness to the product and allows the consumer to dig deeper and find out more about the product if this is desired.
2. On-site Infrastructure: mounting, wiring and physical protection are a function of the venue’s construction details, e.g. in a train car, signage must be physically secured from vandalism and must be connected wirelessly to its network update source.
3. Software Platform: the capabilities of the selected software platform drive the integrity of the design and need to meet all operational requirements, e.g. if a software platform cannot support triggered content playback, then you cannot execute on a design that includes interactive signage.

Each layer or peel of the onion, so to speak, puts restrictions on the layer above it. For example, if the on-site infrastructure prohibits installing a display at eye level to the audience, this will filter down to the audience experience in terms of visibility. This being said, as mentioned at the beginning of this article, an effective communication medium is designed from the audience’s experience. While I will list details about on-site infrastructure and network architecture, my primary focus will be on answering the following question:

What properties of a digital signage application are part of the audience’s experience?

In short, the audience’s experience is primarily a result of the venue and a great digital signage application capitalizes on providing an easy to consume message that is relevant to the audience. Easy to consume and relevant means that it is easy to see (and hear, if this is applicable), that the message can be viewed in a measurable and predictable fashion, that it can be viewed without endangering an audience member (e.g. taking their eyes off where they are going), and that it does not disrupt them from achieving their objective at the venue. This is important enough that I wish to analyze it in a little more detail from 3 perspectives:

1. The Relevance of the Message :

It is imperative to remember that signage in an out-of-home network is secondary to the purpose of the audience at the venue. An easy example is that a consumer in a retail network is there to purchase products, so information about those products near where they can be added to a shopping cart. For an advertiser, being able to target their message to locations and times where it is contextually relevant is not only good for sales, but is also good for the brand since messages that are contextual are considered helpful and welcome.

Another aspect of message relevance is related to the non-advertising content, such as news updates. For example, elevators in business towers providing quick news headlines (business, local, national, world, sports, entertainment, weather) for the tenants of the buildings as well as visitors to those tenants is helpful and relevant. News content with audio works best in high dwell time venues such as transit applications such as trains or healthcare waiting rooms whereas RSS headlines are more appropriate in less captive environments.

2. The Content and Loop Duration :

The duration of the content and the loop determines how much of the message is received by the audience. For example, if the message is too long compared to how long the audience can look at the display, only part of the message is received.

Duration of Message: the more the audience is moving in front of the display, the less attention they can give to a display which gives you a shorter time to transmit your message. For example, a concourse application or a retail application in the aisles should design content to get the message across in 1 second. Due to this, even if the message displays for 30 seconds, as long as the entire message is persistent on the display for this period, the message will be delivered. Conversely, the longer they are immobile, the longer the content should be. For example, a message that persists on the display for 30 seconds will be boring to a captive viewer such as a sports arena or airport departures. In this case, a programming style similar to television becomes most effective.

Duration of Loop : as a rule of thumb, making the duration of the loop equal to the average viewer’s dwell time at the venue with line of sight to the display, then each slot in the loop has an opportunity to be seen by the average viewer. Typically, if the loop duration is much longer than the dwell time, then the media company will package several slots for a media buyer in a way that the frequency of ad plays equals the dwell time. For example, a retail location with a 6 minute dwell time may have a 1 hour loop, but all the advertisements run 10 times per hour, which means it plays during the average dwell time.

3. Visibility/Audibility :

The visibility of the display and, if applicable, audibility of the sound system determines how clearly the message is received by the audience.

Display: this is a function of display placement in accordance with the audience’s line of sight, the size of the display compared to the proximity of the viewer, and the brightness of the display contrasted to the ambient brightness of the venue.

• Although line of sight for a typical person at a venue greatly increases the possibility that content is seen, many venues have restrictions on installation that make this difficult to achieve.
• Being able to discern elements of an advertisement depends on the size of these elements and how close the audience is. For example, retail applications at the end-caps can have smaller writing since the audience is closer to read it, displays that must be further from the audience must be proportionately bigger so text can be read, etc.
• Plasma and LCD displays are the most prevalent solution as they represent over 80% of BroadSign Powered installations. These are mostly only applicable in an indoor setting, though outdoor casings are possible.
• LED boards are typicaly extremely bright and big which is good for outdoor applications. They are so bright that at night, the brightness must be tuned down. LED is used in less than 10% of BroadSign Powered installations and they are all in an outdoor environment, though indoor LED applications are also common such as in a sports arena.
• Projectors are typically not as bright as other signage and compete with ambient lighting which makes it difficult in a retail environment and impossible in an outdoor application. Projectors are used by less than 10% of BroadSign Powered installations.

Audibility: while some networks do not use audio due to restrictions at the venue, those that do must ensure the audio aspect of the program can be understood. Sometimes audio is secondary to the message such as background audio or radio, but often times it contains a large amount of the message. If the content relies on audio being understood, this is only possible in the venues that have low ambient noise (e.g. healthcare) or if the sound system can be extremely loud, e.g. directional audio in retail.

The above properties of a digital signage application are directly experienced by the audience, but what about those properties behind the scenes that have a direct affect on those properties. In other words, we must answer the question:

What are the types of requirements at a venue that can restrict the design of a digital signage application?

There are some venues that are more amenable to the introduction of an effective digital signage network. This is because the on-site infrastructure can limit what solutions are available. The largest challenge of digital signage design is to find a harmony between these limitations and the selection of digital signage application components that maximize the audience’s experience.

There are seven aspects of a permanent digital signage installation that will affect its design, i.e. which components can be selected:

1. Security: in an environment where the display or other aspects of the digital signage application are publicly accessible, all components must be locked down. For example, displays that are housed in subway trains must be encased in vandalism-proof glass. Another example is that flight information displays must be protected against people unplugging cables or hitting the power button. In some cases, professional grade displays have their external buttons disabled to prevent tampering with display settings. The larger the daily audience, the more the signage is at stake. The less surveillance is possible, the higher the chance for vandalism.

2. Regulations: depending on the jurisdiction of the venue, regulations must be respected which often means some certifications must be obtained before installation can commence. One example is in public transportation networks where signage is part of an emergency broadcast mechanism. In this scenarios, the display enclosure must be able to withstand the full blast of a fire hose. Another example is signage in a medical setting where wireless signals cannot be used and there is a threshold on how much electromagnetic radiation electronics can emit.

3. Cabling: the based requirement of a digital signage network is to have a display and a player PC connected together via some sort of video cable and the two must be connected to a power source. Additionally, in some circumstances, the display and PC are also connected together via an audio cable (50% of BroadSign clients) and/or an RS-232 cable (over 80%) for remote device control and monitoring. In a situation where a venue has a back-office server room, the PC and display may be connected via a AVC (audio-video-control) distribution network such as a video-over-cat5 installation. In situations where the display is co-located with the PC, cabling is less of a concern, except oftentimes power and Internet cabling become the biggest challenge. Depending on the situation, you may need to use different types of video cabling, e.g. VGA (70% of BroadSign clients), VGA-Over-Cat5 (20%), DVI (10%), RF wireless (0%), etc. It is important to validate the video quality is acceptable from those technologies in a real-world test scenario before mass-deploying as this could be a lingering headache for the lifetime of the network.

4. Connectivity: in most digital signage applications, an Internet connectivity source is necessary in order to distribute content to the PC and to collect health and playback statistics. BroadSign clients are roughly using 85% broadband of which 4/5 are wired broadband and 1/5 is 3G cellular. Of the leftover 15%, 3/5 are using 2-way satellite with multicast, 1/5 are using 802.11 wireless and 1/5 are using dialup. The method of connectivity and the network topology has a large effect on what type of content can be scheduled and how often it can be updated.

5. Power: both the PC and the display must be connected to an electrical power source. In some cases, such as transportation applications, the vehicle’s DC power must be adapted to equipment which is tuned to AC power outlets (less than 5% of BroadSign clients). In other more extreme cases, displays must be powered by limited battery supply (0%). Power is nevertheless required in order for it all to work.

6. Temperature: temperature and heat dissipation are important when planning a digital signage application. Heat is the leading cause of hardware failure in this industry and proper, real-world endurance testing could prevent a lot of expensive maintenance down the road. The flip-side of the heat problem comes into play in outdoor networks where the equipment may be subjected to a wide variance in temperature. All digital signage equipment comes with documented operating temperatures. One very cold or very hot day could mean you need to replace all your equipment. In this case, a controlled temperature housing could be required to protect your capital investment.

7. Construction: the construction of the venue may prohibit the permanent installation of an eye-level display. Displays and mounts can be heavy and require reinforced structures at the venue to support them. Regulations may come into play and one has to think of withstanding natural disasters such as earthquakes and emergency situations such as fires. Some venues are just more amenable to signage that can meet the needs of the audience, e.g. a train car specifically fitted for signage, and some are much more challenging, e.g. product shelves in the aisles have no power sources for displays. All these challenges can be solved with construction, but not all construction projects will be welcome by the venue owner.

Hopefully restrictions at the venue have not restricted the selection of components to the point where the experience of the audience is compromised. The final set of design decisions are primarily driven by the software platform and network connectivity method, which begs the question:

What effect can the selection of a software platform have on the effectiveness of my network and what restrictions can it place on my business model?

It may seem overly biased for the head of consulting at a digital signage software development organization to answer this question. At the same time, who could be better qualified to synthesize industry demand and answer this question? Hopefully, the following seven aspects of a digital signage software platform will speak for themselves and will not seem like a commercial for BroadSign Suite:

1. Workflow Scalability: the two major workflows are deployment/operations and media placement/advertising. In terms of workflow scalability, you will want to look at what it takes to configure the software system on the PC once it comes out of the manufacturer. Is it compatible with mass cloning and what is the process for activating and licensing the software? You will also want to look at how easy it is to build a loop of independently targeted ad campaigns, i.e. a mix of local, regional, national and international messaging including editorial content and advertisements. One final area where workflow scalability is often compromised is in the area of proof of display reporting. Are summary reports readily available or must they be constructed using custom database work each time one is needed?

2. Supported Content Formats: some of the creative received by agencies and content houses are not in a format that is suitable for digital signage, e.g. analog tape, digibeta, Panasonic DV25 or uncompressed video. These must be converted to high quality-to-compression ratio formats such as MPEG-4 or WMV. Sometimes compatibility with MPEG-2 is necessary in order to support legacy content libraries. Typical industry standard formats are MPEG-2 (TS or PS), MPEG-4 (DivX, H.264), WMV (VC-1, WMA), MOV (Sorenson, H.264) and FLV (Sorenson and VP7). If audio is used, it is often either MP3, M1L2 or AAC. Other important content formats are Adobe Flash (SWF) and Web content (HTML, Javascript, etc.) permit richer applications such as interactive content, automated templates, third party database integration and more.
3. Software Security: you will want to look for a software solution that encrypts all control-level data and protects against tampering techniques such as data injection, man-in-the-middle. Typically, this is done by using SSL as the transport for this data. Another aspect of security is that the playback software should not be listening on any ports which could make it vulnerable to remote control via an API or through exploits such as buffer overflows. Finally, some level of content integrity should be verified before playback in case content was intercepted on its way to the played. Typically this is done by comparing a cryptographic fingerprint calculated on the player with one provided by the server over the secure SSL connection.

4. Advertiser Accountability: playback reporting is crucial for the invoicing stage of the media buy post-execution. There are many layers of accountability: proof of play on the PC, proof of display on the screen, proof of click for interactive content. Typically, these are provided in customizable reports which are easy for a media buyer to understand, but can become more and more detailed and technical if comfort is not yet established between the network operator and the media buyer. For example, an affidavit report may display performance details of a campaign as a line item, but each campaign may also be described in a multi-page report which has per-venue or per-day breakdowns of playback measurement.
5. Campaign Capabilities: different campaigns have different objectives:

• Broadcast: many clips are grouped into segments and broadcast across all locations or to a class of display. This is typically done for editorial content or automated content such as RSS templates.
• Targeted: ads are targeted to a group of venues based on geographical proximity, demographics, aspect ratio of the display, language of the audience, legal restrictions, competitive restrictions, day parts, week parts and combinations of all of these.
• Interactive: microsites (aka kiosk applications) are broken down into a series of components where clicking certain links triggers their playback. This allows one to track the usage of different components of the application.
• Sponsorship/Adjacency: have one clip immediately follow another for sponsorship or co-marketing reason.
• Saturation/Separation: have slots of the same category be spaced apart as far as possible in the loop. This may be to space out competitor or to space out ads from the same content provider.
• Synchronization/Triggered: have slots from one campaign trigger the playback of another campaign in another zone or on another set of displays. This trigger can also come from third party technology such as a GPS geo-location device.
• Multi-Schedule: have one slot play a different message depending on the time of the day, day of the week or calendar date. For example, a movie trailer may have a “coming soon” version that plays until the day before the premiere and a “now playing” version at the day of the premiere and afterwards. Another example is the breakfast menu in the morning and the regular menu after 11 am. Finally, opening hours may change depending on the day of the week.
• Customizable: a default message may be customizable by the manager at the local venue, e.g. custom pricing or templated message.
• Preemptable: a message my fill up the loop, but is removed from the loop if its slot is needed by a higher priority message. For example, filler content can be used to make all loop the same length, but higher popularity areas will have less filler in their loop as it has been preempted by paying advertisements.
• Emergency: a message needs to be pulled immediately or some form of emergency message, e.g. amber alert, needs to take over the display.

6. Self-Healing Capabilities: due to the high cost of sending technicians on-site to troubleshoot problems, it is important for the software platform to self-heal as much as possible in the face of problems that compromise ad sales revenue. If it is possible to do so, it may also be helpful to have remote access to the operating system of the player PC, though this is often restricted due to stringent IT requirements. Examples of situations where you want software to self-heal are: deadlocks, memory issues, operating system crash, player crash, disk space issues, codec errors, display issues, and network issues such as high packet loss, high latency, late downloads or data corruption,

7. Compatibility and Extensibility: new and interesting technologies are constantly coming to market in this space, so it is important for your software platform to be able to work with these technologies in order to not be left behind when the next killer app enters the fray. Examples of new technologies include audience measurement cameras and mobile interactive applications. Extensibility is also important in order to develop a competitive edge. This can be done via content with software development platforms such as Flash and HTML, or via player control features such as halt/resume or triggers. Another important aspect of compatibility is the emergence of technical standards in the industry.

Why is audience-oriented design so important?

The networks that make the wrong selections will not last as the networks that are designed as effective communication mediums quickly take promenence in the market and thusly take a larger piece of the ad pie. If an entrepreneurial network operator has an exit strategy that involves being acquired by a larger media company, having a solid measurable medium that is reliable and is also easily consumed by its target audience will mean a much higher valuation.

Hopefully, this text has been helpful to you. If you made it this far and have questions or comments, do not hesitate to add a comment here or contact me directly daniel.parisien(a)broadsign.

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.

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.

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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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. 

“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.

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? 

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!”

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.”

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.”

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.”

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.”

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.”

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.”

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.