Ad spending was down on most traditional media in the first quarter of this year, but Outdoor was performing “better than most other traditional media”, and even maintained positive growth, says OAAA’s weekly newsletter Outdoor Outlook, citng Robert Coen’s July 2008 report on advertising expenditures. (OAAA is Outdoor Advertising Association of America, Inc. – NU).
First Quarter 2008
National Medium Percent Change
Outdoor. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.0
Network TV. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Flat
Magazines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .-1.5
Spot TV. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . -3.0
Newspapers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . -9.5
Spot Radio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .-11.0
(Source: Outdoor Outlook)
“Among the hardest hit media forms is newspaper,” writes Outdoor Outlook. “Forbes recently reported daily newspaper circulation fell four percent in the first quarter of this year “and the slide is picking up speed.—
“The Audit Bureau of Circulation has released circulation figures on the nation’s top 20 newspapers, and the overall news isn’t good. Prominent newspapers with declining circulation include: The New York Times, down 3.9 percent (and Sunday is slipping even faster, by nine percent); Los Angeles Times, down 5.1 percent; The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, down 8.5 percent; The Dallas Morning News, down 10.6 percent; and The Washington Post off 2.6 percent. Second quarter results are not expected to be better,” reports Jeff Golimowski in Outdoor Outlook.
Despite the sharp rises in oil price, Out-of-home’s reach and frequency have remained “virtually unchanged” (more…)
September 1st, 2008
Nurlan Urazbaev
A new study released by Screen Digest predicts that, due to the revenues resulting from the continuing migration to digital technology, the out-of-home advertising sector will be the only traditional medium with positive growth in Western Europe in the next few years.
The preamble to the report says: “‘Digital signage’ networks of connected digital screens in public spaces (airports, stations, trains, supermarkets, hotels, surgeries, etc) are generating opportunities for traditional out-of-home contractors, digital specialists, technical enablers and system integrators, display manufacturers, venue owners and advertisers.” (Source: http://www.researchandmarkets.com).
The key findings of the report include:
– Digital out-of-home (DOOH) advertising revenues in Western Europe will quadruple over the next five years from 160m in 2007 to 626m by 2012. By 2012 DOOH share is expected to grow to approximately 10 per cent of total OOH ad revenues.
– Driven by the migration to digital and the incremental revenues generated from digital sites, the out-of-home sector will be the only traditional advertising media to post real revenue growth in the next five year.
– Thanks to the increasing affordability of digital displays, digital signage networks not only conquer brand new spaces for advertising (e.g. in-store point-of-sale advertising) but also upgrade static poster format sites in a growing number of locations (airports, stations, roadsides, etc.).
– Sales of displays and other hardware for digital signage generated revenues in the amount of approximately 4m in Western Europe in 2007.
– Lower maintenance costs and higher revenues, combined with reduced hardware costs, are making a profitable business case out of upgrading many existing to digital, as well as creating new sites intended to reach audiences on the move.
– The added value of digital OOH formats over traditional OOH formats (superior impact of moving image, creative and dynamic copy, booking flexibility and scalability, etc.) allows contractor to sell inventory at premium rates.
The report was produced in partnership with German research company Goldmedia and can be found here.
August 30th, 2008
Nurlan Urazbaev
Digital signage advertising “will be among the fastest growing ad-supported media over the next few years, and will begin to rival traditional outdoor advertising by 2012,” writes Joe Mandese of MediaPost in today’s Digital Outsider newsletter and blog. The author reviews the results of this week’s edition of VSS’ annual Communications Industry Forecast, published by Veronis Suhler Stevenson, and consultant PQ Media.
According to the updated report, “the “alternative” out-of-home media sector will grow at a compound annual rate of 22.5% through 2012, which is considerably faster than the overall growth of the U.S. advertising marketplace, and only a slight slowdown from the 24.6% annual rate of growth the medium experienced over the past five years.
Based on those projections, VSS estimates alternative out-of-home ad spending won’t be so alternative by 2012, when it will total nearly $6 billion, and account for nearly half (46.4%) of the entire out-of-home advertising marketplace. That compares with a tepid 3.8% rate of annual growth for traditional outdoor ad spending through 2012.”
…Â “While video ad networks remains the largest alternative OOH category, digital billboards and displays grew the fastest in 2007, due to the strong rollout of new at-road signs, primarily from Lamar and Clear Channel. Spending on digital billboards increased 59.7 percent in 2007 to $372.0 million,” writes the Digital Outsider, quoting the report. (more…)
August 8th, 2008
Nurlan Urazbaev
Trade media says metrics for digital signage that can be accepted by media buyers, are becoming a reality. Here is a brief overview of what the press has written on the subject in the past couple of months.
Nielsen is about to launch a new service that will provide monthly audience ratings for digital out-of-home networks in a format similar to that of TV ratings “pocketpieces” (booklets that you can fit into your pocket).
According to MediaWeek, “Nielsen has already issued its first report for Ideacast’s health club network. Sources confirmed other networks have also signed up for the service, among them Gas Station TV, Arena Media Networks and CBS Outernet.”
Katy Bachman, the author of the MediaWeek’s article, continues: “…standardized metrics could be a game changer for a medium advertisers find attractive but that lacks the metrics to give it a fair evaluation.”
“Measurement will bring some order to the whole medium,†said Jim Spaeth, president of Sequent Partners, a research consultancy hired by the Out-of-Home Video Advertising Bureau to write research standards to be released later this summer.
MediaWeek says Nielsen will issue reports free to agency clients, which it does with its cinema reports. For Ideacast, it takes the business to the next level. “Nielsen has a database of 30,000 planners and buyers, and they’re sending this to their entire database,†said Jason Brown, president, sales and marketing at Ideacast, which has already begun selling with the data. “Our business plan and internal projections are based [on these reports]. It’s now our currency.†(more…)
August 7th, 2008
Nurlan Urazbaev
“Digital billboards and digital signage networks in retail are driving the rapid expansion of outdoor/out-of-home advertising, rivaling the Internet as the fastest-growing advertising medium. What’s fueling this growth? The ability to reach elusive consumers while they are out of home — and especially while they are shopping. The ability to customize each message to audiences at any location and even at any area within a location is another unique value for marketers. That said, a number of challenges still prevent the digital out-of-home from joining the ranks of mainstream media.
While screens are the most visible component of digital signage, the critical part of any network is the software that powers it. One of the obstacles to faster growth has been the lack of software platforms that could accommodate the necessary functionality without being cost-prohibitive to network owners,” – this is an excerpt from a MediaPost’s article based on BroadSign’s white paper on digital signage software distribution models.
You can find the full version of the white paper here.Â
June 5th, 2008
Nurlan Urazbaev
Social networking sites are getting a lot of attention nowadays, due to their explosive growth. I agree, it’s a huge phenomenon; all of a sudden – everyone is on either Facebook or MySpace, or both, my family included. USA Today published an article today, saying that social networks will assume the role of TV networks, and marketers will benefit from placing ads on these sites.
Sounds fantastic, but I think something important is missing here. Let’s see. Have social networking web sites accumulated massive numbers of users? – Yes, they did. Do those users constitute the demographics most desired by advertisers: young, affluent, educated people? – No doubt about it. Now, will the social networking sites become an effective advertising vehicle? – This is where I am not so sure. (more…)
May 12th, 2008
Brian Dusho
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.
(more…)
April 28th, 2008
Nurlan Urazbaev
Last week the Traffic Audit Bureau (TAB) – the US Out-of-home media auditing organization – unveiled its new ratings system for the industry. Not only is the system a milestone for the outdoor ad business, but it also breaks new ground for media ratings as a whole, writes MediaWeek. Here are some excerpts from the article by Katy Bachman. My comments are at the end.
“Nearly five years in development, the Eyes On ratings will replace the decades-old practice of relying solely on traffic counts to put a value on outdoor ads. The ratings will, for the first time, provide discrete demographic data pertaining to around 400,000 units. The service will go a step further than TV and radio ratings to incorporate the number of persons likely to see an ad as they pass a display.
“It’s a dramatic improvement in outdoor measurement. Quite frankly, it puts us in a position of having a better measurement system than any other medium,†said Paul Meyer, president and COO of Clear Channel Outdoor.
Eyes On has broad support among outdoor media companies, agencies and advertisers, which worked closely with the TAB to design a ratings system uniquely suited to the outdoor medium. (more…)
April 21st, 2008
Nurlan Urazbaev
The Out-of-home media, along with internet, is doing well, despite the drop in overal ad spending. Media Life Magazine’s Diego Vasquez quotes ZenithOptimedia Worldwide, “whose most recent forecast for U.S. spending has out-of-home spending growing by 11.2 percent this year, to $7.83 billion.”
According to Vasquez, next year ZenithOptimedia expects the OOH industry to grow at a similar pace: “11.3 percent, to $8.71 billion, and in 2010 it will grow another 11.5 percent, to $9.72 billion.That’s against 3.7 percent growth this year for the entire U.S. ad economy, which is down from the 4.1 percent growth ZenithOptimedia forecast back in December. It’s forecasting even slower growth in 2009 and 2010, by 2.1 percent and 2.2 percent.ZenithOptimedia is forecasting that worldwide out-of-home spending will grow 9.4 percent this year, 8.0 percent in 2009, and 8.3 percent in 2010. (more…)
April 21st, 2008
Nurlan Urazbaev
Spending on alternative media hit $73.43 billion in 2007, a 22% increase over the previous year, and will continue to grow, reports Ad Age, quoting PQ Media’s Alternative Media Forecast: 2008-2012, released last week. The research firm tracked 18 digital and nontraditional segments, with a combined 16.1% of total advertising and marketing dollars in 2007, up from 7.9% in 2002, yielding a compound annual growth rate of 21.7%, writes Ad Age.
The forecast predicts a 20.2% increase over the next year, to a total of $88.24 billion, and a compounded annual growth rate of 17% for 2007-2012, reaching $160.82 billion. By then, alternative media will represent 26.6% of all advertising and marketing dollars.
Digital signage, or, ‘digital out-of-home advertising’, as it is called in the report, got a special mention from PQ Media. Here’s an excerpt from Ad Age’s interview:
‘Where the money is going…’
The upswing is as much a result of the effectiveness of new media in a fragmented market as it is from a lack of confidence in traditional media, said PQ Media President Patrick Quinn. “Traditional ad budgets have been going down, but spending has remained stable. This shows where the money is going,” Mr. Quinn said.
“There is a lack of standards in these new areas,” Mr. Quinn added. “Digital out-of-home advertising is getting recall rates as high as or higher than traditional mediums, but there are few studies on this. They’re going to need more and deeper metrics: The bar is being raised across the board.” (more…)
March 31st, 2008
Nurlan Urazbaev
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Brian has spent the last four years working with retailers, advertising/ media companies, and technology companies to develop successful business models in the digital signage industry and assisted in the formation of several of the industry trade organizations. He is an active member in 
Nurlan is director of marketing for BroadSign International. He has been with BroadSign since day one and brought along a lot of media expertise from his diverse career that ranged from a reporter to a radio executive, entrepreneur and owner of a media consulting company. He is a staunch proponent of standardization and ROI measurements for digital signage advertising.