-
Feeds
Apr
3
I’ve been speaking with a number of networks recently about Advertising and the importance of “Proof of Play” or “Proof of Performance” as a reporting tool on their networks.
It amazes me sometimes that people don’t realize how important this is in the construction or development of various networks or solutions. In a medium that is as fragmented as Digital Signage, reporting and proving that an Ad was actually played is almost as important as the fact that a network can play ads.
When approaching advertisers, it has to be understood that they are allowed to be a little frightened or insecure about advertising on this medium. It can be new (to them), some of them have had bad experiences with the medium through other companies in the past (I’ve got some great $150K horror stories in this area) and, in an era where the marketing bucks are managed tightly by the CFO, if they make bad decisions on media spends, it reflects badly on their decision making abilities and therefore the future of their careers.
To put it another way, would you run a web advertising campaign that cost you $80,000 if you had no idea when, where or how many times your ad was shown? Would you trust a vendor to simply “tell you” that it played? There’s too many fraudsters out there to go on faith in this area.
At the very least, in the absence of more effective and mature metrics, an advertiser needs to be able to see reports back that says: “Yes your ad was played and here’s when and where.”
If you can’t do this, you’re going to have a tough time generating interest from more mature Brands.
digital signage advertising 
Comments
5 Responses to “The Importance of Proof of Play on Digital Signage”
Leave a Reply
I am President, CEO of Nuva Technolgies Inc. a digital display software development company.
You are bang on with the requirement for viewer verification reporting in the digital sidplay industry.
Our company has developed a proprietary, patent pending software application called AVITAR that provides verified viewer reporting metrics. Out of over 100 digital display software providers in the world I believe that we are the only company that provides this type of viewer verification technology. You might want to visit our website to check out our AVITAR technology.
Wishing you the best,
Randy Reaney
President, CEO
Nuva Technologies Inc.
Spot on
But I think what most users need is proof of play - not proof of actual precise time of play.
I say that because of resources.
Technically it is easy enough to produce a line every time an ad plays. But look at the math. Say you have just 1,000 screens and a 10 minute loop of 30-second ads. Not unreasonable. So each ad plays 6 times an hour on each player. Hence, you get 6,000 “play records” an hour per ad; or 120,000 total play records an hour.
I.e. 2.8 million play records every day.
So after a month you get a file with 86 million play records from your network partner. Wanna try to fit that Excel to make a pivot table?
I thought not.
A bette rstrategy is to tltal them on he player, per day part. So aech player tells you “I played ad A 143 times during the morning and 130 times at night. I played ad B 144 times during the morning and 100 times at night”. And so on. Result: a database that gives you essentially the same information, but without requiring Oracle and big metal.
Oh, and play affidavits of the type above are fundamental to a network’s success. Which is why every good Signage application can indeed supply them.
If an ad plays on a million screens, and no one looks at it, what value has it brought to the advertiser? If an ad plays on a million screens, and no one looks at it, but I can produce certified, valid, third party play log reports that it did if fact play, has that increased the value to advertisers? If a million people walk right by a screen without looking at it how valuable is that?
When you boil it all down, The true value of Digital Signage is how many people actually look at it. The duration of that impression is also an important measure of engagement. The viewer can’t change the Channel, but they can look away.
I’m not sure advertisers are yet convinced that people ARE actually watching. While proof of play is a start, proof of viewership is the key.
I think we need to be careful here. The medium is the medium, the content is the content and the advertising is the advertising.
Mashing all of these things together and saying THIS (as a bundle) is Digital Signage is dangerous and unfair to the medium. They have to be separated.
If the content on the medium is stagnant, irrelevant or just downright silly, no one will watch and your channel will have no effect.
If your advertising is boring, poorly executed or just plain bad, no one will watch it either.
On this medium, if either content or advertising is poor, the medium will be inneffective or at least less effective.
I’ll equate it to TV for everyone: If you have a good TV show (content) it will generate audience. If you have audience, it will attract advertisers. If you have good ad content, it will generate an effect/action and recall.
Remember that the “True Intent” of advertising is to spur interest, inform/educate and to be the last image in a consumers’ head when they go to purchase a product.
The good thing about our medium compared to TV is that it has been proven in many many research studies (I have 4 feet of research next to my desk on consumer behaviour and advertising on Digital Signage) that it has higher viewership and frequency than TV
There’s also more likelihood (in the top 20 major centers) that a consumer will see a screen instead of a TV before making their purchase
Basically what I’m saying is make your content valuable and the advertisers will follow because you will be able to prove audience