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Jul
23
Excuse the cheesy subject line but I’ve been hearing so many Peacock jokes, it’s rubbing off on me.
This is why being a young’ish punk in this business has been so much fun for me. I get to learn how everything that we all think is brand new has been done so many times before.
Everyone has been getting all excited about NBC
starting to make deeper moves into the Digital Signage space on the ad front now with Fuelcast, PRN and one of the grocery networks on board.
It turns out, this is their second kick at the can. A post on MediaPost by one of their editors, Joe Mandese that just came out raised an eyebrow for me and brings to light a bunch of things I wasn’t aware of with regards to NBCs forays into the space and some past history…
You can check out the Mediapost 
story here.
I fully agree with Joe, I think it’s great that they’ve decided to attack the space and only stands to add more credibility to our market. It also shows that someone other than me think that this industry will be pushing a lot more ad dollars than the $4 Billion people are projecting…otherwise the market is too small for NBCU to really jump into it.
It also, as Bill Gerba said Friday, puts some pressure on both SeeSaw Networks 
and my company ADCENTRICITY 
to perform over the next 12 months.
Before getting into the interesting article Joe wrote, I only really have two comments about NBC getting fully into the game in wanting to understand what their play is and hoping it’s the “right” direction:
- Is this simply a large rep house play wherein they are reselling networks in the same way an “Ad Rep” shop does? If so, this doesn’t help our industry too much or bring benefits to advertisers in understanding our medium and what “channels” they should be advertising on. E.G. We need to sell on the Consumer Profile and not the Network profile. Somebody asked me a while ago if we know whether advertising “Ford” in health club networks is the best use of their media dollars…until we stop selling the “Network Profile” we won’t know.
- Is this simply a trailer sell on to a TV buy? Much the same way some of the media agencies I deal with speak of adding this media as an “upsell” on a TV buy (e.g. buy your TV closer to rate card and get the Digital Signage for free). I’ve said it in the past; trying to prove a medium on the back of another medium is not helpful or beneficial to either medium. You’ll get some ad dollars out of it but it doesn’t make the industry grow up faster.
I hope they address both in the proper way. Either way, at this point, everybody selling media in this space still has to prove themselves to both Networks and Buyers over the next 18 months. NBCU is a welcome addition who has to do the same, even if they are one of the big boys that comes with a pre-drawn list of advertisers ready to pony up. Welcome to the party NBC!!!
On to the retrospective article (read it - gives good perspective):
It starts off with a bang:
The question is whether it [NBCU on entering the retail space] will learn from its past. That’s right, NBC’s deal with Premiere Retail Networks isn’t the first time it’s ruffled its feathers in the retail media space. Anyone remember NBC On-Site? I do. I was a young reporter at Advertising Age when write what was likely the longest media venture profile story every published by the venerable trade magazine, That venture, a partnership with grocery giant Flemming Industries, cost NBC and parent General Electric millions in start-up cost before it eventually pulled the plug, amid a broader shake-out in what were then called “place-based” media networks.
I found the following especially relevant, given I was just in LA speaking with a number of TV folk and they are trying to wrap their heads around this right now protesting how the Networks “really should have sound” 
:
Both NBC On-Site and the Checkout Channel ultimately checked out partly because they could not figure out the whole silent TV thing, when it turned out that both patrons and retail workers weren’t especially fond of the same audio tracks being looped over and over again. It was some irritating, in fact, that many stores simply pulled the plug.
Last call out is:
…because out-of-home video networks are television - they’re just television in new and different locations.
I was interested in this last comment, coming from a TV reporter/editor, given so many media folks (planners/buyers) have put the industry squarely in the OOH camp. Again, given what my friends in LA were telling me, they want their “channels” back in the TV camp and treated as such…
In reading the article, it’s amazing to see the similarities going back to the early 90s being almost identical. Are we destined to repeat the mistakes of our fathers?
digital-signage 
Comments
5 Responses to “NBC’s Feather Ruffling - Place-Based Media - Take 2”
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Ask Jeff Porter of Scala if he thinks it’s “TV in a new and different location” and see what he says. Ha Ha!
Agreed. LOL
I think the idea is that there’s more similarities to a TV commercial/content then there is to a static sign as a “medium”. That’s all. How it’s produced and approached is something very different as there are aspects of about 6 different industries that make up success in the space.
As a very smart person I know once said: “Digital Signage is EVERYTHING BUT TV”…meaning aspects of all media
Hope you’re well Steve!
The chances of this coming off well are not high.
There are just soooooo many stories about conventional media shops trying to get their people to sell the new stuff. With rare exception, it’s the “Oh, yeah” moment as a sales meeting winds down and the account exec says, “We’re doing this thing now in stores and, ummm, do you want me to leave you some stuff about it?”
If the sales execs are not totally devoted to this, it’s not like to get any traction.
it’s an interesting question, that’s for sure. I guess it’s a question of, as you say Dave, executive support and strategic direction.
To use a completely different medium, there are some good examples I’ve heard of success in the OOH space with folks like Lamar creating a whole new sales force and hiring TV pros to run their sales for the 600+ digital boards they own and doing well.
On the other hand, I’ve heard rumours (don’t know for sure) about folks like CBS Outdoor traditional OOH reps try to sell their Digital Billboards/LEDs and Digital Signage properties (e.g. their mall networks) and having very little success so resorting to giving it away in exchange for higher billboard or traditional signage rates.
I had heard rumours about NBC and their sales programs for VST/Fuelcast from a few folks in LA area that NBC had done very little in the way of real sales success for that network but it’s completely unsubstantiated so I can’t speak to whether it’s true or not.
If someone’s got the real skinny or corrections on any of the above, feel free to chime in
[…] if you haven’t worked, lived or breathed in the retail, merchandising or place based game. NBC’s multi million dollar fubar of CheckoutTV back in the early 90s and CBS’s recent approach to Gamestop takeover or ClearChannel Canada’s Airport […]