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Feb
26
Well. Now that I’m all packed and grinning ear to ear, it’s time to get the heck out of this brutal Canadian snowstorm (supposed to be 8 inches/15 cm today) and off to Vegas (where it’s going to be 20 degrees celcius - 70F)
I’ll be down there with my company, ADCENTRICITY, and if you want to get a hold of me, can be reached on my cell at
The fine folks from Hughes/Helius were kind enough to offer us some meeting space in their extra booth and so we will likely be spending a lot of time kicking it at the front of the show in amongst the Integrators and Hardware/Software smarts that will be at the show.
We will be at booth # 323 if you want to swing by and say hi.
Happy Vegas hunting!
Feb
19
NBC Universal Rolls Up Licensing
Filed Under Digital Signage, Mobile | 1 Comment
NBCU has made another move that MAY impact the Digital Signage and mobile spaces.
Mediapost had a piece on how NBCU has decided to take back ownership of its TV licensing and merchandising businesses.
NBC UNIVERSAL TV GROUP IS taking back its licensing and merchandising responsibilities for its TV properties. A new unit, NBC Universal Television DVD, Music and Consumer Products Group, will assume responsibility for all global licensing and merchandising of NBC Universal television properties, as well as the NBC Universal television catalog.
Given all the changes in direction/scope/business/markets and the revenue hit that the networks have taken this year (and that will ripple into next couple) due to the strike, makes me wonder if they aren’t taking it back to try and squeeze margins out of the business by licensing to mobile, web and Digital OOH networks they’ve started to work with.
I don’t know a lot about the licensing business, although a good friend ran the licensing division of an ad company and MAN did he make a lot of money.
Feb
13
The Ad Recession Will Be Good For Digital Signage
Filed Under Advertising, Digital Signage | Leave a Comment
I’ve had some interesting conversations with some media sales friends over the last few weeks on the prospect of the US ad recession and its impact on our sales efforts and tactics. Many of them are in TV and some in Newspaper. Interestingly, the Canadian economy is still strong, attitudes are bullish and consumer buying is actually pretty good - we don’t have a recession here yet. Canada’s banks also didn’t fall for the sub-prime tactics as deeply (partly for legal reasons) and so lending is still ok up here in the North, which helps perpetuate the consumer spending. Canada has probably got a year or so of good economy while we wait to see what happens in the US.
The US Ad Recession does however, affect our collective media sales efforts in the US, which is where many of my efforts are right now. My conversations with traditional media reps to date have focused around the Olympics and the political sending as what will keep the ad biz from falling to far as an industry.
Feb
13
Ad Sales, Algorithms & Adoption
Filed Under Advertising, Digital Signage, metrics | Leave a Comment
There was a refreshing couple of posts that I ran into recently that help to paint a picture of the lack of adoption of certain mediums by Brands and agencies and what advertising “actually is” and what it’s for - specifically speaking to online and poking at the idea that advertising shouldn’t solely be a grind down function of the most “clicks” for the cheapest price.
Arora (Chairman of Glam Media) said that “in television, once the three networks were established, the market focused on premium inventory. On the Internet, there is a lack of leverage and reach, and the power of sales forces cannot be used in the way done originally by networks and magazines.” Ninety-five percent of Web display ads, he noted, are sub-prime with costs-per-thousand under $2.
Added to that is a color commentary from a few folks that is worth re-posting, and I have done some of that below.
Feb
10
Just got a neat hit off of the AD CULT blog.
Philips released an LCD called Aurea that has 125 LED lights embedded in the bevel/frame of the actual LCD unit itself. The technology itself is called ambiLight. It basically syncs the color of the LEDs with the colors in the picture. It creates quite the effect.
I’m sure it’s not yet in their commercial Digital OOH products as of yet but you could integrate this quite well into ambient captive environments for enhanced dramatic effect. I think bar/club/restaurant networks could use them for especially powerful engagement.
Check out the promo site here
On another note, apparently Philips coughed up about 50 million euros on the marketing campaign.
Feb
6
Ideacast Promo Video - More (Well Done) Humor For The Digital Signage Masses
Filed Under Advertising, Digital Signage, humor | 1 Comment
Ah memories…
It seems like only yesterday that I was a young punk in the late 90s watching hilarious Internet company advertisements for every single new type of service under the sun. That was the stage that the media folks were jumping ship from every ad company in Manhattan to join this new “Interweb” thing and see if they could make their mark and their millions. It was such a fun time because even back then, advertising creativity had seemed to stagnate a little and these young companies infused a level of satire into the media biz again which made watching ads kinda fun again.
Everyone I knew in the Internet and ad business was fixated with adcritic.com (which despite bandwidth issues could have become the original YouTube till it ran out of money) which is now defunct from the original masterpiece. Ad Critic ran all of the ads it could find from all over the world…and some of them were classics
So it’s nice to see that some folks have “upped their game” in promoting and selling Digital Signage to the masses. The fine folks over at ideaCast have put together some fun ads on the relevance of today’s TV medium in the current media environment.
Feb
5
AquaScript in Public Spaces
Filed Under Digital Signage | 1 Comment
I seem to remember Dave Haynes wrote something about this a while ago on his blog but I don’t remember seeing a video of the results.
Engadget had a post on Sunday about AquaScript. A system that, according to Engadget:
a system of displaying moving text and images using falling drops of water, thus creating a kind of virtual billboard that appears to be hovering in mid-air. The system — called AquaScript — works by utilizing magnet-valves which expel single drops of water on demand; proprietary software syncs the valves into a “freely definable bitmap-muster” which produces blocks of images with the falling liquid
Interesting use of a system. I’d be interested to know how small a system you can use this in (e.g. containerized in smaller self-contained units) and just how complex a BitMap can get.
Feb
5
Well, Screen Expo Europe kicks off today with the a lot of excitement.
Mark Pigou from Retail Events was kind enough to pass on the next 2 viral videos on Radio and TV, You can watch them here
Feb
4
Possible Problems Ahead for “Health & Wellness” Digital Signage Networks
Filed Under Advertising, Digital Signage | 5 Comments
An article posted on Mediapost details some potential problems in Pharmaceutical advertising tactics which could impact Digital OOH operators who collect ad revenue from the likes of Eli Lilly and Bayer, including;
- Dental Networks
- Doctor Office Networks
- Hospital Networks
- Gym Networks
- Pharmacy Networks
According to Ad Age, the main Pharma Trade Group is admitting that they are facing mounting pressures from consumers, media companies and even Congress.
In a number of states across the country, there is backlash building against [pharmaceutical] sales and marketing,” says Ken Johnson, senior vp for the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America. As a result, Johnson says the industry trade group will examine how its members bring medications to market, but he stops short of calling PhRMA’s move a task force or committee.
Many of the networks I mentioned above receive dollars for both sponsored content and pure play advertising content on their screens to help generate revenue in relevant enviornments. Given how focused, targeted and impactful these high dwell time environments are, they lend themselves well to both above the line and below the line (at Dr Office) messaging.
Don’t expect the ad numbers to dry up overnight but given the negative feelings that many consumers have about Big Pharma, if they don’t address what are seen as aggressive DTC (direct to consumer) advertising practices, Congress could very well impose ad legislation like the Tobacco industry has to deal with and a good current source of revenue could be impacted on Digital OOH as it is a great new DTC medium. Especially, as the article contends, with new drugs, where large portions of budgets are allocated for new launches to make consumers aware of new products.
My guess is that the association and industry will try and self regulate before any type of government intervention happens but it may be worth factoring in to your “risk” strategies going forward if these companies are your clients and we may even be able to help them by working with them to suggest best practices that are seen as appropriate for the environments and are not seen as as a negative by the audiences.
I’ve written about another side of these issues that the Big Pharma cos have to deal with before in supporting Digital OOH on these networks.
The article can be found here
