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Sep
16
Brand Activation Conference Recap - Part I (Overview)
Filed Under Advertising, Digital Signage, Mobile, digital ooh, metrics | 2 Comments
Last week, the Strategy Institute held their Brand Activation conference at the Bridgewater down by the Seaport in New York. I have to give it to them, they’ve done a great job in building up the quality of presenters and the right audience, although most of the crowd is STILL all Networks on one side and agencies on the other. When Stephen Randall, CEO of Locamoda, asked the crowd who was on the “agency” or advertiser side, only 2-3 people actually put up their hands. There were more than just 2 of course….I think most people on the demand side of the business just didn’t want to get rushed by 100 hungry networks at once.
Many agencies (Universal McCann, OMG, Zenith, Organic, Starcom, Carat, Kinetic), Media Sales Groups (ABC, Adcentricity, CBS, Clearchannel, NBC, SeeSaw) and Networks (OnSite, OMN, InnercityMedicine, CruiseMedia, this goes on for a while) and even Brands and retailers were in attendance (Nike, Best Buy)
On the whole, content was good and the “card swap-a-thon” was intense….I had some great conversations with a large number of folks and there was new faces, which is always good.
End of the day though, while some new players were in attendance (I was especially thrilled to see some of the Creative Media Directors start to show their faces - they’re where some of the great ideas come from), there was still a lot of the same folks who have been preaching the same message for a while from the agency side, saying the same message. Much of the agency position hasn’t changed (not that anyone should expect it too) but the same questions were being asked from new and old network alike. I sometimes wonder if the Demand side of our business feels like they’re no being heard at all.
Sadly, I was very involved in the sessions the first day, but got pulled into meetings most of the second. The first day was quite enjoyable. However, from those I spoke to, the morning of the 2nd day was apparently centered on “look at me, I’m important” self promoting type of sessions.
I’ll get around to posting on some of the sessions from the 1st day in follow up posts.
Some highlights:
- Media Leader’s Insights - Hanlon (Denuo), Schulman (imc2) & Glick (Zenith had some good things to say from the agency side on how to use the medium and their views on it (without the usual “why aren’t you buying” questions/answers built in)
- Some case studies came out of various sessions, which was nice to start to see
- Steve Randall (Locamoda) had a good presentation which I think made many think a little bit
- Lon (Access 360), Rob (Earthquake Media), Danny (Universal McCann) and Steve (Organic) had some interesting “Art v. Science” commentary during their “Where budgets are coming from now” session
Congrats to David, Christine and crew for the show! Follow up posts will highlight various sessions….stay tuned!
Mar
28
DigitalSignageToday.com: Digital Signage and the Next 5 Years
Filed Under Advertising, Digital Signage, Mobile, Tools, metrics | 2 Comments
For those of you who missed it, Digital Signage Today just released their most recent Special Report on the next 5 years of Digital OOH.
It’s a pretty thorough publication. They’ve done a good job at trying to cover all aspects of the marketplace going over the basics and then deeper into specific verticals.
At the very end is a great collection of industry experts who go over their thoughts for the next 5 years of the industry and what to watch for. The only heads up I have to give is that I’m among them 
Have fun. Good read and well done to the folks at DSToday!
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.
Sep
25
Air Canada & the 2D Bar Code
Filed Under Advertising, Digital Signage, Mobile | 4 Comments
Interesting little post from BlackBerryCool last week promoting Air Canada’s
new mobile/SMS 2D BARCODE boarding pass.
The report says:
Not only BlackBerrys, but PDAs, Treos, and standard mobile phones which can display a 2D barcode will now be able to have their Air Canada boarding passes on their handhelds.
Air Canada said the mobile-check in service, which is available at www.mobile.aircanada.com, has been improved to enable customers to receive an electronic boarding pass in SMS form, which can be shown to airport security screen staff and Air Canada gate agents, rather than a paper board pass. … According to the airline, the mobile boarding pass uses recent, secure mobile and 2-D barcode technologies to help simplify the travel experience for its customers. The customer enters information such as their name, departure city and their Aeroplan number, booking reference or credit card number and then enters their mobile number to receive the pass if their device supports 2-D barcode technology.
Aug
24
Digital Graffiti on Digital Signage
Filed Under Advertising, Digital Signage, Mobile | 1 Comment
Found via Engadget via Ad Goodness via AdsOfTheWorld
How’s this for an innovative use of technology? Bluetooth paired with Digital Signage that allows you to use your BlueTooth enabled phone, what looks like an OTA (”Over the air” downloaded) Java application and a lot of free time to “Spray” a design on a signage implementation!
This is where I really like to see forward momentum in ideas…
Aug
13
Making Mobile Pay Through Digital Signage - “Engagement” At Its Best
Filed Under Advertising, Digital Signage, Mobile | Leave a Comment
I’ve written a few times about mobile marketing and how it can use the Digital Signage “Medium” as a distribution channel.
See:
- Extending Digital Signage Back To The “3rd” Screen
- (Digital Signage) Media + Engagement = Greater Sales Revenue
As I’ve said before, trying to sell Digital Signage on the back of another medium (Paired together and inseparable - e.g. as a trailer buy to television or as a medium for engagement on mobile alone) is bad for Digital Signage as the mediums all have their strengths and weaknesses. You limit your abilities when you pair them and expect 100% success - 1 + 1 does not equal 4 in this case it might equal 1.5.
Jul
12
(Digital Signage) Media + Engagement = Greater Sales Revenue
Filed Under Advertising, Digital Signage, Mobile, metrics | Leave a Comment
Neat little article over at Ad Age
On how advertising engagement lifts sales.
Basically, the message in the article is that 1 “engaged” viewer is worth 8 non-engaged consumers.
the research indicates that not only does consumer engagement with media and advertising drive sales, but it also can drive sales more than media spending levels. That suggests even a relatively small media outlay could work wonders should the ads draw keen attention from consumers within media they also find engaging
It also says that:
- figuring Engagement as a quantifiable metric in measuring media effectiveness adds a 15-20% increase in ROI over models that only use GRP (Gross rating point).
- consumer engagement with media had three times the impact on sales media weight (GRPs) alone did
- consumer engagement with the ads had an eight-times larger impact on sales than GRPs
Apr
19
Extending Digital Signage back to the “3rd Screen” (mobile)
Filed Under Advertising, Digital Signage, Mobile, Tools | 3 Comments
If mobile devices are the 3rd screen (after TV, Computer), then Digital Signage is the 4th screen.
With Agencies and Brands all talking “engagement” as the next quantifiable metric of consumer Brand acceptance, there’s been a lot of talk about using mobile as the channel to adopt to begin this process/conversation.
Apr
9
Video Phones, Digital Signage and Some Interesting Ideas
Filed Under Advertising, Digital Signage, Mobile, Social Networking | 3 Comments
I was up way too early this morning (for me anyway) and happened to have the TV on while I was working. Low and behold I see an ad/infomercial complete with Captain Kirk…err…Willam Shatner,
pumping Rogers’ new video phone:
Pretty cool little service that allows you to call someone and turn on video calling with 1 button push. I heard on the infomercial that they’re giving the service away free for 36 months (now if only I could get them to do that for my blackberry plan I’d be smiling)
Now where I started thinking this was cool was its potential application to Digital Signage.
Read more
Mar
26
Bob Garfield on Ad Age
Filed Under Advertising, Digital Signage, Mobile, Social Networking | 1 Comment
Great article that sums up current attitudes on media shifts that is getting a lot of attention in the Blogosphere. Great reading for anyone who buys, sells or even consumes media.
