CNN has updated their content loops and it looks like added new screens!  No longer are they trying to bamboozle advertisers by saying that their place based offering is actually TV Out Of Home (which is VERY different than DOOH).  Apparently they’ve heard the message and figured out that non-TV, contextual advertising may actually have some merit!

They still use the talking heads approach and use their existing news programs, which I personally hate because they have nothing to do with my state of mind here, but they’ve finally substituted the advertising for relevant ads.

Boingo and the Port authority were the ads sub’d in.  Good for you CNN!

Great turn out and quite the mix of firms.  There’s a lot of interest in this space and lots of money available for the right business which is well packaged.  Private company investments with exits 3 years from now are super attractive given the “sky is falling” attitudes that you see on the faces of folks here in NY on the public side of things.

Congrats to David, Christie and the rest of the crew on a great, well attended event.

Past attendees have said good things about it and if you’re interested in investing in or getting investment, as I know many of you are, it may be a good one to attend.

I, unfortunately, got pulled away to Chicago on the Tuesday but will be speaking on the 8th in the morning if you want to chat.  Graeme Spicer from my organization will be there for the Tuesday

Details on the event can be found here

Basically, it’s a replica of the iBanker Boxing matches that started a while ago.  Basically, there were 84 “applicants” selected from various agencies and that was, through training and selection, brought down to about 24 boxers who were trained and paired up in rounds.

It was a great event, hosted by Doubledown Media, AdWeek, DirectTV, The Ad Club and a few others.  Well done!  Boxers had 3 rounds to decide a winner…to be honest, it was better boxing than I expected!

Boxers (and the crowd) was from all over the ad biz…Van Wagner, MediaCom, etc, etc…mostly creative agency folk it seemed but a good breakdown all told.

Definitely a must attend next time it comes around!

Pics and video after the break:

Walking to Bryant Park in NYC and stumbled across TJ Maxx doing a street team promo.

While I don’t shop there, they seemed to be drawing quite the crowd.  General idea is a big-ass truck with 3-paned digital screens.  I was in a rush but it looked like you played the game collecting things, that then got you points against another “shopper” and collected you items and based on your scores you may win after they tell you how much you saved over shopping at Macy’s (4 blocks away).

My guess is this came with a “insert your email address here and we’ll tell you what you may have won” but folks looked pretty entertained/engaged.  I’d say it’s a win in the street team space.

pics after the break…

The release itself can be found here.

The new ‘Nielsen On Location Media’ service will provide syndicated reporting for video networks in commercial locations such as health clubs, gas stations, hotels, retail outlets, amusement parks and aeroplanes.

….

‘Our reports will utilize a hybrid methodology that will incorporate Nielsen InStore traffic estimates or real world ‘verifiable truths’ where possible,’ explained Paul Lindstrom, SVP of Nielsen On Location Media. ‘This real world information – such as set-top box data from hotels, health club membership swipes, gas pump transactions, and ticket sales – will be combined with demographic data in a patent pending process that will help our clients take advantage of the new digital world.’

The entire release is below.

I was a little interested to see OVAB’s name right on the service release.  I know they were working together but Arbitron is also involved with the association.  I checked OVAB’s web site but did not see any data or new news feeds on what this means to the association or the industry or direction they’re going.

For the most part, I’ll be brief.

The first session was called Media Leader’s Insights for Digital Out Of Home Media

The panel was made up of:

• Tim Hanlon (click on who we are) - Executive Vice President, Venture - DENUO (Publicis Group)
• Alan Schulman - Senior Vice President, Executive Creative Director - imc2
• Todd Glick - Vice President, Out of Home Director - ZenithOptimedia

The session was moderated by Mark French, General Manager of NBC Everywhere.

All around, this session was good.  As I mentioned before, it had some good commentary, without the usual “this is why we’re not buying” rhetoric.

A few of the more juicy bits:

Tim Hanlon had a little segue on content and I heavily agree with him.  WRT Content:

“as a media operator, you must be a trusted provider of Content. Without this, no one will ascribe value to the advertising”.

As self evident as this may seem, most people miss it when developing their businesses. And when Tim says “no one” he means both none of the advertisers, agencies OR consumers will see value in the advertising if you don’t have something relevant and engaging on the screens.  I’ll tell you this, I don’t find News, Weather or Sports tickers engaging or relevant at all…so will your audience?  I find folks like KidCareTV do this well and develop custom programming that really fits the mold.  If you want more info on this, I wrote a post a long time ago which explains more of my position on this.

Next up came some commentary from Alan Schulman.  Alan made a commentary about how the Digital OOH business has to:

Get out of the impression business

This was quickly echoed by Todd Glick who then also added:

Demographics are out

Basically saying that another form of “buying metric” was needed.  This wasn’t just for DOOH, they lumped a few more mediums in here.

My position is really more of a direct business point.  While I’ve heard both of these positions before and actually heavily agree with them, the fact of the matter is that both Tim and Todd’s employees, who actually do the leg work at their companies, still plan and buy this way (impression and demographic).  While it’s nice to have these discussions at the top, the fact of the matter is that most planners and buyers who Network’s sales guys deal with still get the calls from the guys at the desks of folks like Zenith saying:

I need 24-44 year old females.  Here’s what we’re trying to accomplish….Here’s the campaign objective…

There’s a disconnect between the theory of what upper management and agency leaders want and think should happen and the realities of what their partners and vendors contend with from their employees….the folks who actually spend the money.

Unfortunately, it’s a very difficult proposition for everyone because, while OVAB will be launching their new metric, which is a good step, creating and ascribing value to some form of “rating point” defining the value of an audience/venue/dwell/etc mix of some form has to be adopted by an entire industry of planners/buyers, muchless one agency in order for the “selling” groups in the industry to change tactics.  This really has to be an industry mandate for adoption, led and adopted heavily by the agencies (all agencies) at the plan/buy level, otherwise each Network risks disrupting their sales efforts, impacting the bottom line.  Don’t get me wrong, it will happen, but even Internet ratings are still being batted around so this ain’t an overnight fix.

Next up, Todd was actually quite (refreshingly) open about where Zenith is in their thought process on planning/buying DOOH.  He quite candidly admitted that his staff were still in transition in understanding how the DOOH medium fit into their strategies.  He expected that to start to change within 12-24 months but it was taking time.

Lastly, one of the guys, I forget which one, went on a bit of a rant on how everything in this medium needed “sight, sound and motion”, at which point I started shaking my head.  This is an easy commentary from someone who is used to designing TV and/or interactive but a naive statement 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 projects can show what happens if you don’t understand the venues you operate in.  There are countless examples of this.  I understand what the point he was trying to make was but I’ll shoot right between the eyes on this one and say Good Creative (idea and execution), is what is required for our space, and it may or may not include sound.  I’ve seen some killer static outdoor campaigns with fantastic creative that do a better job than many TV campaigns in getting your attention and driving you with a call to action….just think of what we can do with Digital.  If you can do sound and it’s not disruptive, great but if you think that’s what’s going to make you better in the Digital OOH space, I’d revisit.

A good friend of mine who is a very senior Creative Director at Publicis looks at the lack of sound in some of these spaces as a huge benefit.  Specifically, he said:

I love this [DOOH] medium because I can finally be creative again and break out of what’s “expected” in TV and Internet.  I get to think again.

Anyway…that was just session 1 and some of my thoughts.  I’ll post more later.

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!

The piece was written by Konrad Yakabuski in the Marketing section of the Report on Business.  It can be found here.  The article was entitled “How Pepsi Won Quebec” and has lessons that would benefit many planners and buyers in how they approach the Digital OOH segment of their plans because Pepsi’s success is so based on their targeted advertising - both creative and use of media.  As the Quebecois/Quebecers love to say, and I’ll steal their line: DOOH is distinct

more after the break…

Here’s the rub of the whole success story: Coke, in approaching the Quebec market, has always simply translated their English spots into French and run them, expecting the same results and keeping all messaging consistent across media and geography.  Pepsi, on the other hand, has specialized its media and creative to the Quebec market, which tends to have different tastes and needs as an audience.

Example Creative:

Some results/timeline:

• 1984 - Pepsi lagged Coke by 15%
• 1984 - Quebec (read: Targeted) focused ads began
• 1986 - Pepsi leads Quebec by almost 12%
• 1990 - Pepsi leads Quebec by almost 20%
• …they still lead to this day and haven’t changed their distinct ads they run in Quebec

Pepsi’s agency is BBDO (Montreal), an Omincom company.  BBDO (both Canada and US) has been on a tear over the last few years especially, racking up some impressive account wins and awards for a lot of their work.

In any other major medium other than Internet, this type of strategy is tough to accomplish…unless you’re Digital OOH. Producing TV spots is FAR too expensive to do regionally in a multi-market environment and buying media in other mediums is far too time consuming to do region by region - which makes it unprofitable for media agencies to accomplish and far too risky….there’s just too many moving parts and too mainly failure points and no planner is going to risk his/her career in trying to jump in head first.

Digital OOH has the built in capacity to customize messaging by region and distribution to multiple points is fairly easy, making it able to accommodate planner/buyer needs and easy to change if something isn’t working or there’s a problem. Producing creative for the medium is also very efficient compared to TV production (notice I said efficient, not cheap….good creative still costs money)

What’s impressive here and what I want to highlight is the results and the abilities the Digital OOH medium can provide to planners.

1. By targeting messaging by a region, Pepsi went from a No. 2 behind by 12 points to the number 1, ahead by 20 points in 7 years.  This is unheard of in such a short period but possible using the right medium.
2. Today’s agencies know they can’t do mass distribution of media and creative the way they used too, going forward, if they want to keep ahead for their clients.  The major mediums aren’t going away but there’s too many targeting and localization issues that we, the audience, keep throwing their way…buying the way they used to is creating “reach inefficiencies” that need to be solved somehow.  Agencies NEED hyper-targeting AND hyper-local advertising abilities.  The challenge is, it needs to be manageable and easy buy…it needs to be manageable underneath a national “plan”.  As a Network, you need to spend a lot of time understanding how to do this. Hence the title of the post, “Planning Local, Buying National.
3. Messaging can be managed not only by region, but by venue type.  You can create a campaign that actually has tweaked messaging in each distinct venue type…i.e. you can pull together creative that all fits together under one theme but says slightly different things in a Dr Office, vs a Pharmacy, vs a gym, vs a Spa.  Done creatively, you could tell a fantastic story across multiple channels…this is why it’s so important to have creative agencies pay attention to our medium…there’s a great opportunity here for them.

The main message I want to get across, however, is how effective a planned program of regionalized messaging can have a dramatic impact if you build it into a sustained program.  There will be adopters of the DOOH medium over the next couple of years who recognize this potential and will make large leaps in market share based on the extra time they spend in customizing messaging to both region and to venue type…it’s really not that hard.

The secondary message for planners is how bloody easy it is to do in DOOH for much lower risk and price (not cost ) than other mediums.

The article that Konrad wrote goes on to highlight other Canadian brands who take a “distinct” approach to the Quebec market with some success.  Take a read and give some thought to how you could approach this with your brands/clients.

Much like my buddy Dave, I’m Out of here until September.

This fall is gearing up to be a big one and given the summer was ridiculously nuts too, I figured I’d sneak a quick one in here while I can.

No blackberry, no phone, no email.  I’m fully checking out.

See ya in September!  Happy long weekend!

Rob