OVAB Summit ‘The Great Debate’
Guest Contributor, Michael Mascioni
The role of digital out-of-home in cross-channel marketing and entertainment schemes was in the spotlight at OVAB’s 2009 ‘Digital Media Summit: Focus on Out-of-Home‘ which was held in N.Y. on Oct. 28.
Wendy Weatherford, V.P. of Marketing and Promotion at VH1, Dan Levi, Senior V.P., Digital Media & Strategic Partnerships at Zoom Media & Marketing, and Steve King, VP of Sales for LocaModa, provided a broad perspective on the impact of integrated digital in-home and out-of-home projects and campaigns.
From Weatherford’s presentation, it was apparent that VH1’s/MTV’s content provides a veritable treasure trove of material for blended digital in-home and out-of-home projects. MTV’s passionate, techno-savvy audience is ideal for these kinds of integrated, large scale projects.
‘The Great Debate,’ a debate program on pop culture that VH1 ran in July, was the centerpiece of Weatherford’s presentation. The program, which married mobile, social networking, digital out-of-home, and on-air interactivity, lent itself naturally to mixed media interactivity and to avid audience participation in bars/nightclubs with its emphasis on such galvanizing pop culture issus as the best band between the Rolling Stones and the Beatles and the best science fiction property between Star Trek and Star Wars.
The program was shown in over 500 bars and nightclubs of Zoom Media & Marketing’s digital signage network, and also on VH1’s digital billboard in Times Square.
Unfortunately, little data was revealed at the event regarding audience participation in ‘The Great Debate.’ Prior to the OVAB event, King did disclose that the program generated over 350,000 messages, 1% of which were mobile. Levi noted that implementing the overall campaign for ‘The Great Debate’ was fairly straightforward, given the all-digital nature of the project. King added that planning for the project took less than one month.
VH1’s presentation made clear the importance of the entertainment industry’s involvement in integrated in-home and digital out-of-home projects.
Such projects as ‘The Great Debate’ add key visibility to cross-channel marketing and entertainment efforts blending in-home and digital out-of-home media, and help pave the way for even more ambitious projects of this kind.
October 30th, 2009 at 02:33 @148
This presentation was aweful. The women who spoke, Wendy, was slow and nearly put me to sleep. Even worse, they missed the most important point…VH1 ( a cable channel if I need to point it out) has to use DOOH media to attract an audience. The one point that they did make that I totally disagree with is in using LocaModa as part of the activation. Are they saying the the digital media all by itself is not valueable enough or impactful enough to stand on its own?…that it has to be augmented with another technology in order to “work”? LocaModa is a WOW factor. It works at Times Square…it would not work over a sustained period in any venue with repeat traffic…like a bar or retail store. To hinge this program around them devalues the DOOH media. I think it stinks…