Adrian J Cotterill, Editor-in-Chief
PRN were perhaps less than totally honest in their recent joint venture announcement which is, as many on twitter have speculated looks nothing more than an acquisition of indoorDIRECT, the firing of their Dallas based staff and creating a new entity to hold the assets that indoorDIRECT (that was rumoured to be in trouble for some time) held.
indoorDIRECT’s business mainstay, that of QSRs will always be a challenge. We believe that giving those assets to PRN is an attempt for indoorDIRECT investors to recoup some of their investment to date. As usual it’s the employees that get hit the hardest.
Mind you this is a good move for PRN, new CEO Ahmad Ouri has obviously hit the ground running; despite the press statement they have obviously picked up a whole bunch of contracts on the cheap (albeit QSR – see above caveat), added some seasoned executives to their management team and now rather than just talking about expansion (as they have been for the last two or three years) they have actually DONE SOMETHING!
January 18th, 2012 at 14:23 @641
Good reporting in digging at some truth here. But I see you more complimentary than necessary to PRN for expansion. If indeed as we all suspect that Indoor Direct was a dead man walking, that was a large portion of PRN’s reported eyeballs. Remember PRN is both a sales rep business and a network operator. Not taking that business would open them up to losing a large part of their footprint either to the vapor or a competitor. Now they actually have the assets under them in a risk diluted JV which may not be by design but more the result of not having the total capital required to own it outright. They would have continued to have the same network footprint if Indoor Direct had stumbled forward.
January 18th, 2012 at 15:13 @676
The problem with Indoor Direct has always been about coverage and saturation in key markets. They made the mistake of launching without the ability to deliver enough viewers where advertisers want impressions and therefore the ad dollars never flowed. In the rush to launch they made strategic errors and have not been able to grow beyond 1200 locations as the equity investment has not been there. With the growth of smart phones the idea that they have a captive audience does not resonate. Their overall model has been flawed from the start and one only needs to look at the founders to understand the mistakes.
January 18th, 2012 at 19:35 @857
The BIGGEST problem with both companies is that their goal is to create advertising-supported networks.
Until we as an industry focus primarily on the value of digital signage as a medium for customer communication and loyalty marketing, and leave 3rd party advertising as a secondary objective for another day, we are inherently devaluing this medium.
January 19th, 2012 at 23:47 @033
“DOOH Observer’s” last sentence is dead on. John’s last sentence is way off. As long as DOOH Networks are ad supported, they need to be led by OOH Media Execs and not retailers, agency types, VC’s etc… Johns first sentence is on in that customer communication is one important goal. The key is to have a balanced DOOH Network that meets the needs of all 3 customers: Retailer, Consumer and Advertiser built with an objective “form follows function” mentality.