Gail Chiasson, North American Editor
This month, we welcome Charles Parry-Okeden, CEO, Executive Channel International, Sydney, Australia.
- Please tell us about your personal background and how you got involved in the digital out-of-home business. What spurred on the founding initially of Executive Channel Australia?
I started my media career in Melbourne, Australia more than 20 years ago. After a short stint in radio sales, I moved across to out of home and worked at Buspak Advertising Group (a transit media company) as a sales executive. In 1996, I moved with them to Sydney where I was promoted to the national sales director role. In 2004, Buspak merged with Cody Outdoor and Australian Posters to create Australia’s largest outdoor media company at the time, APN Outdoor. Two years later, a discussion with Craig Cohen (ex-Captive Media founder) around an opportunity to deploy screens into office tower foyers, led to the creation of Executive Channel Australia in 2006 and then ECNlive in 2009.
- When you did the recent buyout of ECNlive, you also mentioned that Executive Channel International was poised for global expansion. Does that mean North America as well? In what areas do you hope to expand first?
We’re not looking to expand into the North American market at the moment. We currently operate in Australia, the UK, France and the Netherlands and we have significant expansion plans in place across those markets but we’re keeping an eye on some other potential territories at the same time.
- Will each company go under a separate name under the holding company, or will all expansions in Europe fall under ECNlive? Please explain.
The two companies, Executive Channel in Australia and ECNlive in Europe, will continue to operate under their current names for the foreseeable future.
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Are you interested in acquisitions for this expansion, or do you plan to work each market on your own? In either way, will you be looking for investment funds from venture capitalists or others?
We’re interested in growing either by organic growth or by acquisition. We only have a small amount of shareholder loans on our balance sheet and with no bank debt we are in a strong position for expansion either way.
- Back in May, it was predicted that ECNlive would be in 150 building lobbies by the end of 2014. However, I see on its website that it has already reached that number. So what is the new goal for the end of 2014? Why do you think you can reach it?
We have just recently signed a significant new agreement with a large property partner in the UK who has a portfolio of more than 30 buildings. This in conjunction with other new contracts will see our building locations exceed 200 buildings in the UK by June 2015.
- With all your screens in total, how many does Executive Channel International have currently?
Currently, we’re broadcasting across more than 1,000 large format screens in over 500 office towers.
- You have freestanding units and video walls as well as wall units. Are you seeing a trend of one being more popular than the others? Is that pretty much the same in each country? Which screens are interactive?
In the UK and France, our freestanding units are the more popular product, whereas in Australia, our wall units are most popular. We are definitely seeing a trend towards larger screen formats including video walls. None of our display units are touch screens apart from some digital directory boards we have installed into several partner properties.
Interactivity in our environment will come from other means, as we are more often that not, engaging several people with every screen at each location.
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I understand that ECNlive is aimed only at corporate clients. Is that a ‘forever’ statement or is that simply to get the company rolling? How about Executive Channel Australia?
Across all our operations, we are very focussed on the office media sector: that’s a ‘forever’ statement! Our first priority is to scale up our existing audience and we have strategies in place to deliver that growth. We are an innovative company though and we could potentially look other environments that offer a highly complementary audience to our own. But for the time being, we are aimed solely at corporate property clients.
- What percentage of your clients in each company carries advertising? And of those that do carry ads, what percentage of your advertising is national vs. local? Please explain.
The vast majority of our property clients carry advertising with only a very small percentage not. We work with a few brand clients to deliver an internal employee communications network but we’re a media company first and foremost, not a technology one. Although our screens are premium, high-definition and the supporting technology behind them is highly z, our focus is on connecting brands with audiences in the corporate world.
Again, the majority of advertising across all our operations is from large, national brands and just a few local advertisers. Our audience is a valuable, hard to reach one, the majority of whom are increasingly difficult to engage via traditional media. So our local advertisers tend to be city-based retailers or entertainment brands.
- I believe that IBM is ECNlive’s biggest and longest client. What is it that they like about ECNlive? Do you have any type of facts and figures to show the role ECNlive played in IBM’s business?
IBM is our longest-standing client in the UK and one of our key clients currently. Our network connects them with major international companies operating across the City and we help them communicate to our audience of affluent working Londoners. They’ve advertised regularly with us over the last five years, so we believe our media’s proving successful for them.
- Who is Executive Channel Australia’s oldest client? Again, what does the company like about Executive Channel Australia? And do you have any facts and figures regarding the role of Executive Channel Australia in that business?
Not surprisingly like the UK IBM has been one of our longest clients on the Executive Channel Network in Australia. This again goes back to their desire to reach large enterprise corporates in the Australian market. Whilst we don’t have specific facts and figures, the longevity of this relationship suggests we play a valuable role.
- I’m told that the Australian company has a lot of research that will now be more easily available to ECNlive. What kind of research do you do? What company do you use for measurement? What kind of analytics do you have available?
Solution through insight is at the heart of all we do. Over the past 18 months alone, we have spoken with almost 5,000 Executive People (office media audience). In Australia, we have a very clear position as being the office media specialists, which is underpinned by our Executive Lives program. The program comprises three key pillars:
– Executive People (mind, mood, behaviors);
– Companies (tenant database);
– Executive Places (proximity to bricks and mortar retail stores).For example, our Executive People surveys provide clients with an insight into the mind and mood of our audience, and we have taken a very surgical (category based) approach to this task. A critical dimension has been to explain the role of Executive Channel on the path to purchase within an online context (i.e. consumers seeking information/buying products online whilst at work). For example:
. 87% of Executive People (office media audience) use the Internet at work for personal reasons;
. 63% of Executive People seek information about cars at work;
. 34 % of Executive People buy car insurance at work;
. 52% of Executive People seek information about mobile devices at work;
. 74% of Executive People are unsure about their financial future.
These example insights are the catalyst to more meaningful conversations with clients. Really from the get-go, delivering solutions through insight has been at the heart of our approach.
But we have used many external sources for measurement and research over the years including Quividi.
Our proprietary research is conducted by the Hoop Group in Australia which is a well established research company. In conjunction with this, we use Roy Morgan Asteroid for further comprehensive insights into our audience.
- Who do you use for software management? Please explain.
We have two different software providers. We have recently migrated to Broadsign in Australia and are currently operating from a proprietary system in the UK. We’re evaluating them right now with a view to consolidating software management across the business in the short-term. - Do you have an internal creative team to build content? Do they work with building owners to add unique content? Are any of your screens used strictly for internal employee communications?
We have a sizable internal creative team across the business and they do work with building owners, as well as, advertisers to create unique content. As mentioned above, only a very small number of locations are used strictly for internal employee communications.
- Does Executive Channel International have a sort of corporate philosophy or mission statement? If so, what is it and what does it mean to you?
‘Solution through insight’ is really at the heart of everything we do. We want our property solutions (technology) to be world’s best practice and our clients’ campaigns to be successful by ensuring they are well targeted with relevant messages delivering maximum results.
Our team at Executive Channel thrives with change and embraces innovation, which is something I thoroughly enjoy about the business. Media and technology evolve far to rapidly not to live by that philosophy.
- Some of your competitors would prefer to use elevators rather than building lobbies. What’s your take, do they work together or do you think that one is better than the other? And I notice that you are in the car parks of office towers in Australia. Will we see that in other places? And your distribution and sampling programs?
We also have elevator advertising, however, it accounts for only a very small percentage of our total screens. In fact we are about to launch a new in-lift product that may see this percentage increase going forward.Our decision to focus primarily on foyers was driven by a combination of history, global knowledge and local experience.
As media sales professionals, history told us that clients preferred larger format screens/billboards. Further, global eye tracking OOH research proves that larger formats have higher visibility. And finally, the many case studies conducted over numerous years at various OOH companies confirmed larger format screens delivered significantly better outcomes in terms of brand recall and preference.In Australia, the average audience of an In-Foyer screen is three times higher than in-elevator screens so the combination of screen size and audience scale makes it an attractive proposition.
We do also have a presence in premium CBD car parks, which reaches a very affluent C-suite audience. These combination digital and 6 sheet (street furniture) panels can support a broader OOH campaign. Given the differences in travel habits of executives traveling to work in Europe it is unlikely we would deploy this network anywhere else.
Executive Interact is our brand activation offer, and an area we will continue to focus on. More and more clients are looking for a deeper brand connection and our premium in-foyer offering delivers this.
- What, if anything, do you have in terms of content that you think makes your screens unique?
Our audience always responds well to our content. Everyone’s interested to see travel, weather and news updates but we also run content that’s more targeted to our audience such stock market updates, snow reports in the winter, and in the UK, Boris Bike availability updates, etc..
- In the U.K., you initially went to the financial district audience at Canary Wharf and the City of London. What kind of audience drew you to Paris before elsewhere? How do you feel that the audience in the two cities differs – beyond language, of course?
Actually, it’s a similar kind of audience to our offering in the UK, affluent office workers who are increasingly difficult to reach effectively through traditional media. We saw an opportunity to roll out our product to a market where a large audience is concentrated in two or three areas and made the move just over a year ago. - How do you foresee Executive Channel International by the end of 2015?
I see ECI operating as a cohesive, global organization that exports best practice in creative media solutions and insights between regions to experience rapid growth in existing and new territories. - You have been successful in working with a large traditional outdoor association (as a member of the Outdoor Media Association of Australia). Why has that worked for you whereas in other countries it hasn’t and so digital companies have ended up forming their own associations such as the DPAA or OVAB Europe?
We want our clients to have every confidence in using our media. We’ve worked with the OMA in Australia to have our sites inspected as part of the site classification process within MOVE, Australia’s OOH audience measurement system. It’s been an important step for us in making the office media sector transparent and accountable.Very soon, Digital OOH media is going to be a huge part of the overall OOH mix. No doubt it needs greater uniformity of definition and measurement amongst the whole OOH industry (not just a small number) but ultimately, each company is in charge of it’s own direction and it will be up to individual organizations to drive their own success.
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