DailyDOOH

New data from Juniper Research, Hampshire, UK, has revealed that retailers seeking to capitalize on IoT (Internet of Things) technologies will spend an estimated $2.5 billion in hardware and installation costs by 2020, nearly a fourfold increase over this year’s estimated $670 million spend.

The hardware spend includes Bluetooth Beacons and RFID (radio frequency ID) tags. In the first instance, Bluetooth beacons enable visibility over footfall as well as the ability to push relevant information to consumers’ smartphones. Meanwhile, RFID aids in real-time asset tracking, reduced labour costs and even dynamic pricing according to stock

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In similar fashion to its earlier display at InfoComm China in April, Christie is showcasing its ultimate range of visual solutions in a Boxing Ring-type display at InfoComm India, taking place at the Bombay Exhibition Center September 1-3, 2015.

Christie’s multi-zone display at booth #B1, exudes energy and sportiness, showing its Christie Boxer 4K30 projector and Christie Captiva Series DUW350S ultra short throw projector for the first time in India.

Other displays include Christie’’s Control room displays and MicroTiles, each in separate ‘zones’ of the Christie booth.

Lin Yu, vice president, Christie Asia Pacific, says, “This year, we have put together a ‘heavyweight’ lineup of advanced technologies at our booth that offer the highest performance and reliability at the lowest cost with the very best in customer service and after-sales support.”

Harrods can always be relied upon to have great window displays…

This one, we particular like, advertising ahead of the Rugby World Cup, Adidas and the All Blacks. Rumour is that it was put together by Saville AV.

Inc. magazine’s just-released 2015 list of the nation’s 5000 fastest growing private companies has placed NanoLumens Inc. a Norcross. Georgia-based visualization solution provider that delivers value, advertising revenue, experience creation, and customer engagement, as Gwinnett County’s #1 fastest growing company, Georgia’s 15th fastest growing company and the nation’s #267th fastest growing company.

“We provide solutions to problems that haven’t been thought of yet by others, and our ability to do this for customers around the world is driving our success,” says Rick Cope, NanoLumen’s CEO. “This achievement stems from the vision, commitment, and can-do spirit of the entire NanoLumens team who believe that Made in America is not a statement about our past but a promise about our future as Americans competing in a global economy.”

With a three-year growth rate of 1,692%, NanoLumens redefines the way architects, designers, integrators, retailers, casino operators and event/convention center organizers engage with their customers through LED display solutions in any size, shape, or curvature. The company’s ability to listen to a customer’s needs and then respond with a unique solution has resulted in record-breaking sales for NanoLumens in an industry dominated by Asian manufacturers.

Because of this American-made quality, NanoLumens is also the only display designer in the field to offer customers an unconditional Six Year, Zero Failure Warranty that covers the entire display from corner to corner, including all parts and controller devices sold by NanoLumens to end users, resellers, and distributors, effective from the date of shipment.

NanoLumen’s installations now span five continents and include solutions in Sydney, Beijing, Tokyo, São Paulo, New York, Chicago, Toronto, London, Paris and Munich, among many others.

UAB, Reitan Convenience Lithuania, one of the largest convenience store chains in Lithuania and owners of the Narvesen brand, has implemented Samsung’s Smart Signage Platform, powered by Signagelive to enhance its in-store advertising activities.

Samsung Smart Signage Displays have currently been installed in 25 Narvesen convenience stores to drive customer engagement and boost overall sales, with plans to install a further 40 displays by the end of 2015.

The platform has been supplied and installed by Hansab AB, a leading provider of innovative technology solutions to public and private sector organisations in Lithuania and Signagelive’s strategic channel partner in the Baltic region.

Although Reitan Convenience Lithuania already had digital signage displays installed in the majority of its stores, the company was keen to move to an alternative business model that would enable them to own their digital signage network and have greater control over the content being displayed, thus giving them the ability to enhance promotional activities and sponsorship opportunities on behalf of key suppliers.

All in-store and third party content is stored and managed on Signagelive’s cloud platform and is delivered to the different displays over LAN without needing any external media player technology.

Using Signagelive’s recently launched proof of play module, campaign manager are able to provide sponsors and stakeholders with a hierarchical overview of all played content and report on specific parameters such as the top five assets, total number of plays per advert or start and end times in an easy to understand format to demonstrate the effectiveness of different campaigns.

The solution has enabled Naversen staff to be completely self-sufficient in the running and management of their digital signage network with Hansab only needing to log onto the network periodically to ensure there are no connectivity issues and that the solution is performing optimally.

Australian listed digital out of home company XTD is preparing to launch a new technology that provides a platform for the exchange of content and data between the company’s screen networks and people’s mobile devices.

XTD markets cross-track digital media and technology systems designed for metro transit environments.

XTD CEO Steve Wildisen told us “We are close to launching a new technology that provides a direct and valuable connection between hardware in two of the world’s fastest growing communications channels; digital out of home and mobile devices. There are millions of people travelling on metro rail networks worldwide and this technology will allow people to extend their transit digital experiences with the XTD network beyond the platform via their mobile devices as they continue their daily routines.”

“Each of our screens contains technologies that when used in conjunction with native apps on commuters’ smartphones, provide a level of measureable engagement that DOOH has lacked up to now. We have identified a number of partners that we’re talking to in order to validate our thinking and investment prior to a formal launch later this year,” continued Wildisen.

XTD has contracts in place for up to seven years to operate its digital media systems in Melbourne and Brisbane Australia and the company is currently exploring opportunities for its metro rail media systems in Asia and North America.

Thanks to the following: –

Ayuda Media Systems
Brightmove Media
Captivate
Clear Channel
Digital Place Based Media Advertising Association
Digital Signage Expo
Digital Signage Federation
Exterion Media
GPM 360
Koffee Cup
LinkNYC
NanoLumens
Navori
ONELAN
Pikasso
Quividi
RMG Networks
Scala
Screenfeed
Show & Tell
Verifone Media (our first ever two page, double spread advert in this book)

… for advertising in DOOH INSIGHTS Volume 4 which, consists this year, of “Executive Thought From Senior Management in the Digital Out of Home and Digital Signage Industry and Insight, Knowledge and Opinion from the DailyDOOH Editorial and Technical Teams”.

It is published by the Ministry of New Media and will be first available October 8, 2015 in London and soon after in New York during New York Digital Signage Week (November 2-6, 2015).

Shaun Gregory keynoted The DailyDOOH Media Summit back in May 2015 and positioned his address along the lines of ‘Innovate, Captivate and Grow‘ because he believed that the industry is at a watershed moment.

“The time is now about harnessing recent investments more strategically and with each other, about innovating more as a sector, and not just a s media owner, and captivating and engaging audiences – consumers, not just advertisers.”

He concluded with a call for the industry to come together as a proper, grown-up sector: –

1. To innovate and embrace change
2. To pull together on things like creativity and standardised platforms.
3. To Partner into the things like franchise and creating new advertising models
4. To use technology and data to underpin the shift to real time audience selling

You can hear more from Shaun (soon), as up next in our regular CEO Spotlight feature is, none other, than Exterion Media’s CEO Shaun Gregory (available end of September online and in print October 8, 2015).

CorpComm Expo has announced that John Cirone, director of executive and employee communications for Microsoft, will present a general conference seminar on Wednesday, Sept. 30 at 3-4 p.m. at its inaugural educational conference taking place Sept. 30-Oct. 1, 2015, at the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta.

Rachel Gerds, vice-president of digital content North America for BMO Financial Group, will present the following day at a general conference seminar Oct. 1 at 10-11 a.m.

Cirone’s presentation, titled, ‘Transforming Executive Communications – A Lesson From Microsoft’s C-Suite’, will take a look at how Microsoft’s corporate communications team worked with its new CEO and other senior leaders to transform how Microsoft engages with its employees in an ongoing and dynamic conversation, and how to apply these lessons, specifically:

• How to effectively use internal social media tools to engage with senior leaders;
• How to make your leaders your most impactful employee communications channel;
• How to engage in an open and transparent dialogue with employees using digital technologies.

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This month we welcome Jonathan Lewis, Managing Director, Outdoor Plus, London.

1. Please tell us something of your background, and how you got involved with digital out-of-home.

   I think it’s fairly well documented that I’ve always worked in the Outdoor industry – starting at the tender age of 22, following my university degree in Politics. Postermobile was a family-run business, which my father and I sold to Clear Channel in 1999. I subsequently became the Managing Director of Clear Channel’s billboard division and was there until 2005. Outdoor Plus was originally set up in 2006 and the company’s offering has been consistent since launch – it has always been about quality and location and we have grown organically to achieve our status as market leader in the premium digital sector in London. The evolution into premium digital was a natural transition as technology developed and brand strategies evolved. 2010 saw the first real decline in OOH revenue, but the start of Digital OOH’s advance with an 11% share of total OOH revenue that year and significant growth of +52% in the 2 years post-recession. Out of Home has always been innovative and embraced the new and Outdoor Plus (past and present) has always been instrumental in shaping the OOH industry.

   In 2011 Outdoor Plus’ business strategy evolved to extend our super premium offering to include Digital.

   Our first digital screen, The Eye Holborn, went live in August 2011 and an in-house sales team was hired in 2012, representing the key OOH specialists from Q4 2012. Within 3 years Outdoor Plus built a 30% share of the iconic roadside digital London market, following over £10 million investment into our portfolio. It would be fair to say that Digital Out of Home has effectively created a new medium for advertisers. Every medium with the exception of Out of Home has been affected by the growth of Search, Online and the digitization of media. Through significant investment DOOH has created a new medium, which is supporting traditional OOH, which would otherwise be in decline.

2. I believe that Outdoor Plus concentrates strictly on large format digital displays. Why did you decide to focus only on these?

   Our business heritage and experience is based on premium large format. The additional pillars of our business are all large format – whether premium backlights or one-off banners, such as those on Shaftesbury Avenue and the Kings Road which were both launched by Outdoor Plus in 2015. I strongly believe in the power of OOH in building awareness. It is the most public form of communication & also the most trusted. Large format OOH specifically provides advertisers with the ultimate creative canvas to build brand fame. As Dave Trott recently commented: “it (super premium digital OOH) is one of the quickest ways to get into the national conversation and make your brand famous.” 

3. You seem to be exclusively in the London area. Do you have further opportunities for growth in London? What are your growth plans there?

   If you look at the distribution of Outdoor Plus’ digital portfolio you will see that we have a very clear strategy of developing in the very best central London locations – either premium locations (such as Euston, Aldgate, Chiswick) or the re-development of heritage locations such as Vauxhall Cross, Cheyne Walk, Purley Way and Henlys Corner. Our development strategy has given us a very clear footprint across London (as opposed to clusters of sites in one location), which by definition has to be better for advertisers & their campaign optimisation. Yes there are still opportunities in London, but we will not develop new sites if they don’t fit within our strategy: the best sites, best locations and best distribution. A fitting example would be our recent conversion / digitisation of the Ricoh Tower, which means that we are now the only media owner to offer a landscape screen on the M4 London Gateway. London is still hugely important from an advertiser perspective with over 13% of the UK population living here and a disposable income 19% higher than the rest of the UK, not forgetting its status as the No.1 Global City.

4. Your website says that Outdoor Plus has ‘a unique personality’. Can you please explain?

   The team here would probably say that I play a large part in our culture & the unique personality that stems from this, but I couldn’t comment on that! I fundamentally believe that our approach to business and our brand personality gives us a unique position in the market. First of all we are a British, independently owned company, which makes us pretty rare in the current climate. Family values run through the business and we are fully committed to the notion that quality matters. We strive to be considered nice people to do business with whilst maintaining a committed and professional approach to our clients.

5. How many sites and how many advertising faces do you have?

   We have 13 landscape digital locations with 15 screens and 3 portrait digital locations with 4 screens. All screens run a 1 in 5 share of voice, with the exception of 1053 Great West Road, which runs as full ownership with the opportunity for a copy change every 24 hours. We have retained our roots in classic premium Out of Home with key location banners, backlight 48 sheets (32), backlight 96s (16) and mega 6s (8).

6. What is the most interesting creative that you’ve seen on Outdoor Plus billboards in the past year? What made it so interesting? What were the results for the client?

   I would have to say our very own #message2london campaign, which launched in June this year.

   Outdoor Plus invited celebrities to deliver personal messages in 10 words or less to the streets of London via 19 of our iconic digital screens. In an age where so many messages are communicated through private channels, we wanted to demonstrate how Iconic Digital Out of Home is the ultimate public platform for communications. We firmly believe that in the future DOOH will be seen as a dynamic communications medium, not just pure play advertising. What was particularly interesting was how engaged the celebrities were with the idea – they were genuinely thrilled with the opportunity (possibly egos at play; but equally they could see the scope for a truly public message – beyond Twitter). No cold-calling, no agents & no fees, just a sell on the idea itself – If you could message London in less than 10 words, what would you say? We have researched the initiative and the results (both quantitative & qualitative) will be published shortly. One impressive result was a 21% spontaneous awareness figure for the campaign after a 4-week period (given Millward Brown’s benchmark for a ‘typical’ OOH campaign is 10-12%). We also amplified the campaign via a Haymarket Partnership, where we created a #message2london hub on Campaignlive.co.uk. The idea behind this was to engage the media and creative fraternity, reinforcing the benefits of premium DOOH. This has been Haymarket’s most successful campaign for the year to date with over 8,900 unique visitors to the Hub and over 10k page views.

   In terms of a client campaign; Global Radio’s Now Playing campaign for Capital FM highlighted not only the flexibility & creative scope of DOOH, but also the fact that only Outdoor Plus can offer a network of premium digital screens that provide unique locations & traffic flows. Global Radio’s traffic & travel data revealed that Outdoor Plus has the best coverage across the busiest traffic hotspots in London, which meant that they could optimize their live feed campaign across the day.

7. Targeting specific audiences by large screens must be difficult. How do you sell to a client who wants to target a specific audience? Or can you?

   Outdoor advertising reaches 98% of the UK population every week (Route), but it is still possible to optimize campaigns by audience either via industry planning tools or via the clients own data. But the real value in premium iconic digital is in its ability to drive brand fame, which is crucial to a brands overall success.
   As Sir John Hegarty commented at the 2014 Wired Conference: “Fame is vital to a brand.  If you’re not building fame for your brand, you’re not carrying forward your brands values. … Fame is achieved through broadcast communications.  A brand is made not just by the people who buy it, but also by those who know about it.  Occupy a corner of the mind.”

   The Censuswide CEO’s Choice survey last year also confirmed that 66% of CEOs believe premium Digital OOH is a ‘must have’ for brand building and fame (second only to TV).

   Iconic digital OOH has the dual benefit of being able to deliver brand fame, whilst also being used tactically whether that is serving ads in real-time, by day-part or by location.
   From an audience perspective, our premium digital network delivers exceptionally well against those audiences that tend to command a premium in other media – for example ABs & Men. This means that advertisers are able to reach a highly sought after audience, whilst driving brand fame in an area that has lighter & more fragmented TV viewing than any other region.

8. How do you see the use of programmatic buying in relation to Outdoor Plus products?

   I’m not sure full programmatic buying is where the future lies for Out of Home; however automated buying is, but a coordinated industry approach is required. The opportunity is definitely there, especially in relation to Digital trading. But significant investment in software and inventory management systems is needed, which involves mutual collaboration and standardization across both media owners and OOH agencies.

9. Your website also mentions that Outdoor Plus is involved with architectural design. Can you explain, please?

   As Louis Kahn said “Architecture is the thoughtful making of spaces.” At Outdoor Plus we are very aware of the need for our sites to be well designed & built. How an advertisers brand is framed is important, but equally so is how the site looks as part of the city’s infrastructure & landscape. Outdoor Plus has been at the forefront of developing some of the most high profile & iconic digital advertising sites in the UK.

10. What company’s content management software do you use and why?

    We use Scala software.
    It’s a world leading CMS platform. Its functionality enables us to be very responsive with content changes so we can execute content changes live on screen in seconds. It is a scalable system, meaning it adapts to our requirements as the network continues to expand. Its ability to sync different frames allows for sites such as Henlys Corner to synchronise content. The open-end API is very flexible and essential to the performance of dynamic campaigns, which we have run in the past. Scala also allows us to monitor the network and see any issues in a swift and timely manner.

11. Is there a method to how you choose and obtain new sites?

    As per Q3, we have a very clear strategy regarding the selection & acquisition of new sites. The quality & scarcity of the prospective location and its audience value plays a significant role. Before acquiring a new site we carefully consider its role as part of the existing Outdoor Plus network and what it will add from an advertiser’s perspective.

12. Clients these days ask for more and more analytics regarding who sees screens, dwell time, action taken and more. What measurement company do you use, how and why?

    Outdoor Plus subscribes to Route via Telmar’s Quantum software. In terms of ‘action taken’ this is usually measured by the client whether by econometric modeling or via sales or other KPIs. For example, we know that PHD’s Oreo Eclipse stunt, which incorporated premium DOOH from a number of media owners & a cover wrap of the Sun newspaper, delivered Mondelez’s biggest ever sales month for Oreo with a 59% year on year increase. But many clients do not share their post campaign analytics or are unable to effectively extrapolate the effect of Out of Home.

13. What do you want Outdoor Plus to become in the long run?

    Our vision has always been to provide a premium digital network that advertisers consider a ‘must have’ addition to their communications strategy. The ‘must have media’ that used to be the preserve of TV (centre break of Coronation Street, the X Factor, etc.) or Press (IFC of Vogue, first right hand page in the Sun or the Times, etc.) now has viable alternative via Outdoor Plus’ premium network of striking, iconic and unavoidable screens that dominate the London skyline.

14. What are your general thoughts on the DOOH industry in both the UK and globally now, and how do you foresee it within the next couple of years?

    Clients and planners need to start thinking of DOOH as the solution, not simply the ‘cream on top’.  Whilst we’ve had some great successes with tactical campaigns and DOOH is now seen as a viable alternative to press for short-term or tactical communications, there is still greater potential to be gained from the strategic use of the medium.  The best clients are adapting their creative across the campaign period, be that daily, hourly or according to their own data sets.  There is a value in DOOH as a whole, in the same way that advertisers don’t simply buy peak airtime on TV.

    Another challenge is that we need consistent pricing models across the industry. We need to effectively flip the model so that 14 days is no longer the norm. Clients should be accruing discounts as they buy more airtime rather than feeling penalised for buying less. In addition to this & linked to the effective creative use of the medium, clients should be optimising their budgets, not reducing them.