DailyDOOH

NCM Media Networks, the largest national cinema network reaching moviegoers on-screen, on-site, online and on the go, showed brands ‘The Bigger Picture’ in advertising Wednesday at its second annual Upfront presentation at New York City’s AMC Loews Lincoln Square movie theater.

NCM’s Earl Weihe, COO; Joanne Cetkino, Sales Director; Tom Reilly, SVP Sales

National CineMedia’s network reaches over 1,500 theaters and approximately 19,300 screens with 3 million+ seats in 183 DMAs (49 of the top 50) in the U.S., with an annual audience of approximately 710 million moviegoers. NCM is America’s No. 1 weekend network, consistently ranking higher in reach than any other network on Fridays and Saturdays.

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NRA Show 2013 (no, not the gun people) opens today in Chicago and runs May 18-21.

We quote their publicity “Every year, over the course of four days, more than 1,800 suppliers and tens of thousands of buyers come together to make lasting connections that drive business profitability and shape the future of the restaurant, foodservice and hospitality industry”.

The Galactic Empire is expected to have a big presence.

I know from forceful experience (I am speaking of course, of this respected institution’s editor in chief, who hammered home to all speakers EXACTLY what was required from them when presenting last week), that one of the aims of Video Walls Unplugged (and indeed all Thought Leadership Summits going forward) was to foster creative thinking, innovation and be a source of inspiration in the industry.

After the event, it was an incredibly nice surprise that all the speakers were given a copy of the highly sought after hardback edition of the The Book of Shapes: International Design Inspirations Featuring Christie MicroTiles^† courtesy of Christie (thanks Brant, Joe and Kathryn).

What better way for the day’s speakers to walk away and themselves be (more) inspired. The speaker goodie bag was in itself (a) inspired and (b) an incredibly nice thought – typical if I may say so of both Russ Curry (Ministry of New Media) and DailyDOOH’s editor in chief.

On behalf of all the speakers, let me say thank you.

^†The online version of the Book of Shapes is available in the iTunes store (which also includes Adrian Cotterill’s and Andrew Neale’s Bluebook, ‘How Microtiles Helped Make An Impact At The London Stock Exchange‘. You can read my review of that Bluebook here.

Spotted this last week was a global RFP from London for Clear Channel, who are looking for a Digital Signage Content Management System.

Thanks to Amy Jane Finnerty, director of PR & communications, NCM Media Networks, right, and Yesenia Reinoso, PR Assistant, all worked swimmingly at our first visit to an NCM Upfront.

We got there a bit early due to Air Canada‘s scheduling, (better to be early than late) so had a chance to chat with Paul Lindstrom, senior vice-president custom research, Nielsen Media Research, also early due to commuter train scheduling, who was waiting outside the big AMC Lowes Lincoln Square Movie Theatre.

Once inside, the one thing we thought peculiar was that press members had to wait to actually enter while other attendees were allowed in. A representative from Fox Broadcast told us that he’s seen this before, so maybe it’s a New York thing. We also thought it strange that few people seemed to be exchanging business cards.

All in all, though, it was fun to see a great presentation, and, having in the past attended numerous TV Upfronts, we can say that NCM’s Upfront was right up there with the best of them.

“There’s no rest for the wicked” as my Dad used to say (actually, the Book of Isaiah verses 48:22 and 57:20-21) and even though we just finished up yesterday, all that was brilliant at the #NECshowcase; this afternoon, we now have a Banqueting House production meeting in preparation for The DailyDOOH Gala Awards.

The DailyDOOH Gala Awards take place (usual date, the last Thursday in every November) on the 28th November 2013 in London.

VUKUNET are once again our GOLD Sponsor and Scala Inc. are back for more, sponsoring both the evening drinks reception (as they did so well last year) and also becoming a SILVER sponsor.

We are nearly all set to officially announce the awards categories, and all the sponsors; we have as many as five SILVER sponsors this year; including BARCO, BroadSign, DISE (and as we said, Scala and subject to signing the contract, at least one other).

We have two new award categories this year and a new international jury member so watch this space.

Eye, the first out-of-home operator to take mobile to market with the Amplify solution that it launched last year, is now running two concurrent mobile campaigns on its network.

The two campaigns by Microsoft and the publisher, Simon & Schuster, have deployed Amplify to extend the reach of their campaigns and incite customer engagement.

• Microsoft is using Amplify to promote its new Microsoft Office 365 software package. The campaign enables consumers to interact with the media via NFC* or QR to learn more about the product, and the mobile element will allow Microsoft to capture customer data. It is running at Gatwick and Manchester airports on Eye’s business first network and has been planned through out-of-home specialist agency, Rapport.
• The Simon and Schuster campaign uses Amplify to promote their new psychological thriller novel, Close My Eyes, by Sophie McKenzie. The campaign drives traffic through to a mobile site promoting the novel and enables consumers to engage with the author. The campaign was booked through Posterscope and Total Media.

Sarah Parkes, Managing Director of Eye, told us “We know that consumers will interact with outdoor media and that our mobile solution offers highly effective brand-consumer connectivity. So, our sophisticated media offering and innovative mobile platform will deliver a real opportunity for Microsoft and Simon & Schuster respectively to drive awareness, facilitate customer engagement and capture customer data.”

Every year PSCo Technical Distribution put together an impressive video wall at the #NECshowcase and TECHNICALLY at least, that was no different this time around…

.. but their shape had no context and their content (though of high quality visually) was actually very poor. That might seem like a harsh criticism but we’ve said this every year (and PSCo have been a great supporter of the #NECshowcase for four years now) the geeks / nerds / techies in the AV world need to learn to be more creative, and put their installs in context with relevant content.

113 people registered and 93 came on the day to listen to 11 quick fire presentations from some great speakers, talking; predominantly about video walls, but also touching on the subjects of billboards, mobile and touch interactivity, innovation, open source computing.

From left to right; Dirk Huelsermann (VUKUNET DOOH Solutions Manager, NEC Display Solutions Europe), Adrian Exton (Director, BlueSight Systems Ltd), Tim Harvey (Director of Digital Strategy, JCDecaux UK), Matthew Wilkinson (Head of Mobile, Eye Corp), Anders Hall (Wonderworks Media), Adrian Cotterill (TLS MODERATOR, DailyDOOH Editor-in-Chief), Mike Fisher (Market Analyst, Futuresource Consulting), Falcon Tam (Klocktornet AB /DISE), Alex Hughes (Amigo co-founder), Andreas Soupliotis (CEO and Founder, Ayuda Media Systems), Andrew Neale, Technical Director IGCH Ltd, co-founder and co-owner of Kaleidovision Ltd, and President of the OpenSplash Association. and behind (shown on the screen), Bob Rushby (founder and President of Pixelized Light Inc.).

Bob was physically not present but managed to present, fantastically by the way, via video (as shown below)…

Attendees were also given a sneak peak at some of the goings on at Ayuda Labs, Ocean Labs and VUKUNET Labs, as well as behind the scenes look at JCDecaux’s plans for Europe’s largest indoor (outdoor too!) LED at London’s Waterloo station.

We’d like to thank Simon Jackson and all at NEC Display Solutions for helping us to put on the day, Kurt Bowen and his team from White Space Productions Ltd, all the speakers who worked very hard (and had to put up with me, critiquing every aspect of their presentation … sorry!), ONELAN for supplying us with 150 4GB USB drives for attendees to walk away with all the presentations on the day, Christie for supplying all of our speakers with ‘goodie’ bags, including the Book of Shapes and of course all those who attended the summit.

Next up in our Thought Leadership Summit series is ‘Billboards Unplugged’ which will take place in New York City on Monday 21 October 2013, as part of #DpbMedia week.

Today sees the roll out of Amigo’s new brand identity including the launch of a new website. Over the past few months we have been doing some naval gazing and have re-designed our brand and associated collateral. The new identity sees us dropping the word ‘digital’ and simply retaining our name as ‘Amigo’.

The underlying principle of our company, developing the highest quality content for many different types of digital channels (billboards, events, media ribbons, YouTube, video walls) remains the same.

Our typeface is slightly softer, more approachable and we have introduced a coloured creative device which we can use when animating our logo which represents a speech mark – conversations that we have between our clients and ourselves. Essentially it is cleaner and less cluttered.

As is our new website – an online portfolio of work that can be easily updated and added to on a rolling basis – we are letting the work speak for itself.

We also have a presence on Behance, a social space for creative work and we have updated our Twitter account; @amigodigital – so, expect to see regular daily tweets from my creative team in London.

For further information contact Alex Hughes – alex@iamigo.co.uk – or take a look at our latest projects at www.iamigo.co.uk