DailyDOOH

Kinetic, WPP’s leading Out-of-Home agency, has announced that Alistair MacCallum will join the company as UK CEO at the end of August 2019.

He will be tasked with growing billings and revenue by leveraging the capabilities of digital screens, smartphones, data and programmatic to drive value for clients and bring them closer to the consumer’s decision to transact in-store or online while out of home. He will report into Marc-Antoine de Roys, Kinetic’s Global CEO and will work closely with both the GroupM UK teams and independent agencies to create solutions and products that best suits their clients’ needs.

He is currently UK Chief Executive at M/SIX, where he has been since January 2017. He brings with him a wealth of media agency experience, having previously held the role of Chief Executive at M2M.

Following its Annual General Meeting on May 21, 2019, the Outdoor Media Association (OMA), announced the official appointment of industry veteran Charles Parry-Okeden as the independent chairman of the OMA and MOVE.

Charles Parry-Okeden takes over from Steve O’Connor, Chief Executive Officer of JCDecaux who is stepping down as Chairman after a successful five-year tenure.

OMA and MOVE Chief Executive Officer, Charmaine Moldrich told us “It has been an absolute pleasure and privilege to work with Steve, who has led the industry in a period of unprecedented growth. Under his leadership, the industry has increased annual revenue from $602 million to $927 million. Steve has led a unified industry and worked on a variety of joint industry initiatives including plans to build a new audience metric, the OMA’s recent industry campaign LOOK UP, as well as the soon to be launched CORE, the industry automated briefing and proposal tool. The industry owes him a debt of gratitude”.

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We understand that Indian based Origins Advertising is implementing the Edge1 outdoor advertising software platform to automate the business operations of its growing number of OOH advertising media sites.

Lucknow based Origins Advertising is automate the business operations of its growing number of OOH media sites in Uttar Pradesh including static and digital sites.

Origins have built a reputation of being not just the biggest but the best full-service, comprehensive advertising solutions agency with a strong foothold and successful projects across the domains of digital, print, indoor and outdoor advertising, events, radio, and other services.

Today, the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) and advertising agency M/H VCCP have launched Runaway Train 25, a cross-industry initiative to reinvent the search for missing children in the U.S. As part of the initiative more than 450 digital billboards and transit screens will support the campaign ahead of National Missing Children’s Day on Saturday May 25, 2019.

NCMEC President and CEO John Clark told us “Last year NCMEC assisted with over 25,000 cases of missing children, the vast majority were runaways,” said . “Thanks to the outdoor advertising community and all of our amazing partners, this highly targeted campaign gives us visibility in transit locations across the U.S. Campaigns like this can play a vital part in the search and the ability to run multiple cases that are geo-targeted across more than 40 states will be a true game changer.”

Organized by the Out of Home Advertising Association of America (OAAA), and produced by Grand Visual, the campaign aims to harness the public’s help to join the search by publishing the names and photos of missing children and raising awareness of the number to call for sightings; 1-800-THE-LOST. The digital OOH activation spans 14 media vendors and runs across rail, roadside, and high street locations in over 40 U.S states, including major cities NYC, Chicago, Boston, Atlanta, and Philadelphia.

OAAA President and CEO Nancy Fletcher said “We know that it only takes one person to find a missing child. This powerful campaign is a great example of OOH, online, and social media working together to ensure photos of missing children are distributed as widely as possible. It’s about driving awareness and spurring action; everyone has the ability to make a difference in their communities.”

The campaign is delivered through OpenLoop, the dynamic creative optimization server from QDOT. OpenLoop takes the data feed from NCMEC and publishes each missing child case in a geo-targeted push to digital billboards in and around the region the child went missing. “It’s about using clever ad tech to reach a broadcast level audience, whilst delivering tactical and relevant information at a community level,” said Grand Visual’s COO, Ben Putland.

The digital billboards also promote Runaway Train 25, a new music video, released today, as part of the broader initiative, which reinterprets the 1990’s award-winning Soul Asylum song “Runaway Train” with musical artists Jaime N Commons and Skylar Gray feat. Gallant. Directed by RSA Films’ Emmy award winner Jake Scott, the music video uses geo-targeting technology to change the missing children featured based on where the video is viewed.

Both the DOOH creative and the music video encourage people to visit runawaytrain25.com and share the video across their social channels to help publicize #MissingKids and #RunAwayTrain25 through their personal networks.

JCDecaux was recognized with the Ad Council’s Catalyst Award this week at #OOH2019. Each year, this award is presented to one out of home advertising company for its extraordinary contribution to the Ad Council’s public service communications programs.

The Ad Council, a national non-profit organization, uses the power of communications to tackle the nation’s toughest issues. and is the creator of national campaigns including Smokey Bear and ‘Love Has No Labels’. Through partnerships with non-profit organizations, federal government agencies, and leading brands, the Ad Council works to drive change on public issues through innovative and integrated campaigns. All Ad Council public service advertisements (PSAs) are run and aired in donated time and space.

The OOH advertising industry ranked among the Ad Council’s top supporters of providing pro bono space in 2018, donating more than $200 million for Ad Council campaigns.

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Screenfeed is looking to hire a European Business Development Director to help them serve their European customers. More details can be found here.

Real estate investment firms L&L Holding Company, Fortress Investment Group and Maefield Development, alongside consultant Sensory Interactive, have selected SNA Displays to manufacture and install a massive LED MEGA-SPECTACULAR display system at TSX Broadway in New York City.

TSX Broadway is a 46-story mixed-use development located at 1568 Broadway and sits directly across from the iconic Red Steps in the heart of New York’s Times Square. The tower will include 669 hotel rooms, 75,000 square feet of retail space, and 30,000 square feet of dining, including a 10,000-square-foot outdoor terrace, the largest in Times Square.

The building will feature a 9-story main screen that will wrap around the skyscraper at the southeast corner of 7th Avenue and 47th Street. The MEGA-SPECTACULAR™ display system will feature a 4,000-square-foot stage suspended 30 feet over 47th Street, allowing entertainers to perform from ‘within’ the video wall. It is the first and only outdoor stage in Times Square.

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The 8K Display Summit will take place June 11, 2019 at the Millennium Times Square, New York City.

Insight Media’s Chris Chinnock told us “The 8K era has started with 8K broadcasting already underway in Japan. It is still early days for 8K and not all are convinced of the advantages of 8K or that it is inevitable. To discuss these and other issues, Insight Media is organizing a one-day event to focus on the benefits and challenges of adopting 8K.”

Topics to be covered in the event include:

• The status of the 8K ecosystem today
• The forecasts for 8K in the future
• The efforts of the 8K Association
• The drivers for 8K content creation
• The issues with 8K content production and delivery
• The technology trends in 8K TVs
• The performance of 8K TVs
• Dispelling myths around 8K

The event is intended for technical personnel, business development, senior executives and technical media with an interest in any or all aspects of the emerging 8K ecosystem.

To register click here.

They’ve have had six funding rounds raising USD 5.1 Million over the past few years and next week, Pavegen will announce that they’ve secured institutional investment from Tamar Capital and the Hinduja Group (with 2018 revenues of USD 50bn, the Hinduja Group has expertise across energy, urban infrastructure and technology in India and the rest of Asia) yet still they are emailing friends and family asking them to take part in another equity crowdfunding campaign.

Laurence Kembal-Cook, CEO and Founder, Pavegen Systems Ltd said in the email “I’d like to invite you to join us on this vital next step in the journey. Click .. for a private link to our Crowdcube investment page where you can find our [sic] more and invest before the pitch goes public”.

Having first seen the company a few years ago when judging the Ocean Outdoor creative competition (a proposal never actually created to power a digital billboard using human energy and Pavegen technology to promote the Toyota Hybrid) we like the business idea and have written often (they featured in two double page spreads in our London and New York Digital Signage Week Newspapers) about Pavegen’s people-powered technology, which basically generates energy and data from footsteps.

However, these folks have a high burn rate and hardly any revenue. Laurence himself admits that the company has a small team and that cashflow has been extremely tight, often waiting for up to six months for payment from clients and that he “often doesn’t take a pay check as they have no funds”.

We have to say that this latest crowdfunding campaign all seems a little suspect, if not downright desperate – especially if proper institutional investors are coming on board in the next week or so.

ZetaDisplay has just published its interim report January-March 2019 which doesn’t say very much new that we haven’t published previously on our blog.

It was described as a “quarter with strong organic growth”. Net sales increased by 43% to SEK 93.3 (65.0) million, EBITDA amounted to 8.1 (6.9) million and Operating profit was 1.9 (2.5) million

During the quarter, Finnish Viral Oy Ab increased its shareholding in the company and is now ZetaDisplay’s largest shareholder which (cynics would say is why Leif Liljebrunn, current President and CEO until they find a new one is stepping aside to become Vice President Mergers & Acquisitions) and in order to part-finance the repayment of the company’s preference shares, the Board of Directors, on the basis of the authorization received at the annual general meeting on 21 May 2018, has decided on a rights issue of 1 600 000 new ordinary shares at a subscription price of SEK 19 per ordinary share. This means that the company has added funds SEK 30.4 million before issue costs.

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