Just Out-of-Home

Is your Digital Signage Out-of-Home Ad Network Getting Ignored?

You finally made contact with the CTOs, CEO, and COOs at the franchise. You prepared your pitch for weeks and convince them of the potentials that an Digital Out-of-Home Network can offer. The franchise finally (and thankfully) signs on with your plan. You do the pre-installation site surveys. Audio or No audio? You align all the asset / equipment and companies that are needed to develop a DOOH network. You put your project manager hat on and start building out the network and media assets. You test; you troubleshoot, then repeat again. Test locations seem to work OK now, so here comes the rapid deployment of the entire network. After countless hours of planning, communicating, and installing; you have Finally built the foundation of a Digital Signage Network! You now work on the sales process so you can get brands to buy into the network, including getting research and data, developing and implementing media planning / proof of delivery tools, sales collateral, sales training, and connecting / selling with feverish excitement. This is just the dawn of an advertising Digital Signage Network, and indeed; it is a LOT of work with many individuals, companies,  and decision involved. But it was all worth it becausee now you have a network with thousands of locations nationwide, which certainly guarantees millions of impressions a month, especially because third party research has found out that media asset placement, dwell time and foot traffic all resulted as favorable. The result are exactly what you, and more imporantly, what the brands and agencies wanted to hear. You went over the budget a bit, but it’s okay because you have a great network in place now. That was a tough and stressful couple of months, but it was all worth it, and the work is now Done!… OR IS IT?

As some of you out there know, I seen this process in real life several times over. And from what I’ve seen with many of the DOOH networks is that critical importance of Quality of Conent and Scheduling seems to take a backseat to the processes and priorities in the 1st paragraph. Is there usually a REAL budget set aside just dedicated to making quality and engaging content? Many may claim so, but honestly ask this question… Setting up a DOOH network is quite expensive and there is no way around this, but all the locations and screen in the world won’t matter if you are not able to capture the attention of the consumers that you are suppose to be target, and this is where the art and science of marketing / advertising comes in. Between the blogs and tweeter conversations I have followed; I have heard many things. “Repurposing TV ad creatives for DOOH networks,” “you have 7 seconds to engage the consumer from a DOOH screen,” “quality of content is still lacking,” so on and so on. This is the “beating of a dead horse” as many experienced professionals in the Out-of-Home and Digital Out-of-Home spaces have raise the importance of quality content over and over again, but the message still does not seem to get through in numerous cases. Some solution seems to be increasing interactivity, integration of mobile & printed point of purchase materials, making creatives more concise, which all seem to result in more effective campaigns. Yet many still seem to be satisfied with the simplest options of  strategizing, planning, and programming; a 24 hour loop with repurposed spot here and there, then call it a “campaign”… What should be emphasized; at least on the ad side of the biz, and one of the prevailing theme of justoutofhome.com is the importance of “Integration;” meaning All creatives, including medias outside the OOH /DOOH space, ALL working together to communicate an effective message to the targeted demographic(s). In order to reach this effectiveness on the OOH / DOOH / Ad spaces, there are No other option than to 1) develop quality content and programming, so consumers will actually watch with interest, and 2) improved development of ad creatives that are solely targeted for these spaces. A simple example: “A text this number to win such and such” message on the screens and POP materials, in conjuction with a Mobile / Online /Social campaign setups is likely to engange the consumers more effectively compared to the 30 second spot or a “freeze framed” poster of the spot that the consumers see on the TVs at their home. Repurposing is, simply put, boring, lacks creativity and engagement. 

On the network provider side, the simple question is: would you watch a TV channel that is playing the same shows, content, and ads over and over when you get home from work? The answer is like to be “No.” So why are so many networks running their content in this way, when they would never watch such a channel at their own homes? Are network and their content / scheduling established to engage the consumers, or just something for them to kill some time while they are waiting to pay? To gain eveb more insights; just talk to some of the employees at stores with DOOH networks; especially ones with audio. Many will tell you that the repeatitive programming is distracting, and in some cases, drives them absolutely Mad! Beating the same content over and over again into their heads is a sure way to drive someone “postal,” and also a sure way to get your DOOH / OOH network and ads ignored.

Quality of content and programming seems to be something that the industry(ies) as a whole still needs to improve on and pay attention to more. As companies / production houses that are solely dedicated and focused on these issues crop up more, the issue of  ”qualtity” will be less so, and I do see this coming soon. But as a “whole” are we there yet, or even close? I look forward to some thoughts. With the Digital Signage Expo coming up at the end of this month, maybe the companies that are focusing on develpoing quality content need to be paid attention to a bit more than the previous years.

Now this “dead horse” is dust!

February 19, 2009 at 5:58 pm 2 comments