Amid the gloom-and-doom economic news pouring on us daily from all the front- and home pages, it is reassuring to see that the leaders of digital out-of-home media are staying the course.
The OVAB Digital Media Summit will take place in NYC as planned, on October 29, and is widely anticipated to be an unprecedented, watershed event that will lay the groundwork for bridging the gap between the Madison Avenue establishment and DOOH advertising networks in the US. (more…)
October 6th, 2008
Brian Dusho
The Audience Metrics Guidelines that the Out-of-home Video Advertising Bureau (OVAB) has been working on for the past year are now ratified and will be presented at the OVAB’s Digital Summit on October 29 in New York. The event will bring together major players on Madison Avenue with members of OVAB, which today include some of the largest digital out-of-home networks and vendors in North America.
Although I was involved in the reviewing of the Guidelines and provided some input as well, I cannot disclose any details of the document until the official presentation. Essentially it is a set of principles long-used in mainstream media buying that are applied to standardize the DOOH ad space and make it easy to plan and buy. The result is a simple formula to calculate the audience metrics in a way that would make sense to media buyers and their clients. The ultimate goal of OVAB is to turn DOOH from an alternative media option, an innovation, into a commodity, i.e., a line item on the media plan, with appropriate budgets allocated ahead of time, and not as an afterthought.
As Suzanne Alecia, President of OVAB, explained, the Guidelines are not the actual standards yet, but once adopted by members, they will lay the foundation for ‘best practices’, which will then gradually evolve into standards by way of wide-spread usage by the selling and the buying parties. (more…)
September 30th, 2008
Nurlan Urazbaev
“Madison Avenue is bracing for the worst ad slump since 2001 as a drop-off in consumer spending is likely to lead marketers to rein in their budgets”, reports New York Post on September 21. “The anticipated drop in spending in 2009 comes on the heels of a slight decline in 2007 and a more noticeable dip so far in 2008, according to industry data,” writes New York Post’s Holly M. Sanders. Most major press relayed a similar sentiment in the wake of last week’s meltdown on Wall Street.
New York Times quoted the CEO of WPP: “In the last couple weeks, you could smell the fear in New York,” said Martin Sorrell, chief executive at the WPP Group, which owns agencies like Grey, JWT and Ogilvy & Mather, as “institutions that were regarded as invincible have gone down or had to be bailed out.””
The downturn in ad spending had started well before the “Black Sunday”: “… the Nielsen Monitor-Plus division of the Nielsen Company reported last week that ad spending in the first half of 2008 fell 1.4 percent compared with the same period a year ago. The laggards included ads in national magazines, down 3.1 percent; national newspapers, down 8.1 percent; and spot radio, down 10.1 percent,” says New York Times.
Reports forecast that traditional media is going to be the segment worst affected by the financial crisis, followed by online display advertising, which had already suffered a 6% drop in the first half of 2008, according to Nielsen. Display ads on the Internet have been largely dependent on financial and insurance advertisers. (more…)
September 23rd, 2008
Nurlan Urazbaev
NBC Universal and Google announced a strategic partnership that would give the largest search advertising company access to cable TV ad space inventory, Ad Age reports.
The move, if successful, could enable smaller marketers, who have been using Google’s paid search ad engine AdWords and who have not been able to afford TV ads before, to buy air time on a number of NBC’s cable outlets, bypassing traditional media sales channels.
According to Ad Age, when the system is in place, it would allow ‘non-traditional’ advertisers to upload their own content and target it to cable TV households based on the desired geographic markets and viewer profiles using an online interface, thus avoiding agency overhead and media buyer commissions.
In addition, these new advertisers would be able to receive high-tech metrics via Google TV Ads application, which can report second-by-second set-top-box data, says Ad Age: “That measure has become more popular as companies such as Starcom USA, TNS and Nielsen have offered plans to help advertisers get more precise data about how viewers watch TV, skip across channels, and use digital video recorders.” The network TV ad space will not be affected by the deal, Ad Age reports.
This collaboration could give NBC Universal a much needed edge against its “Big 4″ rivals amid continuing fragmentation of TV market, while providing Google with a revenue stream from traditional media. (more…)
September 14th, 2008
Nurlan Urazbaev
In recent years, many business owners have made a leap of faith and ventured into installing a digital signage network in their real estate. Many of them failed, some succeeded, some - succeeded big time. The prospect of boosting one’s business with digital signs is so enticing that digital signage suppliers are being overwhelmed with inquiries from small, medium and large-size enterprises. While the general idea is pretty simple - install screens, attract attention, promote-upsell-cross sell, the actual business models, content strategies and implementation tactics are still being tested by trial and error, causing a lot of entrepreneurs to sit on the fence until clear cut recipes for success are easily available.
Ken Borusso of Visual Incite published a very useful article in digitalsignagetoday.com on why should a business consider digital signage and how it is different from TV. (more…)
September 11th, 2008
Nurlan Urazbaev
Ad spending was down on most traditional media in the first quarter of this year, but Outdoor was performing “better than most other traditional media”, and even maintained positive growth, says OAAA’s weekly newsletter Outdoor Outlook, citng Robert Coen’s July 2008 report on advertising expenditures. (OAAA is Outdoor Advertising Association of America, Inc. - NU).
First Quarter 2008
National Medium Percent Change
Outdoor. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.0
Network TV. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Flat
Magazines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .-1.5
Spot TV. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . -3.0
Newspapers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . -9.5
Spot Radio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .-11.0
(Source: Outdoor Outlook)
“Among the hardest hit media forms is newspaper,” writes Outdoor Outlook. “Forbes recently reported daily newspaper circulation fell four percent in the first quarter of this year “and the slide is picking up speed.””
“The Audit Bureau of Circulation has released circulation figures on the nation’s top 20 newspapers, and the overall news isn’t good. Prominent newspapers with declining circulation include: The New York Times, down 3.9 percent (and Sunday is slipping even faster, by nine percent); Los Angeles Times, down 5.1 percent; The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, down 8.5 percent; The Dallas Morning News, down 10.6 percent; and The Washington Post off 2.6 percent. Second quarter results are not expected to be better,” reports Jeff Golimowski in Outdoor Outlook.
Despite the sharp rises in oil price, Out-of-home’s reach and frequency have remained “virtually unchanged” (more…)
September 1st, 2008
Nurlan Urazbaev
A new study released by Screen Digest predicts that, due to the revenues resulting from the continuing migration to digital technology, the out-of-home advertising sector will be the only traditional medium with positive growth in Western Europe in the next few years.
The preamble to the report says: “‘Digital signage’ networks of connected digital screens in public spaces (airports, stations, trains, supermarkets, hotels, surgeries, etc) are generating opportunities for traditional out-of-home contractors, digital specialists, technical enablers and system integrators, display manufacturers, venue owners and advertisers.” (Source: http://www.researchandmarkets.com).
The key findings of the report include:
– Digital out-of-home (DOOH) advertising revenues in Western Europe will quadruple over the next five years from 160m in 2007 to 626m by 2012. By 2012 DOOH share is expected to grow to approximately 10 per cent of total OOH ad revenues.
– Driven by the migration to digital and the incremental revenues generated from digital sites, the out-of-home sector will be the only traditional advertising media to post real revenue growth in the next five year.
– Thanks to the increasing affordability of digital displays, digital signage networks not only conquer brand new spaces for advertising (e.g. in-store point-of-sale advertising) but also upgrade static poster format sites in a growing number of locations (airports, stations, roadsides, etc.).
– Sales of displays and other hardware for digital signage generated revenues in the amount of approximately 4m in Western Europe in 2007.
– Lower maintenance costs and higher revenues, combined with reduced hardware costs, are making a profitable business case out of upgrading many existing to digital, as well as creating new sites intended to reach audiences on the move.
– The added value of digital OOH formats over traditional OOH formats (superior impact of moving image, creative and dynamic copy, booking flexibility and scalability, etc.) allows contractor to sell inventory at premium rates.
The report was produced in partnership with German research company Goldmedia and can be found here.
August 30th, 2008
Nurlan Urazbaev
Digital signage advertising “will be among the fastest growing ad-supported media over the next few years, and will begin to rival traditional outdoor advertising by 2012,” writes Joe Mandese of MediaPost in today’s Digital Outsider newsletter and blog. The author reviews the results of this week’s edition of VSS’ annual Communications Industry Forecast, published by Veronis Suhler Stevenson, and consultant PQ Media.
According to the updated report, “the “alternative” out-of-home media sector will grow at a compound annual rate of 22.5% through 2012, which is considerably faster than the overall growth of the U.S. advertising marketplace, and only a slight slowdown from the 24.6% annual rate of growth the medium experienced over the past five years.
Based on those projections, VSS estimates alternative out-of-home ad spending won’t be so alternative by 2012, when it will total nearly $6 billion, and account for nearly half (46.4%) of the entire out-of-home advertising marketplace. That compares with a tepid 3.8% rate of annual growth for traditional outdoor ad spending through 2012.”
… “While video ad networks remains the largest alternative OOH category, digital billboards and displays grew the fastest in 2007, due to the strong rollout of new at-road signs, primarily from Lamar and Clear Channel. Spending on digital billboards increased 59.7 percent in 2007 to $372.0 million,” writes the Digital Outsider, quoting the report. (more…)
August 8th, 2008
Nurlan Urazbaev
Trade media says metrics for digital signage that can be accepted by media buyers, are becoming a reality. Here is a brief overview of what the press has written on the subject in the past couple of months.
Nielsen is about to launch a new service that will provide monthly audience ratings for digital out-of-home networks in a format similar to that of TV ratings “pocketpieces” (booklets that you can fit into your pocket).
According to MediaWeek, “Nielsen has already issued its first report for Ideacast’s health club network. Sources confirmed other networks have also signed up for the service, among them Gas Station TV, Arena Media Networks and CBS Outernet.”
Katy Bachman, the author of the MediaWeek’s article, continues: “…standardized metrics could be a game changer for a medium advertisers find attractive but that lacks the metrics to give it a fair evaluation.”
“Measurement will bring some order to the whole medium,” said Jim Spaeth, president of Sequent Partners, a research consultancy hired by the Out-of-Home Video Advertising Bureau to write research standards to be released later this summer.
MediaWeek says Nielsen will issue reports free to agency clients, which it does with its cinema reports. For Ideacast, it takes the business to the next level. “Nielsen has a database of 30,000 planners and buyers, and they’re sending this to their entire database,” said Jason Brown, president, sales and marketing at Ideacast, which has already begun selling with the data. “Our business plan and internal projections are based [on these reports]. It’s now our currency.” (more…)
August 7th, 2008
Nurlan Urazbaev
“Digital billboards and digital signage networks in retail are driving the rapid expansion of outdoor/out-of-home advertising, rivaling the Internet as the fastest-growing advertising medium. What’s fueling this growth? The ability to reach elusive consumers while they are out of home — and especially while they are shopping. The ability to customize each message to audiences at any location and even at any area within a location is another unique value for marketers. That said, a number of challenges still prevent the digital out-of-home from joining the ranks of mainstream media.
While screens are the most visible component of digital signage, the critical part of any network is the software that powers it. One of the obstacles to faster growth has been the lack of software platforms that could accommodate the necessary functionality without being cost-prohibitive to network owners,” - this is an excerpt from a MediaPost’s article based on BroadSign’s white paper on digital signage software distribution models.
You can find the full version of the white paper here.
June 5th, 2008
Nurlan Urazbaev
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Brian has spent the last four years working with retailers, advertising/ media companies, and technology companies to develop successful business models in the digital signage industry and assisted in the formation of several of the industry trade organizations. He is an active member in 
Nurlan is director of marketing for BroadSign International. He has been with BroadSign since day one and brought along a lot of media expertise from his diverse career that ranged from a reporter to a radio executive, entrepreneur and owner of a media consulting company. He is a staunch proponent of standardization and ROI measurements for digital signage advertising.