The Digital Signage Expert

One day before the official begin of ISE, Amsterdam was a host to the DOOH Conference, in organization of OVAB Europe & invidis. Excellent introductory material, with outstanding line-up of speakers.

Our readers had today the unique opportunity to read the LIVE updates from the Amsterdam. The author of real-time reporting from RAI Centre’s Day 1 was Ronni Guggenheim, CEO Minicom Digital Signage.

Enjoy the reading, and follow with us the Day 2!

Introductory lines by Oliver Schwede, from invidis.de

• OVAB Europe/invidis DooH conference started. Opening speech by Oliver Schwede (invidis).Explaining DBCI index.DBCI reflects 93% of Europe GDP
• DBCI-industry i largely positive&optimistic.Future of DBCI: breakdown by categories such as agencies,HW,SW,etc.
• Oliver Schwede call for more support for DBCI. register under http://bit.ly/d7GyRS to participate in the quarterly index question

Dirk Hülsermann, President OVAB Europe

• Dirk Hülsermann, President OVAB Europe .Following success of Munich conference DooH at ISE is a logical step.
• Industry underwent major consolidation in 2009.Less investments in new networks,network will grow again in 2010,subject to funding
• major network owners disappeared: Titan, VMG, ADG, Adwalker. On other hand major takeovers leading to breakthroughs.
• global ad spend for dooh projected 10.65B USD by 2012 – DooH is the fastest growing segment in advertising
• Technology challenges:mobile integration. DooH and mobile will drive the business model. Interactivity! Engage!
• 1,31 mobile phones.80% of handsets with internet access.
• challenges: fragmented industry,aggregators not taking off yet,metrics not yet defined.
• Dirk: we, the industry have to do our homework. #OVAB Europe is the right vehicle. Join us!
• #OVAB Europe NEW members: CANMedia, Never.no and Bluefox!!
• Dirk Hülsermann: if you wanna go quickly go alone, if you wanna go far – go together!

Brian Dusho, President OVAB US

• next up: Brian Dusho, President Broadsign. lots of faces he never saw before.good indication. DooH is growing!
• DS audience size comparable to TV.DooH no longer experimental.Campagns create measurable sales uplifts.
• Dusho: best practices are evolving into standards.BUT why are we still fighting for the revenue?will talk about obstacles.
• Dusho:missing standards have been excuse.they are slowing, but are not the real reason.it starts with the name of industry
• Dusho: Dooh is considered subcategory of “outdoor”. Outdoor is 6.2% of overall spend.Online is 10%.
• Dusho: people in DooH avoid expression “digital signage”.However, it is by far more populare in Google as search phrase
• Dusho: I am not promoting word “Digital Signage” but call for the industry to find a unified name
• Value Chain: Consumers-Brands-Agencies -> Execution via mainstream media, large/small DS networks.Aggregators solve the problem
• Visionn: DooH as part of marketing mix. It is happening already TODAY!
• Dusho: Proof of play with automatic invoice adjusting is critical
• Aggregators:small networks are not yet in the pool.challenges of varying formats,file structures,standards.
• Dusho: Aggregators must get to fully automated processes, resulting in SCALABLE REPEATABLE WORKFLOW
• Dusho:technology providers need to get together to develop open standards and APIs.AND:we need to agree on ONE NAME of industry
• Question to Dusho:is industry in the US putting heads together to create open standards?answer Dusho:process started
• Question: who was the biggest ever ad buyer in DooH? Dusho:a large US DooH network asked for a 1MUSD buy, but it never happened
• Conclusion re Dusho:controversial but healthy kick off of the industry name discussion. DooH vs. Digital Signage. Needs followup
• advancing the schedule. coffee break.

Rik van Bekk, Narcomm

• coffee break over.next Rik van Bekk of Narcomm about ” LEDvertising”
• Vision: the sky is the limit. Imagine a huge LED screen on top of the new Burj building in Dubai well….
• NarComm: Reach of target groups: DooH double than print. 30% higher viewing time
• NarComm: no cost to instantly changing content in DooH. not sure about this. But for sure less cost than changing a billboard.
• NarComm: adapt the content to the time of day. Keep message short and simple.
• NarComm expansion to 30 LEDs in DE, 10 in CH, 10 in AT.
• question from audience:concerns about regulatory limitations as in the US?NarComm:differentiate between highway and city centre

Valery Rochard, Mediametrie

• next up: Mediametrie – cooperating with Quividi for audience demographic analysis.clients include Post,Citroen,Equida
• Screen positioning: showing how NOT to do. positioning should be scientifically analyzed and adapted to traffic flow
• Playlist: over 90sec too long.audience measuring helps to optimize content and screen zoning.
• Mediametrie: for DooH measurement solution needs to be adapted to each individual network. sounds challenging
• Mediametrie: still a lot of manual interception involved in audience measuring.
• Mediametrie: case study of Equidia(horse racing): crossing measurement stats with ticket&customer data and manual counting
• Mediametrie:following #OVAB guidelines!!
• Mediametrie: DooH not organized for major media agencies – this is a warning finger
• Mediametrie: technology moving fast and creative agencies start to adapt and adopt
• audience question:do you think the display is not key in communicating with consumer?answer:maybe touchscreen is right solution
• audience question:problems with privacy issues in audience measuring?gender etc.should not be used instantly to trigger action
• audience question:cost/site to do measuring? less than 500Eur per device.Obviously SW license fee and audience meas.services
• Back to Dusho’s name discussion:we have already heard at least 10 different names for the Digital Signage/DooH market!!!
• applause for Mediametrie. another break. we are advancing the schedule once again.

Gabriel Faflei, Monopoly media

• Conference continues with Gabriel Faflei of Monopoly media in Romania, the biggest (and only?) network in Romania
• Romania: TV 66% of ads, DooH only 1,5%, total 350MUSD ad-spend.Internet growing slowly.
• Romania: advertising is considered disruption,not welcomed.DooH as creative way to work around consumers’ resistance to ads
• Romania: problem-ads still shaped like TV commercials.Pushing advertisers to short to 10secs of branded content
• Faflei: DooH is all about PROXIMITY to consumer.INTERACTIVITY (sms) becomes crucial.
• Faflei: Vision to become main neighborhood news source (personal mass media).Interesting approach in the context of proximity.
• Faflei: contextual advertising – they call it “zoogle”, combination of Zoom (their network) and Google
• ZOOGLE could be the new name for industry! Out for vote.

Etienne Reignoux, Neo Media Group

• next presentation by Etienne Reignoux Neo Media Group about Aggregation in DooH.
• Neo differentiating Out of Home, POS Promo, Digital Signage in their networks. Interesting and meaningful!
• Neo/BookingDooH: we were afraid of competing with traditional media agencies.No doubts he knows why.
• BookingDooH today: 23 countries,53 partners,143000 screens.Webbased aggregation platform.Demand for local white label platform.
• Etienne/Neo:Very interesting analysis of the ad market, dynamic and behaviour from an agency perspective.
• Etienne: without trust, no aggregation. Technology players must integrate top-down. This is why OVAB has very important role.
• key requirement is the number of assets in the network (inventory) – BookingDooH has one of the largest aggregated offering.
• audience question:must be hard for BookingDooH as part of Neo to be independent.Etienne:yes,it is a limitation.
• this last presentation was an eye-opener and just shows that more integration of industry&media needs to be pushed.

Eric Penot, JCDecaux

• Next: Eric Penot of JC Decaux. apologizing for too many Frenchmen. I can get used to the sweet accent
• Penot: DooH – an evolution, not a revolution. JCD is #1 in transport and street furniture (OOH)
• Penot:in 2008 for first time 51% of population live in urban areas.City citizens spend 17% of time out of home.prime target
• Penot: targeting HYPERMOBILES individuals.JCD’s client: Brand&City
• Penot: again, emphasizing how important interactivity is. engage consumer.
• Penot:migrated 10 billboards in London to digital and tripled the revenue even in current economy!!
• Penot: when we are not in control of content, the results are not good.
• Penot: silence in audience while enjoying the content shown at JFK terminal 8 (using C-Nario SW I believe). This is a WOW.
• Penot: 32m2 LED screen in Dubai airport is the highest revenue cashcow worldwide
• Penot: Avg. revenue per display is x3 compared to standard lightbox.Not enough yet, TCO must go down.
• Penot’s presentation once more underlines that media and industry need to move closer: reduce CAPEX, OPEX, TCO

Tom Goddard, Executive Chairman DigiCom

• next up: Tom Goddard Exec.Chairman of DigiCom – networking the digital outdoor audience
• Tom:DooH is gaining market share, hence dont make any efforts changing the name – it may kill momentum.In UK 8.3%of OHH is DooH
• Tom: TCO is decreasing dramatically. 2001 4000GPB,2010 500GBP. Not sure this is TOTAL-CO…
• Goddard: Big 3 networks represent 67% of revenues with only 15% of all screens!!
• Goddard:we created our own audience measurement standards
• Goddard:we only earn on sales we generate and are totally independent (remember the question to Etienne/BookingDooH?)
• Goddard: Digicom plans to be #3 after CDS and JCD in the UK
• Goddard: offering advisory service to networks,for example network scorecard, vertical dashboards, etc.

Erol Vekil, GestureTek

• Next Up Erol Vekil of GestureTek.Interactivity adds ROI.Nice to see a technology company up after all the ad-related ppt’s
• GestureTek: next generation of interactivity is with 3D Depth Tracking, allowing gesture interaction from distance

Don Shaw, Christie Digital Systems

• Next: Don Shaw of Christie Digital: Size matters, but….
• Shaw: now we get real technical. will talk about pixels, color gamut (?) etc. From DailyDooH: Shape is the new king!
• Shaw: people will notice displays that look different.Attention:very expensive special post production content required
• Shaw: advising to ignore brightness and contrast specs provided by screen vendors. they are rubbish and driven by consumer mkt
• Shaw:Beware of bathtub cureve – technology fails normally around installation and after extended life time. inbetween reliable.