I’ll maintain this blog for a little while and maybe even do some dual posting but from here on in, you should repoint your browsers to:

http://www.robgorrie.com/ 

For direct feeds for those with readers, if you can update to

http://www.robgorrie.com/feed/

Or for those with FeedBurner:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/robgorrie/feed

Hopefully I’ll be adding a few new toys and features but I’ve outgrown the basic toys on WordPress.com, so the move was necessary.

Cheers All!  And to all those Canadian readers, Happy Thanksgiving!

Rob

http://www.robgorrie.com/2007/09/28/in-store-spending-trumps-internet-advertising-in-growth/

Please update your bookmarks

Please see: http://www.robgorrie.com/2007/09/25/air-canada-the-2d-bar-code/ and update your bookmarks

http://www.robgorrie.com/2007/09/24/ooh-ad-spends-up-due-to-digital-signage/

Please update your bookmarks

Please see http://www.robgorrie.com/2007/09/19/the-path-to-digital-signage-success/

and update your bookmarks.

That’s like saying the TV medium failed an ad campaign because household TVs, on average, aren’t big enough…

Digital Signage is such a complex medium to fully understand and perfect with so many moving pieces that a true disection of what makes for the “best” Digital Signage implementation for optimal advertising use is really a 3 million dollar Accenture report waiting to happen.  As an example; the TV business doesn’t have to contend with the idea of “Screen Positioning” in the matrix of whether or not Content or Advertising reached its audience effectively.  If the TV business was held to the standards that we are, Nielsen ratings and Media Buyers would have to take into account how big a TV was, which corner of the house it was in and what size of house it was in order to prove their worth as an effective medium and understand the likelihood of where in the house a consumer may have been exactly when that ad played. 

Sounds a little silly but I’m exagerating arguments against Digital Signage that I’ve heard in my travels.

I’ll admit that Digital Signage is still immature and has a ways to go to fully be able to support every single advertiser in every single campaign but if you’re going to take a swing at the industry, do it in segments:

1. The medium (this involves the broad spectrum of the existence of Digital Signage and includes “where are my screens and how are they positioned”)
2. The Content/Creative – How good, engaging and how relevant is what’s on the screen to the audience that’s in front of them
3. The Advertising – How good is your advertising and how effective is it on the medium? (here we go back to the idea that you can’t repurpose TV content for this medium)

I’ve gone off on this a bunch of times in the past and you can find many arguments on this blog to support my attitudes.

So it was nice to see a respected duo out of New York actually take a swing at the magazine and newspaper industry in a similar argument to those that I use.  This one specifically analyzing the fact that, while Magazine & Newspaper sales may be on the decline, it may not be the fault of the MEDIUM or the CONTENT/CREATIVE as much as it is the fault of the ADVERTISING.

Remember that the ad business is in flux right now and that dollars are shifting everywhere where they didn’t used to be but as Suzanne Grayson says in the article:

“Their (Agency) print advertising isn’t pulling (grabbing attention or producing the old ROI), so they’re shooting the messenger [media] rather than aiming the gun at their own ads,” said Ms. Grayson, partner with her husband in the consulting firm Grayson Associates.

Couldn’t have said it better myself.

Grayson does 31 point “analysis” and scoring on Print creative ads.  I like the concept and also liked some of what they had to say about a J&J ad:

One for Johnson & Johnson’s Neutrogena Helioplex Suncare products gained a high score with an ad using more than 300 words, two charts, seven product shots and at least five direct or indirect comparative-superiority claims.

This really goes against that old “Product, Logo, Tagline, Value” drivvle you see out there a lot. 

Another great comment, and I have to say this is very typical of Digital Signage ads out there:

the Graysons say they’ve found a host of bland, look-alike ads without much selling power — a problem also common in the beauty industry, with which they’re more familiar. “The automotive category has one ad after another showing back views of cars going through mountains,” Mr. Grayson said. “If you took the logos away, you wouldn’t know what car it is.”

We always have to remember that Digital Signage is as much a below the line (sellling) medium as it is above the line (advertising/branding/educating).  It requires a different approach with new creative aptitudes.

 So stop with the templates, spinning product shot with price or lame pseudo promotion with no value or call to action for the consumer and let’s get our head wrapped around how to speak to our audience properly for a change.

But whatever you do, don’t just blindly blame the medium itself for problems and misunderstandings that exist on levels the Digital Signage industry can’t do anything about by simply “existing”.

digital-signage

Dwell time, Schmell Time! 

Unlike the Nielsen studies on various networks (who shall remain nameless) that have come out recently extolling the idea that consumers sit around for countless hours mindlessly watching that oh-so-engaging Digital Signage content that’s out there, some less partisan studies I’ve been privy to actually support the idea that SOME viewership habits on Digital Signage are more in line with a “glance medium” wherein 3-15 seconds is the most you’ll really get a consumer to be attracted to a display.  Obviously this depends on the dwell time of the venue.

My view is that these times will go up as the content becomes more valid/relevant to the viewers but until the myriad of qualitative and quantitative studies on “What Content Works” get done, there’s a lot of guessing going on.  In addition, until we learn to Entertain as much as we Inform, we’ll be hard pressed to really understand some of the significance of the numbers.

However, Having Elements of a Glance Medium are not a Bad Thing! (If it’s all true – which hasn’t been definitively proven )

I’ve had some great little conversations with Steve Yetsko at Video Mining recently about the idea behind this and some of what they have revealed through their technology paired with the principles behind thought processes/theories like Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking (Good book…oldie but a goldie from the same guy that wrote The Tipping Point.)

Video Mining can do eye-level tracking of audience behavior in front of a display (yes, they can track your eyes).

The principles behind Blink are basically, everyone makes decisions on products, dangers, services & innovation, etc. in 2 seconds. (Amazon link here)

Interesting little post over at mySA.com

(San Antonio News)

…on a new format of advertising they’re using from Clear Channel (and liking) on Fox Radio.  Basically, the spots are 2 second renditions to catch the attention of viewers.  As it states in the article, not everyone thinks they’re a good thing or even relevant, given how much you have to communicate in a commercial/ad.

I do, however think that “Adlets” could be a very relevant “addition” to many Networks out there as an ad format if used properly. 

A good friend and advisor of mine is the ex-CEO of a major ad company and he’s getting a kick out of watching the Digital Signage business grow and adapt (as well as Media Agencies grow and learn).  His major source of mirth is in comparing this medium to the “original” OOH business when it came about 30+ years ago.

According to my friend, Media Buyers and Brands scoffed at the idea of using Outdoor Advertising, literally commenting “Why would anyone want to advertise if it wasn’t in the home?”  What the smart marketers eventually learned is that OOH was a great “follow on” medium, meaning it was a fantastic method to support the larger campaigns executed in TV and Radio Land and increasing the frequency of exposure across a campaign to get more impact.  The early adopters got some great lift and punch/jump on their competitors.

Digital Signage IS a great follow on medium, even though it has some great tenants as a principle medium as well.  If you read the article , Dennis McGuire, a media buyer for Carat, even reinforces this:

Still, McGuire said the spots, which sell for about ¼ the cost of a more traditional 60-second ad, are a good buy for advertisers looking to reinforce TV, print and existing radio messages.

“The whole idea is to use them to plant an idea in the head,” he said. 

  I think there’s a great 2-tier ad model inside Digital Signage in implementing various strategies, depending on the nature of the campaign at hand and buyer needs.

I’d actually love to work with some brands and some of the networks I work with to test this type of thing out!

Regardless, if we have elements of a glance medium through the various studies that have been done, then maybe a “Blink” approach should be tied into our outbound audience marketing.

Please see: http://www.robgorrie.com/2007/08/24/digital-graffiti-on-digital-signage/

and update your bookmarks

And buyers and brands say Digital Signage has problems? Try traditional OOH!

What you’re looking at above is a Viacom outdoor sign that’s near my house.  It’s a series of pictures I had to take while I was out for a dinner with a friend because I was blown away that

A.) A company would have the audacity to actually rent the side of a building for ad space that could only be seen by someone whose neck was permanently rotated right 45 degrees and up 45 degrees.
B.) That a Brand would feel comfortable paying for an OOH space that only 10% of passers-by would notice

The pictures don’t do it as much justice as the in person view but, basically, this is an ad space that shouldn’t even exist. There is no way that automotive or walking consumer traffic would ever notice this sign.  You have, be it in a car or walking, maybe 1 second to actually take the time and look upwards and to the right to even maybe be able to register what the billboard is advertising.  I can only hope/pray that they got this one for a dollar.

This particular billboard was advertising Beer selection at the LCBO (Liquor Control Board of Ontario) which is actually the single largest purchaser of alcohol in the world (…and yes…I live in Ontario Funny that…).  The LCBO spends an enormous amount advertising.

As Digital Signage is a new’ish medium, you’ve got to expect some trials and tribulations along the way.  Awful implementations, bad location decisions, abused signs, etc.  It’s part of the learning process.  As Dave Haynes pointed out back in February, those of us who are proud of our industry hate seeing things like this:

Duct tape screens, all broken, etc.  I’ve taken a poke or two at Esso for the same type of thing (Dead screens, etc). We, as an industry, had better be pretty damn cognizant that by allowing the type of thing above to be implemented or exist, we’re only hurting ourselves.

…But “Outdoor”, as a medium, is over 30 years old as a media option for buyers.  You’d think that, instead of just finding any wall in a back alley that no one can see and throwing up a poster, the OOH industry would frown upon this practice and self-manage/self-discipline.  Apparently no such luck.  We’ve all seen instances of strangely placed OOH signage and it continues to persist.

Case in point:

I’m about 30-40 feet from the sign at this point, standing on the road

 
…and here at 10 feet.  There’s a building just to the right of this camera shot, blocking the sign

Not much time in that span to get much of a look/impression from the ad!

A bit of a call to action for those in the business of operating Networks.  We have a responsibility to those who buy media from us to ensure that the locations they’re buying and advertising on are actually suitable and demonstrably impactful on consumers – and realistically, it’s all about common sense.  The more we allow bad Digital Signage implementations to exist, the less credibility we have with media buyers and the more of a reason we give them to say “no” to buying our space.

Funny enough, apparently the LCBO didn’t think it was media worth paying for either because the billboard was only up for a week….

Details:

When:  Thursday August 30th, 2007
Where: Alice Fazooli’s Downtown Toronto (Adelaide and John)
Time: 6pm till whenever…

For those who haven’t been/are unaware, these mixers are tres informal and really just a “meeting of the minds” type of “get to know your Digital Signage Industry Players” type of thing…always fun. 

Hope to see you there!

Rob