Think about the possibilities behind that question.  Recently, I had a conversation with a friend of mine who is the CEO of a new mobile apps company and he said by their measurement there are roughly 5 billion active cell phones around the world today.  This number includes people in certain parts of the world, who cannot afford a laptop or desktop computer, yet they still have a cell phone.

Undoubtedly, many (Android, iPhone, Blackberry — just to name a few) also realize this and are actively placing their bets on the notion of cell phones becoming the next face of the internet.

So what can the Digital Out-of-Home industry leverage from this knowledge?  In my opinion, it means we all must push for more interaction between DOOH screens and cell phones.  Should viewers be able to opt into what they see on the screen and simulcast the content to friends via social networking sites like Facebook or micro-blogging sites like Twitter?  Or perhaps viewers can send a SMS code to receive a coupon or take a snapshot of themselves and send it to the screens?

The exact combination that adds real clout to our industry remains to be seen.  But, one thing is certain. Everywhere I go, people love to brag about how great DOOH is because it is not like the old traditional forms of media like Print, Radio and TV, rather DOOH is more new age, like the web.

Well, if that is true, (and I believe it is) than we must keep up with where others are saying the web is headed and that is cell phones.

Do you believe cell phones are the missing link for the digital out-of-home industry? Why or why not?

-Matthew Olivieri

This week, I had the pleasure of speaking in Chicago at the 5th Annual Building Your Digital Signage Business Conference.  Having been in this industry for the last two years and attending several of these conferences, I definitely felt that this one delivered on what it promised — a well rounded mix of insight for all stakeholders of our industry.

Recap:

1) Attendance was not huge, but this was actually a plus in my opinion, as it made for a more intimate setting for Q&A and networking breaks were not overwhelming.

2) The Grand Ballroom of the Swissotel was a solid venue.  The staff was very prompt and I was pleasantly surprised by how good the food looked AND tasted.

3) The “Digital Signage Tour of Chicago” culminating the first night of the expo was Awesome!  We viewed digital signage in action at the ING Direct cafe and a local sports bar, which naturally evolved into a networking mixer to finish off the night.

4) Keith Kelsen did a great job moderating the entire conference. His cadence and demeanor kept things moving at good pace and the audience well engaged.

5) The weather in Chicago sucked; Windy and rainy as usual for this time of year.  Perhaps next year, SI can host this show in Hawaii?

TOP 3 Presentations (IMHO):

3) John Ross, President of IPG Emerging Media Lab.  “Engagement and Interaction: The Future of Advertising and the Brand Experience” John led an excellent keynote address to open up the conference, detailing digital signage’s place in the total brand experience.  Key metric taken away from his presentation: 78% of consumers trust peer recommendations when making their purchase decision vs. 14% who trust advertisements!

2) Kim Luegars, Director of Media Innovations, DraftFCB.  “Media Buyers and Planners Speak Out on Digital Out-of-Home” Kim was in on the same panel discussion as I, but she unequivocally stole the show with her “cut the crap and show me the sales increase” viewpoint on digital signage advertising.

and the number 1 presentation (drum roll please)…

1) Manolo Almagro, CTO Show & Tell Productions “User-Generated and Localized Content: Understanding the Factors for Success” The only thing I wish was that Manolo’s presentation had been one of the first on Day 1, when the most amount of people would’ve seen it.  FANTASTIC job highlighting the power behind Twitter, Facebook and other User Generated Content sites and what incorporating that into digital signage could mean from analytical and ad dollar standpoint.

Agencies complain there are no metrics for DOOH.  Real-Time FREE analytics already exists for YouTube, Twitter and more.  Blending the two makes the screens more interesting for viewers and delivers the hard numbers agencies want in order to justify the spend.

Kudos Manolo - It was well worth almost missing my flight back to the bay area!

-Matthew Olivieri

Castrol recently ran a very bold ad campaign in London.

In short, the ad played on several Clear Channel digital billboards in high traffic areas.  A camera mounted nearby would first take a snapshot of your license plate, and then electronically match it to the record held on file by the Driver & Vehicle Licensing Agency (The UK’s DMV). The billboard would then proceed to instantly update and display what type of Castrol motor oil was right for you as you drove by.

You can read the full story here.

Many who first read this story cried foul on the part of privacy. But, Rob Stroud, marketing manager at Castrol, insisted otherwise: “We’re confident that the campaign will not only excite and intrigue drivers, but serve its purpose in helping motorists to understand the “right oil, right car message.”

My hat goes off to Castrol for taking such a leap of faith in this direction.  (Undoubtedly, the viral press they are receiving is paying for the campaign 10 times over).

However, I can also sympathize with those who view this as scary and an invasion of privacy.  Once upon a time, I thought the same thing about contextual ads on my Facebook page.  “An ad for snowboarding gear that is for sale? But, how did they know I like snowboarding?” Of course, I soon realized it was because I stated snowboarding was a hobby of mine.  Now, I am use to it and rather look forward to being presented with offers based on my preferences.

The obvious difference being that I chose to volunteer certain information (snowboarding as a hobby) into public domain, and therefore was presented with an advertisement coinciding as such.  In this case, no one driving by these signs agreed to opt in and that is the key problem, in my opinion.

I am in favor of digital signage advertising being used in this or some other complementary form, so long as viewers reserve the right to ‘opt-in’ only the information they want to share.

That was not the case here.  Sadly, to add more fuel to the fire for consumer rights activists, the campaign was abruptly shut down just 4 days into its scheduled two week run, because access to the DVLA database was apparently never authorized.

How they were able to tap the database without proper clearance and who is responsible for the massive security breach is an entirely different topic altogether.

What do you think about the concept of personalized digital signage ad campaigns like this?

-Matthew Olivieri

As digital-out-of-home advertising grows at an exponential rate, we must sit back and analyze what we would consider a more favorable DOOH network.  One network that comes to mind is Gas Station TV.

Gas Station TV is one of many networks that does a great job captivating and entertaining their customers by incorporating outside content feed into their digital network. By allowing outside content such as news, sports and weather updates to mix in with ad content, I feel it will produce more favorable results for the advertiser.

One such advertiser that is keen on Gas TV is Toyota. For those that fill up at Arco, you can probably recall, at one time or another, the wonderful Toyota Prius ad. Why do we remember you ask? We remember because it was strategically mixed in the play cycle with streaming outside content. We are less likely to turn our heads away and ignore the ad because we are already engaged in the content playing.

As digital-out-of-home becomes more popular I am confident in making the strong assumption that you will see more advertisers taking advantage of this type of marketing space.

What venues do you feel are the most captivating and why?

-Mike Carlotta

Normal business hours menu:
 

Late night hours menu:

Last weekend, I visited a new eatery called, “Chacho’s.”  From the outside, Chacho’s looked like any other Mexican restaurant.  Once inside though, my eyes were drawn to four large high-definition digital screens that were being used to display the restaurant’s menu; even highlighting certain dishes with various flash animations.

Now for the coolest part - My friends and I happened to arrive pretty late (1am-ish) and before I could decide what to order, I watched the manager in charge instantly update the menus with a press of a remote (like clicking through the next slide of a PowerPoint presentation) to reflect their “late night menu,” which had substantially less items to choose from than their main business hours one.

Take a moment to think about the time and money saved, as well as the future earning potential behind this type of application.

Chacho’s can instantly decide to roll out a new menu item (or nix underperforming ones) grab your attention with special value meal offers displayed by the hour or even eventually provide consumer interaction where the menu can show the % of people who have bought each item for the day–IN REAL TIME!

My friends, this is just the beginning.  I believe every restaurant (Yes, that is correct, I mean Every single one) will eventually ditch their old static menu boards for digital signage version like Chacho’s.

We are already seeing a trend like this taking place at concession stands in movie theaters and sporting arenas.  The Chacho application merely provides us with another glance into our digital signage future.

Have you seen digital signage applications like this in any restaurants where you live?

-Matthew Olivieri

Not to make too big of deal of this, as I know it has nothing to do with digital signage, but a few weeks ago I wrote about the very cool ad campaign (in my opinion) used to promote Sony picture’s District-9.

I posed the question: Will this ad campaign translate into the record breaking opening weekend Sony is hoping for?  Well, the results are in and as you can see District-9 took in top honors for its opening weekend.

Not bad, but I have to think the bigwigs at Sony were probably hoping to at least match the success of G.I. Joe, which opened the previous weekend at $54.7M.

What do you think? Was the ad campaign not effective or is the total addressable sci-fi audience just not as big as Sony thought?

Perhaps Peter Jackson should stick with hobbits?

-Matthew Olivieri

Arbitron recently released their, “Out-of-Home Digital Video Display Study 2009” (Can’t we all Finally agree on the single term, “Digital Out-of-Home” already and just move on? ) the purpose of which was to benchmark the size and profile of the national audience to digital video displays in the United States.

The study asked 1,666 U.S. residents, aged 18 or older, whether or not they had seen a digital video display in any of 17 different venue types in the past month. Venues included Gas Stations, Elevators and Restaurants (to name a few).

The results were impressive.

“Of those who recall seeing digital video displays in the past month, 76% noticed seeing them at multiple venues. Digital video displays in retail locations alone (including grocery stores, large retailer/department stores, drug stores, shopping malls or convenience stores) reach over half (53%) of American adults in an average month. DOOH video displays at gas stations and movie theaters each reach over 1 in 5 U.S. adults per month.”

OK, cool.  But just how big of a victory is this study for our industry?

From an ad sales point of view, I think it is fairly substantial; Arbitron confirming what many of us already believed to be true.  However, being that I am very metric driven, I think we are still in the process of “crossing the chasm” and a long way from gaining the ‘early-majority’ buy in we all want.

Nonetheless, “Hunger finds no fault with the cooking.” Therefore, until such a time comes when widespread measurement tactics are accepted, I will gladly take any neutral 3rd party efforts from credible sources people recognize like Arbitron or Nielsen.

What do you think?

-Matthew Olivieri 

Have you seen Sony Pictures ad campaign for the upcoming release of District-9?  This incredibly creative set of advertisements imply we be on the lookout for a species other than our own at bus stops, restrooms and other places designated for “Humans Only”  They even provide you with a phone number to call, should you encounter a “Non-Human” in your local neighborhood.

My hat goes off to Marc Weinstock, Sony’s co-president of worldwide theatrical marketing who has definitely come up with something outside the box that instantly grabbed my attention.

According to Wikipedia, Viral Marketing is defined as: techniques that use pre-existing social networks to produce increases in brand awareness or to achieve other marketing objectives (such as product sales) through self-replicating viral processes.  It can be word-of-mouth delivered or enhanced by the network effects of the Internet.

As for the “viral effectiveness” of this campaign?  Sony’s president of digital marketing, Dwight Caines, said: “In two weeks, there have been 33,000 phone calls. Two thousand five hundred people left voice messages about alien sightings. And 92% of those calls come from cell phones, indicating that people are opting in, on the spot, in the streets.  But, the beachhead for its high-minded, meta-narrative promo push is the movie’s website, listed on bus benches, bus shelters and billboards.

D-9.com not only streams the movie’s trailer (viewed over 21M times), but also serves as a primer to the self-contained world of “District 9,” detailing security guidelines for humans and “non-humans” which can be shared with friends.”

Oh yeah and let’s not forget that others (and now myself) have also blogged about this whole thing as well, adding to the “spread” of awareness

Will all this translate into the record breaking opening weekend Sony is hoping for?  Only time will tell, but one thing is certain-my own alertness to this film has definitely been increased thanks to this amazing ad campaign.

-Matthew Olivieri