Signs of Growing Up - What's in Your Media Mix?
Recent
developments indicate digital signage is poised to enter the mainstream of
media choices for advertisers.
It’s no secret digital signage to this point has been a
child amid grown-up media outlets. But a couple of signs have emerged that
indicate this new medium may be reaching –if not maturity- at least
adolescence.
While its boosters have long proselytized the medium as a
powerful complement to other in-store promotional techniques and messaging,
digital signage in the retail environment has remained “well poised,” “an
emerging voice,” and other euphemisms for not mainstream.
That’s easy to understand, based on the timing of its
arrival on the communications scene. A recent Self Service article reporting on
the “Building Your
Digital Signage Business” conference in Chicago
last month, quotes CAP Ventures analyst Norman McLeod as saying that reasons
beyond the control of the digital signage industry have held back its growth.
The
article, by Bryan Harris, quotes McLeod as saying the 2000 bust of dot com
companies sucked venture capital from the market. Then, “we saw the biggest
decrease in advertising since they started tracking it,” he’s quoted in the
article as saying, in 2002. Only in 2005, did the market fully rebound.
However, with that rebound have come a couple of signs
that in-store and out-of-store digital signage may be hitting its stride. In Britain,
the Screen Association has published the first-ever
directory of UK-based digital signage networks that accept advertising from
third parties, according to a report from Clickpress.com. The directory, “The
Screen UK Advertising Networks Directory,” provides a full index of 62 such
networks with details about the networks and contacts at each.
Publication of the directory
indicates that diffuse digital signage networks –at least in the UK-
may be congealing into a definable market that advertisers, advertising
agencies and marketing professionals can quantify, measure and ultimately
specify in their media plans. That’s a big step for digital signage on its path
to reaching maturity.
In the United States, a similar
development indicates digital signage may be entering adolescence. Clear
Channel Outdoor, one of the leaders in the outdoor advertising market,
announced last month that it was expanding its digital signage network with
several new installations in Tampa, FL, and Milwaukee,
WI.
Reporting on the move for MediaPost.com, author Erik Sass
quotes company CEO of Clear Channel Outdoors Paul Meyer as saying the move will
help Clear Channel attain its 2006 goal of deploying digital signage in four to
six markets.
As with conventional billboards,
the LED signs, which measure 14ft by 48ft, will be positioned near heavily
traveled roads. However, use of digital signage technology will allow Clear
Channel to “day part” advertising to better meet the advertising needs of its
clients and potentially charge a premium.
As with news of the UK
directory of digital signage networks, the latest announcement from Clear
Channel demonstrates the congealing of the digital signage market into a medium
advertisers can easily grasp. One can imagine national brand television
advertisers supplementing their brand and product commercials on such giant
electronic billboards. That opportunity will only grow as Clear Channel
Outdoors and others build their inventory of outdoor digital signs across America.
What appears to be happening in
the digital signage market are the first signs of an amalgamation of individual
signs and networks into something that more resembles a definable medium than a
scattershot straying of public venues and retail shops with unrelated networks
and signs.
Market researchers frequently set
about measuring the strength of the digital signage market in terms of
forecasts, such as researcher iSuppli’s recent projection of a $12 billion
dollar value by 2010, its true health may better be predicted with the
formation of viable advertising markets that exploit these sorts of digital
signage networks.
While no one would argue that
these networks trumpet the arrival of a fully mature medium, such developments
indicate digital signage is reaching adolescence.
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