11th Screen

I’ve got a little more left in me from the IACP presentation/posts.  First, I don’t think I posted the right picture with the last post.  To say something is “The End” is never right.  I just liked the picture, but it just hasn’t sit well with me since I posted.  This one makes up for it.

I’ve gotten multiple requests (thank you, everyone!) for my presentation, so I’m going to record some audio and post the deck + VO later this week.  I’ve sent it around to some folks since the conference and I don’t think it’s going to be useful to them without the VO.  I am a visual person, but I always have problems with someone else’s presentation.  First question I ask – “can you walk me through this?”  The good presentations don’t include many words.  They’re more discussion starters.  So, it’s coming.  I’ll get it posted as soon as I can.

The one thing I can do now, though, from what I’ve sent around and posted, is to give you my business card analogy.  As I said previously, my point of view on video is that it is just another piece of content.  An object.  Just like a business card.

I can spend a lot and get that business card made to where it looks really nice or I can make it myself for a fraction of the cost and it won’t look as nice.  The first impression is important, certainly depending on who I’m giving the card to, but in the end, the purpose is the same:  to give people information.  My objective with this business card is to share it with as many people as I can and maybe they’ll share it with people they know.  But I can only measure that object by the number of people who see it – it’s all about quantity.

There’s another piece of the puzzle, though, and that’s what I hope happens when I give my business card away.  I want someone to reach out and start a relationship with me.  Relationships can grow.  It doesn’t matter if I give my business card to a 100 people if none of them reach out to me and we don’t develop a relationship.  Relationships aren’t about quantity.  They’re about quality. 

And this is where I think it’s important to think of objects as just that.  It’s not just the thing you’re producing (the content).  It’s what surrounds that thing (the context).  It’s finding the right balance between the two – content and context.  Between quantity and quality.  Between objects and relationships.  As marketers and communicators, we try to navigate the ecosystem as best we can to strike this balance in everything we do.  We try to be more successful than not.  But it’s not easy.

Do you just give your business card to as many people as you can?  Or do you complete the puzzle and try to develop a relationship?

The panel discussion went well today at IACP.  I was pretty nervous leading up to it, primarily because I didn’t feel like I was prepared.  One of my college professors, the late, great Larry Hovis (from Hogan’s Heroes) lived by the mantra:  Be on time, Be prepared, and Be sober.  Simple, right?  It’s good.  Pretty much covers the bases.  It’s interesting to see how many people you come into contact with during a day can’t meet these criteria.

So the lack of preparation was with me.  I was up late last night trying to finish my presentation and practice.  I should have been at this stage days ago.  Instead, I felt like I was preparing for a personal BD pitch – pulling things together at the last minute.

But alas – I did finish, of course, and everything came together and when the panel started, all was good.  I was worried that I would be speaking over everyone’s head, talking about social media and social objects and content/context and all they wanted to hear from me was Video 101.  But I think I broke it down well, where it was digestable for everyone in the audience (wide range of audience, in age, digital acumen and focus).  I got some good feedback from some of the attendees, so mission was accomplished.  And now, I have a pretty good POV on content (objects) and context (relationships).

In the spirit of getting better, I’m always looking for feedback, so if you have any, let me know.  Would love to hear your thoughts.

Additional note – I hung out with Pat Hellberg from the Preset Group for a few hours last night and I’ve got to say, I really like those guys.  (Pat ran Nike’s digital signage network for a long time.)  They’ve been really good to me, which I appreciate.  They’re all very smart and it’s always fun to talk to smart people.  They’re also huge advocates of the DOOH space and doing everything they can to help companies navigate in the space.  Pat listened to my POV (which was really my presentation) on content/context and provided a bit of insight (via something kinda unrelated).  In any case, if you’re looking for someone (or a group of guys) to give you the 411 on digital signage/DOOH, look no further than the Preset Group.  They’ll steer you right.

I am off to IACP (International Association of Culinary Professionals) to speak on a panel about the importance of video in this industry (food/beverage, hospitality, etc..), specifically from the POV of a brand.  We represent many brands and organizations within this industry and I’ll end up showing a few examples.  But my story isn’t necessarily around the videos, per se.  From my perspective, the video (just like any piece of content) is just another social object (which is an idea/term that’s been around for quite awhile).  It’s a thing.  It gets created, consumed, and shared.  It’s measured in quantity (how many people end up seeing the object?)

But that’s only half of the story.  By itself, it can only do so much for the brand (I’m not going to get into the details of “objects” and “nodes.”  In the spirit of keeping it simple, I’m going to talk in generalities re: social objects.)  The other half of the story is the relationship, the engagement, the context.  Where along the brand’s communication stream – relationship path, if you will – is each person seeing these objects?  Brands need many different social objects to develop/sustain/grow relationships with their audience.  These relationships are measured in quantity (how strong are they?)

If each of them – objects (content) or relationship (context) – work independently, your brand leaves a lot on the table.  Separately they might be strong, but in the end, they are still independent. 

Independency is not the world we live in now.  We live in a world that is interconnected (social) and multi-platform (mobile).  Both have a profound effect on how brand’s should approach 1) creating content (in this case, videos) and 2) creating relationships (engaging).  Everyone and everything can be engaged with, consumed, and shared when people want, how they want, and on what device (screen) they want.  The true nirvana for brands is to consistently, more-often-than-not have a bead on where the audience is in the relationship at the time they are consuming the object so you can create more effective objects.

Here, when content and context work together, not only can brands drive reach (eyeballs), they can build stronger relationships.  Strong relationships grow into trust-based relationships.  Trust-based relationships grow into advocacy and evangelism.  And at the end of the day, that’s what it’s all about.  

Are you creating independent, 1-off objects?  Or are you working to marry content & context?  Shout if you can.

Yesterday, I wrote about Pongr, a new mobile technology that I experienced over the past week and found to be valuable and easy – two traits that should aim to be the bedrock of any campaign, certainly any mobile campaign.  Today, I’ll show you another example, but from the standpoint of a brand doing this, through the use of another valuable & easy technology.

Kioskcom/The Digital Signage Show – the brand in this case – did a commendable job of extending the experience through mobile last week during their conference, particularly with the use MS Tags and SMS.  I was delighted when I registered and picked up the guide/agenda/planner and saw a MS Tag at the bottom of the guide:

With instructions, no less.  Again, it’s such a small thing that is often overlooked, but I think you can never be too detailed on instructions with new technology.  They provided step-by-step instructions so anyone (literally, anyone) could follow:

Since I’ve done work with MS Tags, I already had the app installed on my phone, so I immediately took a picture of it.  I was directed to the Kioskcom home page where I could navigate wherever I wanted.  This wasn’t necessarily what I found to be the most valuable.  It was when I opened the guide and saw MS Tags on every page:

This was where the value to me came in.  First, this guide was the only reference material that I used throughout the conference and I actually liked it.  It fit in my bag, was easy to manage, included everything I needed about the show, to the succint detail that I needed, and then with the use of these tags, I was able to get the one-off details that I needed, when I needed them.  For instance, if I wanted to see one of the speakers’ bios, I could easily access it through the tag.  If I wanted to see details on exhibitors, I could easily access them through the tag.  I didn’t have to thumb through a big, hard-to-manage show guide that most often comes with any of these shows.

And if that weren’t enough, they set up a special short code to “opt-in” to receive regular show updates via SMS.  So, instead of relying on any of the kiosks or digital signs (ironically enough) or audio announcements, I was again able to get the information I wanted when I wanted it, through the channel I wanted it on.

This, really, is a perfect example of a brand utilizing many channels to engage with their audience in the most appropriate way – here, the intention was to extend utility.  Mission accomplished.

I think the true power of “out of home” as an advertising and communications platform is that it can bridge the gap in the story – the story that you can get from your TV, then all of the different stories you can find on your computer, and now even more on your mobile phone.  Marketers utilize these channels on a daily basis and they’re engrained in the ecosystem.  I think traditional out of home is in this mix, too, but I think we have such a unique opportunity in front of us with all of the new technologies at our disposal that the true value is extending the story through interactivity outside of the home.  And “out of home” to me is not necessarily billboards or kiosks or “digital” signs.  It can really be anything that we interact with outside of our homes – tables, floors, cars, magazines – whatever.  Pretty soon, everything will probably be considered a “sign,” so I like to think of the space as extremely broad.  (Tangent – in fact, “digital signage” is still immature right now and I don’t know that we’ll see it become mature.  I think we have a great chance of leapfrogging its maturity and welcoming something entirely different to the mix.  This would be everything around us.  For another post, I know….)

Valuable and easy.  Two traits personified again through the use of mobile technology, thanks to Kioskcom/The Digital Signage Show – or should I say the new, appropriately named brand, Customer Engagement Technology World.

Shout if you have other examples of valuable and easy through mobile.  I’d love to hear them.

I love easy engagement through mobile, specifically using the medium to merge the offline with the online.  That’s one of the biggest focuses here on the 11^th Screen.  I think mobile and the technologies enabled by it can be extremely powerful when used by brands in this way, to deepen engagement with their audience.  And I’m not really talking about iPhone applications.  We’re in a time where a brand can easily make a “lite” version of their website and wrap it up into an application and call it a day.  While I think there is value in that, I am interested when brands utilize mobile (and its technologies) in other ways – more unique ways – to extend the brand experience.  You’ve heard me talk about things like QR codes (really any 2D/3D barcodes, augmented reality, GPS, etc..) – this is where my mind goes when I look at mobile as a channel extension.

I experienced two such extensions over the past week and I have to commend both of them.  One is a new technology maker and one is a brand. 

In this post, I’ll show you the new technology maker – Pongr.

A few weeks ago, Pongr reached out to me after seeing me write about these sorts of mobile technologies and introduced me to their technology.  In short – Pongr enables one to snap a picture of any ad (think billboard and/or poster) on their mobile phone, send it to an email address, and get back special content from the brand featured in the ad.  No special app or platform required, which is part of the problem with 2D/3D barcodes like QR codes (although I see from their website that you can download an app).  This technology was featured in this month’s W Magazine:

So, I can take a picture of any ad, send it to w.pongr.com,

then, get driven deeper into the brand (and entered into a contest, which never hurts). 

Although this complete experience didn’t work for all of the ads (on some, I would only be entered into the contest), I really appreciate the simplicity.  I don’t know what I couldn’t get out of this experience that I could get out of a QR code experience.  The only difference is typing in the address and clicking.  But on the flip side, I don’t have to search for any application to make it work.  And as a marketer, I don’t have to go through the trouble (it’s not that much “trouble) or expense of creating and printing special codes.

And something that shouldn’t be overlooked – I think Pongr did a good job of informing the user of the capability, instructions and expectations.  I counted 10 instances of this message throughout the magazine.  If no one knows what it is and/or how to use it, they won’t.  I’ve seen this time and time again and it’s so easy to address, with proper foresight and planning.

This is one of the most prominent examples of instructions, but each have the same exact creative and messaging.  Consistency is important for the user. 

In addition to this technology, they have social tie-ins to Twitter and Facebook and it looks like they just launched a new product called “ImagePulse,” which looks very interesting – ImagePulse helps you identify what’s being said about your brand in the form of pictures through image search and analysis. Pongr ImagePulse allows your brand to monitor sentiment, benchmark photo engagement of your traditional ads, and connect with your best fans. 

It seems like, by searching photos for brands and logos, they can tell in what context it’s being used, who’s sending it, what is being said about it and even target future ads to those consumers around their behaviors.  Does the user need to be using the service for the search to happen?  What other steps are there in the process?  I have some questions that aren’t answered in the copy or the video, but it sounds good.  It all looks good, too.  They’re marketing themselves as “mobile & social marketing solutions.”  And I like what they’re doing on their website with a live feed of recent image searches and their blog.  I need to actually talk to someone there and get them to walk me through everything else, but just from this experience, I like what these guys are doing. 

Have any of you used this technology?  Any technology like it?  (Esquire, in relation to magazines, has experimented with various technologies like e-ink and augmented reality.)  Did you find value in it?  Let me know.

Walking the convention floor at these things is just sensory overload.  Or in this case, kiosk overload.  Kiosks everywhere.  Every kind of kiosk you could want, you could find it here.  (It’s funny, I was talking to someone and they said they specifically came to look for a kiosk to replace their old one and they didn’t find one here.  I couldn’t believe it.)  There were also lots of touch screens.  Lots of really slick looking applications.  But when you boil it down, it’s basically the same thing.  Here’s what I observed – most everyone wants to be in the everything business.  They want to be hardware providers.  They want to be software providers.  They want to be content providers.  They want to be advertising providers.  They want to be the data house.  Enough already.  Please.  The best solutions I saw were ones that were focused  and were trying to solve 1 problem.  Three good companies made my short, I-commend-you-for-knowing-your-business-well-enough-to-focus-on-one-thing-list:

Nanonation – these guys are big time.  Software providers.  They developed the software that runs the Greenopolis (Best of Show, Self Service Excellence Awards) kiosk (more on this solution later).  They have software to serve the enterprise level and they just developed software to serve the “lite” level.

DigiKomp – These guys are in the hardware business.  But instead of showing up with kiosks or large digital screens like veryone else, they stole the show (in my mind) with these small (320×240) LCD screens that they call “the last nametag that you’ll ever have to get.”  They’re sweet.  Basically, really small, really sharp looking digital frames.  They play .jps, .avis, .mp3s.  Battery life of 12 hours.  I bought one.  But didn’t take it with me because I didn’t have the cash.  The ATM was far from the convention center and I never made it back.  I’m going to follow through with my purchase.  Just to have it.

RFIDeas – I got a little bit of an education on RFID from these guys.  My biggest takeaway – there are 3 “levels” of RFID (I really don’t know the right nomenclature): proximity, HF (High Frequency), and UHF (Ultra High Frequency).  The Mini key fob/billboards used UHF.  These guys deal primarily with proximity – think of the security cards that allow you to go in/out of your workplace/parking garages/etc..  My 2^nd biggest takeaway – they don’t think of anything for marketing/engagement purposes.  When I told him why I was interested, he looked at me like I had 3 eyes.  All good.  He gave me knowledge, which is all I want.

There were others that I heard were good, but really of no interest to me. 

I think it would be cool to get creative, developers, software providers, hardware providers at one of these things and over the course of 1 or 2 days, get them to actually make something right in front of our eyes so we can see the true capabilities and something worthwhile come to life.  Then, we would really find out the strengths of all of these companies.  And to me, that’s the whole point.

Speaker:  JoAnn Jenkins (COO, Library of Congress)

These kiosks installed in the Library of Congress are awesome (as shown by initial video):  Location-aware, personalized, builds/gets smarter as you go through the experience (barcode on passport), extend experience online, game (Knowledge Quest)

myLOC.gov – check it all out there (this is the online extension)

“Don’t use technology for the sake of using technology – use it to enhance experience.”

3 keys to LCE Program Success

1. Visitor Engagement was core objective
2. Interactive Technology engage and sustain a connection
3. Internal environment conducive to adoption of new tech solutions

Introduce technologies of tomorrow to bring in a new audience, but maintain integrity of library/collection

Installed 60 kiosks – designed to address all users, from kindergarten to older, more experienced users , specifically of touch screen tech

“Remain on the content, not on the technology.”

Unmatched level of access to the collection items – can literally touch history

Now the curators can’t imagine these kiosks/this technology not being here…

WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation) was used!  Silverlight, too.  Sharepoint – this is the largest use to date.  This was what we were working towards at my last agency, when building the IOOH software.  Great to hear. 

Over 105,000 users have registered via myLOC.  Over ½ of myLOC users in the library use the experience online – excellent extension of experience!

Knowledge Quest (incorporation of game) – success unlocks content, provides further level of visitor involvement, extends experience

All this required internal changes – past was driven by vision defined by individual department, silos – building the LCE required much more.  Created the centralized program management office – cross departmental, etc..”Team” approach including everyone.  This evolves every day.  For instance – IT research in looking at Barcode vs. RFID – studies by IT revealed that marble floors would interfere with RFID.

Created experience for first time that could greet visitors at front door, immerse them in many ways while inside, and allowed visitors to take experience home with them.

QUESTIONS –

How long did it take to come up with the vision and draft scope and implement? 

The LOC celebrated 200^th bday in 2000 and then, they talked about their audience.  At that time, they went out and did survey – what came back is that people loved the LOC, had no idea they could use it.  Then, they followed up and asked if you could see this, would you?  And overwhelmingly, it was yes. 

Over 60% of their audience is from K-12.  Dramatic shift of audience.  This is amazing. 

The LCE started in 2008.

Was there any 1 key lesson learned?  Anything you would have done differently?  Specifically to the tech?

One of the things that they had to do – tech was changing so rapidly as everything evolved.  Disney worked with them re: how you move crowds around and how tech is involved in that.  Curatorial staff deeply involved, too.  Using Microsoft Sharepoint was big discussion.  They constantly put together levels of review.  Just being mindful that tech is changing so rapidly.  Solutions being developed daily.

Some of the lessons when doing research with other institutions – one of the most important things – scalability was extremely important to success.  Right now, they only have 1,000 items that you can save/share.  The vision is to build your own Library of Congress so you can share/save many more.  The most important way to make it scalable was to make a CMS that would manage online & onsite experiences.  Completely seamless.

Did you have in-house team to do tech?

We had wonderful team at the library, but brought in 8-10 different companies to work with the team.

Then, they went into some tech speak – WPF wrapper.  Some Flash-based.  They used Flash & Silverlight both.  Interesting.

What project mgt methodology?

Brought in Sapient as primary consultant, served as PM.  Above that though, you have to have a person who can make decisions, buck stops there.  They have sole responsibility. (this was her)

Panel:  Randy – MGM Grand, Paul Wolff – Greenopolis, Brandon Elliott – Build a Bear

Challenge – how do you effectively communicate and engage customers at right point in time?  “Right message, right person, right time” leaves a lot out.  It’s starts w/ engagement.

How do you really connect with that customer and create that moment? – moment of Magic

It’s also about integration – both with physical space and all of the other business components.  Deliver on the brand promise – no line, no wait (Budget) – they’re using in their TV spots (kiosks)

Randy (MGM) – over in City Center, spent more effort on 9 slot machine toppers than 400 screens.

Everyone is a content critic

Told a story about how an escalator takes 24 seconds – this is important b/c it dictates content and animation.

His vision of the future – smarter content mgt (data + content to the right device)

Very interesting that they create everything in 1280 x 1280 and then they have a hotspot in the center and so they don’t have to resize everything

This dude has a lot to manage – I wouldn’t want his job

Paul (Greenopolis) – in the business of tracking trash

SM angle – corp partners who get involved in site – rewards program – connect people who care about this

People can play with the program wherever they are – mobile, kiosks, computer, etc…

Brandon (Build a Bear) (I will write more about these guys later) – 10^th largest toy retailer in the country

Over 1,600 kiosks in all of their stores.  The technology – wanted to enable the experience – you don’t go to Build a Bear to sit in front of the kiosk.

Target:  Tech savvy 10 year old girl.

His 3 year old knows how to use iPhone.

If you ask a 10-year old girl what she wants for Christmas – 8 of the top 10 is technology based.

Buildabearville.com – 1.5 m avatars created, 1-2 m unique visitors a month, avg 30 min visit – this extends the in-store experience – this is great – there’s a whole story online

POS – receipt code – for every item you buy, every dollar spent in the real world, you get virtual currency

1 of 3 guests visit them online before making a store purchase – nearly 1 in 2 guess in core demo bring their animals to life online

They have lost bears, they open them up and can return to owner

You’re seeing everything interact with each other – seeing points, games, etc…”fun”/personal

NET -

All this comes down to understanding your customer very well before you actually do anything – or as you refine

You need to be able to look at metrics and what comes out of that

QUESTIONS:

Randy (MGM) – Geolocation integration with MGM/Mirage? – they just released 2^nd iPhone app..they started pulling data back from that, the thing that intrigues them is the SEARCH feature – look at the phrases, words – craziest search group he’s seen is “darts, donkeys, drugs” – the point is that there are so many things out there that people want and how they search

For Randy (MGM) – development of content, how do you start the process? – has all changed in the last 24 months, there was so much cash flow here that you could do whatever….now it is scrutinized.  They now pick their spots, where can they have the most impact with the lowest capital risk? 

Paul (Greenopolis) – value prop – what’s the experience? – it is reprocessing material…the kiosks are ergonic billboards.  Recycle, reprocess, reward (this is good)

The keynote this morning was centered around creating outstanding engagement and winning customer’s hearts and was brought to us by Bill Ratcliffe from BrainJuicer, a consumer-focused research firm.

While the talk was a little scattered, it was good.  They’re all about “feel.”  And for me, this is something that really resonates.  I’m very much a “feel” person.  I decide many things, in and out of work, based on “feel.”  So, these guys center their research around emotion and at the end of the day, want the customer to leave with a “little gift,” feeling happy (as we all do.)  This was just an interesting way to look at research and then think about how it could be applied to create the best content for the best channel.

In these days, getting attention, much less engagement, is very difficult.

Within the industry, we think of pushing out information (talks to the brain), providing some form of entertainment (talks to the heart), or transactions (talks to both).  Consumers really know when you’ve hit the mark.  When they feel an emotional reaction, they talk to other people.  How do we become part of that conversation?

Where we’re going with this was best summarized by James Brown – “I feel good!”  Emotions drive our motivations and our decisions – we think less than we think we think.

We move too quickly (in mkt research), we look too quickly to “evaluating” things, not particularly audience emotions.

People know when it works – they just feel it.  But why is it that we never ask people how they’re feeling?

If you win hearts, you’ll make money.  Just ask Apple.  You can have the same measure of effect and greater efficiency by really tapping into emotional response.

Key message ads – one piece of advertising looks a lot like the other – falling within existing expectations, your content/creative won’t stand out.

How do we know if we are winning hearts?

Paul Ekman – did a lot of work universally recognized facial expressions – ID’d 7 emotions – sadness, fear, disgust, anger, contempt, surprise, happiness.  These guys (BrainJuicer) added another expression – neutral – no reaction.  They put all of these together in an emotion wheel (actually 12 different types of happiness) .  Then, they ask people how they feel.  Their formula – “Which of these faces best describes the way you feel?”  And “How intensely?” And then “What triggered these emotions?”

He showed a 1:30 ad with a gorilla, playing drums – to Phil Collins “In the Air Tonight” – was by Cadbury – on an emotional scale, this is one of the top performing ads, but from a marketers key message POV, didn’t score high.  It was a gift, not a “selling” ad – they went out and bought the product, sales rose and sustained before Kraft bought the company (“of course.”)  The thing that really works is not going into something that’s way out there that will put people off  – you want to create a little bit of surprise and then leave them happy.

You can go for the “same ol” or you can go for “crazy new” – we’re starting to see more going to “crazy new” – this is good.

Questions:

Any books that you can recommend on topic?  Wisdom of the Crowds, Pow – Right Between the Eyes

Real-time facial recognition implementation into these?  This would require high powered analytics behind the scene.  Could be in the future, we wouldn’t have to ask.  But we would have to ask the drivers.

Was on a panel with Adrian Cotterill from DailyDOOH and Dave Haynes from The Preset Group.  This is our perspective.

14 people at beginning, easily doubled in 5 minutes

We all went through intros first.  I could have framed myself a little better.  Lav mic is weird.

Dave – been around for a really long time, 2006 started blogs, 1,500 posts, much more of an opinion piece – why you should look at this, bit of a filter for the industry

Q1:  How digital media can improve customer engagement and increase sales lift?

Adrian:  Does digital really need explaining?  Surely, we’ve seen sales lift

Dave:   Digtal media still a little mysterious to people…when we talk about sales lift, we see in the past year that results that are shared around.  Walmart showed up at conference last year and showed results on their smart network – they were getting phenomenal sales lift…industry avg 10 -15 % lift

Mike:  I think you have to separate those two objectives.  Engagement is very different than conversion – it can certainly play off of each other.  Dynamic, moving images have an impact.  When talking about OOH, placement is part of the equation.  Then, f/u with the most appropriate content so it can achieve that goal – sales lift. 

Q2:  Examples of successful implementations and their impact on brands?

Adrian:  Harrods – amazed at how well they’ve done retail…screens embedded into the fabric of their environment

Dave:  Believes that there are more unsuccessful implementations vs. successful…Tim Horton’s (donut shop in Canada) – they see real sales lift on just “digital” amid their menu boards….Microsoft’s retail stores, baked right into it

Mike:  Mini/BMW – digital billboards, RFID, AR

Nike – virtual shoecase, matching shoes kiosk, Chalkbot

 These brands have a very good understanding of their audience so they’re able to use various mediums really effectively.

Q3:  Measurement methodology & ROI?

Adrian:  taken from keynote this morning, the emotions

Dave:  not so down on the research and analytics, yes it’s imperfect, but it does a good job of showing how long people are looking at screens…typically the viewer engagement on these screens is 3 seconds…wow

Mike:  DOOH is passive so measure it like any OOH installation – eyeballs, traffic, etc..

IOOH is active so measure it on actions

 This is why I think interaction is so important.

Q4:  Successful trends we are seeing?

Adrian:  People don’t need an excuse or prompt to touch a screen these days.  Mobile interaction is something that is also taking off.  Audio/music/sound – this being explored more now, too.

Dave:  Mobile & social….extremely early days for that….this industry has to open its eyes a lot wider as to what’s going on around them……the days of “captive” audience is over…no one is really captive anymore

Mike:  I think you have to look at social and mobile separately from OOH.  Both are gaining traction and both will play a large part in OOH.

Aside from that, people are getting more familiar with expectations that they can interact with their surroundings.

Q5:  Who needs to be involved in the process for success?

Adrian:  Surely everyone in the company!  Merchandisers, marketers, IT, and don’t forget retail staff!

Dave:  All about objectives and are you getting return on those?

Mike:  Client side – Brand managers – marketing, communications

 Agency side – brand teams, advertising teams, media buyers, research, analytics

 Implementation side – content creators (developers, designers), system admins (tech)

 End user from the standpoint of acceptance

Q6:  What makes a project a winner?

Adrian:  Microsigns…put them underneath mobile phones in stores

Dave:  Most of the really good projects in this space have come from outside the industry…..

Mike:  Depends on what the objectives are.

 If you want to change perception, can do.

 If you want to deepen engagement, you can.

 If you want to drive sales/conversion, you can.

 It’s all about:

Who are we talking to?

What are we trying to say?

How are we going to say it?

 Q7: What brands and venues can do to succeed through the use of digital signage and DOOH? 

Adrian:   Spend money, don’t try to do anything on the cheap, get good advice, think creatively, don’t forget content, integrate mobile..

Dave:  change in business models

Mike:  Have to be clear about your objectives.  What are they trying to do?

Hope that they have smart people around them.

Agree with cheap and the content.

Q8:  What does the future hold?

Adrian:  Where you now see cardboard and print, you will now see digital.  More installations will be interactive, responsive by touch and gesture, and mobile.

Dave:  I don’t know what he said.

Mike:  Technology gets better, people get smarter.  It’s not about “digital” out of home screens, it’s about interacting with our spaces around us.