The integration of place-based media with mobile and social technologies is consistently in the top five predictions for the future of our industry. Yet very few companies have wrestled with the realities of integrating these technologies at scale.

Even the simplest social media application can trip up inexperienced companies hoping to leverage user-generated content or streams publicly.

For example, a user might be delighted to check-in to a place using a location-based service such as Foursquare and receive “offers nearby” but the location owner will not be so happy!

Similarly, Tweets that can be displayed on a location’s screen should not have URLs that can’t be clicked on, multiple retweets of the same message or messages that are offensive.

Place-based versions of such apps have to benefit the location as well as the consumer - for example, only displaying appropriate offers for the specific location and displaying filtered and localized tweets.

Solving such problems for single locations is waaaay easier than solving the problem for 100’s or 1,000’s of venues, each with different engagement rules – but all expecting real time media and responsiveness.

At this years Digital Signage Expo, in Las Vegas, Feb 22-25th, LocaModa will be releasing LocaModa 4.0 which builds on our company’s experience delivering the world’s first place-based versions of Twitter, Facebook Places and Foursquare for global brands, place-based networks and advertising agencies. And as you might expect, it specifically addresses the above challenges for licensees with a few venues or a few thousand venues to manage.

LocaModa’s booth is 1032. We hope to see you there!

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Escaping multiple snow storms this week in Boston, I’ve joined James Davies, Chief Strategy Officer, Posterscope on a week long series of thought leadership talks in London with leading agencies about the opportunities and lessons around social media and OOH. James and I had jointly written a paper on the subject which you can download here.

I get pretty inspired when I meet clients and get insights about local issues/challenges/opportunities, and this trip is no exception. Happily, I’ve also been more than a little suprised by the fast pace, innovation, responsiveness and attitude that I have experienced here.

My big takeaway is that the DOOH market in USA is not just attracting global attention, it’s also encouraging global companies to participate and innovate in the market (LocaModa’s partnership with Fujifilm Imagetec is one example). Companies far and wide are inspired by what’s going on in USA and are doing something about it. In many cases, they can move faster - their markets have less baggage, less fragmentation and often (as is the case with Posterscope) already have excellent tools to simplify the DOOH media planning and buying process.

I’ve also seen some beautifully executed DOOH here - for example in major underground stations. My gut feel from just a week in my old stomping ground is that the UK DOOH market is primed and ready to move.

USA DOOH is leading by example - now we need to make sure we continue to innovate, execute and drive a global industry forward.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Thanks to our partners Fujifilm Imagetec for this great photo of LocaModa’s Foursquare and Twitter in Japan.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

I’m happy to see that Shelly Palmer is giving a keynote at next month’s DSE on “DOOH Disrupted: Paths To A Connected Future.”

Words like Mobile, Multi-channel, Cross-channel, Social, etc are high on our agendas and prominent in all our market forecasts. And of course, all these words and technologies are by-products of the connected world we live in. So I hope that Shelly emphasizes in his talk that connectedness can never be an afterthought. It’s strategic and critically important. Our screens, players, media, infrastructure and data cannot survive as islands. Our industry is clearly moving in the right direction - it wasn’t so long ago that most out-of-home screens were playing video tapes!

The opportunity is for more DOOH media (for example DOOH applications, messaging and adverts) to work across channels. This can only hasten industry growth in scale and value.

I gave a talk at last year’s Screen Media Expo in London titled The Future Is Now which I think is worth re-visiting. You can view the presentation here. At the end of that presentation, I suggested a ten question “connectivity test” as a fun way to provoke discussion (I’m sure some of those questions could be better framed today but hey it’s free!).

What’s your DOOH connectivity score?

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Click picture to enlarge

Not all screens are created equal. I’m not talking about the whiz-bang of 3D or electronic ink, or flexible LEDs or other tantalizing technologies. I’m talking about the connective tissue that relentlessly reduces the friction for media to find a screen near you.

The money is in the HOW and WHO controls the access rights for media to find us.

On private screens, such as PCs or mobile screens, users’ access to media is broadly via search or browsing links - in other words it’s driven by a user’s INTENT. A marketer cannot force their way in front of a user’s face without hoping to influence their intent or be paying (e.g. Google or Facebook) for the results of their intent.

On a public screen, such as a place-based digital screen, access to media is broadly via a user’s “MOBILE CONTEXT” - mobile in this sense is not a technology but a behavior - shopping, meeting, traveling, drinking, waiting etc. Subject to a user’s mobile context, marketers can force their way in front of the user’s face BUT that does not give them permission to go any further. There is no automatic path (push) to a user. The user has to have the intent to pull the marketer’s message in.

Connecting these two paradigms; intent-based screens to mobile-context-based screens is how to unleash the latent value in the DOOH ecosystem.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites