Aggravation of Aggregation in Digital Signage
The concept of standardizing and packaging ad space from multiple DOOH networks to make media buys easier for agencies is becoming more and more prevalent. For this post I borrowed a smart headline from Rob Gorrie of AdCentricity, who commented on the overview of DOOH aggregators published on Digital Signage Today.
The idea of media aggregation is a relative novelty only in digital signage. Traditional media started using web sites for aggregation of media properties in the late 90s. Online media agencies began doing that almost since the beginning of Internet advertising. This trend was followed by the idea of cross-media exchanges and auctions, all of which successfully collapsed when the tech bubble burst.
What we are seeing today is a re-birth of the idea of media- and cross-media buying platforms, on a new qualitative level. However, when it comes to digital signage, its specific nature inevitably causes ‘aggravation’ of aggregation, at least in its early stages. If we follow Bill Yackey’s overview on Digital Signage Today, it becomes evident why.The trick with digital signage aggregation is that it has little value without an automated campaign execution (see points 4 and 5 in the workflow described in Bill’s article).
No affiliation with a big-name agency platform can resolve this issue, as such platforms deal mostly with the planning and buying aspects, and campaign execution is always based on a manual workflow. In all other media except digital signage campaign execution is a relatively mature process that does not involve complete and complex control at the receiving end. TV sets are controlled by viewers; radios are controlled by listeners, static billboards are updated once in a few weeks/months and are at the mercy of weather and vandals; magazines and newspapers are beyond control once they are distributed; PCs are controlled by users, etc.
Only in digital signage it is required and expected that one must enforce playback to a single screen in a network, fully control what’s showing when and account for it. Add several other networks – and you have a nightmare tech challenge for automation. Most traditional media and cross-media aggregators do not realize this until they try to do something with digital signage… And when they do… many of them give up the idea.
The solution is also obvious – DOOH aggregators must connect their cross-network planning and buying interfaces to a cross-network campaign execution (traffic) tool. My next statement is self-serving, but also true: there is only one such tool on the market today and it is called BroadSign Open API. So far it works only with BroadSign-powered networks (total of 160+networks in 25 countries), but this is only the first step. The technology is there. I invite you click here to learn more.
Entry Filed under: Digital Signage Evolution, How to: Digital Signage Tips, The Big Picture, Toys and Technologies, Uncategorized
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