Digital Signage Today
00:19:37 · Judy Mottl
[00:19:37] S0: The reason I brought up the whole idea of measurement is that many companies don't realize what you just said. It's available, and it's actually tangible and it is a misnomer, I think, that holds people back, holds a brand back from jumping in. And I wanted to ask you, if I was a retailer or a brand, and I'm looking to do this, to get into this channel, and I wanna work with Screenverse. What does that process kind of look like? Can you take me through kind of how you work with the client?
00:20:14 · Adam Malone
[00:20:14] S2: I'll try to distill it down. So we have a pretty exhaustive process on the front end because we have a couple of these kind of core philosophies around it that we use here. The first is beware the easy yes. So if there's a retail network that's stood themselves up and they're looking for representation in existing network that's in malls, that's in gyms, that's somewhere that's being productive, maybe programmatic isn't yet something that's really driving new business for them substantially. So a lot of folks hear about us, they come to us, thank goodness. You know, we get referrals and things like that, and it's wonderful. And so we try to understand the first thing is, you know, is there real media value here? So we have access to a tremendous amount of sales data. We're in, you know, 30 plus different venue types. We've got 20 partners, we're in all the markets. So we don't have to kind of guess too much. So we kind of know what the market CPMs are, we kind of know what the sell through rates are, and we understand the unit economics of these kinds of screens in these categories in these markets. And so we'll map all that out and we'll say, hey, here's what we think the total value of the network is. Then we do an audit of the technology suite that the network might have. Sometimes they get bonuses for having really advanced technology, great integrations, great data, all of that kind of humming along nicely. And some networks aren't quite there yet. So they don't have the technology really working for them. And so we either kind of bonus or discount based on the current state of their tech. We then look at other operations and financial things, and we try to set expectations. Here's what we think we can do in year one and year two and year three. And what we have found since we've been in this game now for five plus years is, yes, we wanna drive a ton of new revenue to you in year one, but we also wanna build in year two and year three and year four. And if you know anything about how compounding works, it's exciting to see, you know, X percent growth year over year, but it's very exciting to stretch that over many years. And so when I say beware of the easy yes, we don't want, you know, we wanna make long term partnership commitments.
00:22:33 · Adam Malone
We're gonna sell like crazy, and then hopefully you use that money to expand your network and give us more inventory to sell, we'll sell it more effectively, and then we can continue to grow together. So it's a, like I said, it's a very involved process. There's a lot of our team that gets involved in it. Our tech team gets involved, inventory and data, our marketing, our sales. Everybody is really trying to meet everybody at the media owner and figure out if it's gonna be the right kind of partnership where we can build a great and long lasting relationship. And I think the best thing about our company in the last five years is our retention rate on the supply side has been amazing, I mean, We've lost very few partners over all these years, and the partners that we started with that were very small are now very big. And so the challenge for us is how do we continue to stay on the forefront and innovate and build our capabilities? Because as our networks grow and they scale, and we went from doing 1,000,000 in sales to 10,000,000 in sales for them, we better keep bringing them. We better have a plan to take them to 50,000,000 in sales or else they have the right to leave. So that's it. It's a lot of media value, it's a lot of technology auditing, figuring out how our solutions fit in, and we try to promise only what we can deliver, which if I had one word of advice for a startup company, it's, you know, try to understand what you're actually good at, and then really keep your promises to that specific set of services. And don't try to do too much, because that really erodes trust over time. And it's hard to be great at any one thing, let alone several. And so, you know, I think we do a pretty good job of saying on the front end, hey, based on everything we've seen about the inventory you have, about where you're selling and what we know about the market, here's what we think we can do and here's how we're gonna do it. And it may not be the biggest number out there or what they were expecting or hoping for, but we have a lot of confidence in it. And we try to exceed expectations when we do get the signature and when we do launch with a partner.
00:24:47 · David Weinfeld
[00:24:47] S1: And I would say that our perspective is exactly the same when we're working with a retailer or a brand on the demand side. So we have an incredibly strong team of professionals on our sales team, programmatic partnerships, client success that work day in and day out, building plans, building campaigns for retailers, for CPG brands, with the idea of understanding their business and what their overall objectives are. First and foremost, it is about understanding what success means for them and how digital out of home and specifically the Screenverse universe can best support them in that. So in many cases, if you're a retailer, you're looking to drive people to store. And so we're gonna look at your store locations, do a point of interest evaluation against our inventory, identify everything from urban panels, screens in office buildings, screens in retail stores or residential, and identify the right type of screens matched against their ideal audience set. And then within that, also build a plan to measure the efficacy of those efforts. And that's inclusive of doing a brand study or a foot traffic attribution study. There's nothing better for a retailer. And frankly, that's where digital out of home really sings is the idea of using data signals to target their audience in the physical world, in and around their stores, or even conquest against their competitive set, and then evaluate how that exposed audience ultimately responded to that advertising. And did they in fact go to those stores? And how was that performance relative to a controller unexposed group of those same consumers? And what we found is digital out of home performs incredibly well for retailers, CPG brands, telecommunication, if you have a physical location, but even if you don't, the measurement and the objectives would be different. But there are so many different ways that you can leverage screens that you see, that you interact with, that are part of your daily journey to drive positive outcomes for a variety of brands.
00:27:26 · Judy Mottl
[00:27:26] S0: So we gotta wrap up in a little bit, but I wanted to get your guys' view on what you see ahead. Like, do you have any expectations you know, innovations coming in five, ten years or where the industry will be maybe in ten years?
00:27:49 · Adam Malone
[00:27:49] S2: Five and ten years is a long, that seems like a long time. And that's wild because, that's wild because this industry's hundreds of years old, right? And to its credit, I think somebody like Lamar, 120 years old, and Yesco, 110 years old, like these are still some of the most innovative companies in the space. And that's pretty heartening, right? It's not like, oh, a bunch of new companies are gonna come in and disrupt and take all of the future. It's gonna be mostly incremental changes and adoption of these new data sets and technologies and ways of doing business. And yes, some of this will be driven by new entrants. Think what I get most excited about, and again, I know a little, maybe a lot about a little, and one of the things that I'm stoked about is that I see these networks building up in these markets, especially markets like Tampa and Miami and San Diego and Austin and North Dallas, these markets where there's, they just don't, they don't let you build billboards there, like there's just no opportunities to substantially create new supply in these hot markets. There's lots of demand in these markets looking to reach people in the physical world. And so, you know, the companies that are getting creative about building up mall networks or building up, you know, networks of urban panel in lifestyle centers in private areas near public thoroughfares, and they're using high quality commercial grade displays. They're fully connected to, you know, WiFi or to cellular, right? They are, they're smart, they're agile, they're relatively cheap, and they're very effective, and these kinds of networks can be built really quickly. And so I am imagining a world, it's not dystopian at any means. I think it's beautiful and glorious that there's going to be screens everywhere that's gonna be wayfinding and nudging and creating art and creating beautiful commercial messages. And I do think that economically it's gonna allow out of home to really flourish and grow. I mean, the fact that it grows like this year over year over year, it's like, hey guys, because you're building billboards and then you're selling them to each other and there's just a lot of financial stuff going on. But what we really need is we need more supply in the markets where there's tons of demand interest, and it's otherwise hard to reach young audiences, right?