Digital Signage Today
00:00:00 · S0, Daniel Brown, Chris Grosso
[00:00:00] S0: You're listening to the Digital Signage Today podcast. As business leaders look for ways to improve productivity and profitability, they're increasingly turning to innovative automation and self-service technologies. But keeping up with the rapid pace of new innovations can be overwhelming. Now there's a website to help you do just that. From the publishers of Kiosk Marketplace, Bending Times, and Digital Signage Today, automation and self -service covers trends in artificial intelligence, robotics, kiosks, payments, and much more. Visit the site today and subscribe at www.automationandself-service.com. [00:00:42] S1: Welcome to the Digital Signage Today podcast. This is our debut pilot episode, and we have a special guest joining us live from New York City, Chris Grosso. Would you like to introduce yourself? [00:00:54] S2: Thanks, Dan. So happy to be here and thanks for having me. Chris Grosso, I'm the CEO of Intersection. We're the leading experience based, digital out of home company, and we're focused on major US cities like New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, and and elsewhere. And really focused on bringing consumer amenities to cities like our Link NYC program, which is the WiFi program in New York, or bus shelters in places like Philadelphia, and then monetizing them through data driven advertising, usually on digital screens.
00:00:54 · Chris Grosso, Daniel Brown
[00:00:54] S2: Thanks, Dan. So happy to be here and thanks for having me. Chris Grosso, I'm the CEO of Intersection. We're the leading experience based, digital out of home company, and we're focused on major US cities like New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, and and elsewhere. And really focused on bringing consumer amenities to cities like our Link NYC program, which is the WiFi program in New York, or bus shelters in places like Philadelphia, and then monetizing them through data driven advertising, usually on digital screens. [00:01:22] S1: I so appreciate you being here today because we have covered a ton of news on the space because you have the... Well, you you have the intersection, no pun intended, of digital out of home. You've got transportation, people getting back out out of... After the COVID lockdowns and so forth. People are realizing, hey. Transit hubs are big. Sports are big. We've covered a ton of digital out of home happening in sports stadiums, arenas, and football is getting bigger and bigger. And I was very curious to kind of chat with you because there's a lot of money being made, and there's a lot of opportunities that still have not been snapped up even as the smart city begins to grow and build steam, that movement. Could you just very briefly tell us what is this this smart city movement? Is it a fad, and why is it becoming so big from sports stadiums to beyond? Right. Well, I
00:02:15 · Chris Grosso
[00:02:15] S2: think if you think about cities and what brings together a city, a few things bring together a city more than football, and that could be both the NFL teams or the the college teams. These events are often the biggest events that happen in the city, and they happen 16 times a year... You know, eight times a year in terms of the regular season games. And and you bring a huge amount of people together, and often these are some of the biggest transit days of of of the year. So so I think, you know, if you want to build smart cities, you wanna be a smart cities provider, the ability to take advantage of this massive groupings of people coming together and help facilitating them coming together is a key piece of the equation. And if you think about, you know, the modern stadiums in the modern arena, more and more they are being close to public transit. They're more often in cities, and the ability to, you know, reach the stadium via public transit is a really important part of being a livable city. You take a city like Minneapolis where that in one of the the podcasts rated as the best NFL stadium for for transit. That stadium is right in the middle of downtown. There's two light rail lines coming in, and you can, you know, get to the stadium without having to get to your car, even tailgate, they call it railgate, and and be around the stadium. And and if you're you're a Smart Seas provider, you wanna be where the people are, and that's where the
00:03:40 · Daniel Brown, Chris Grosso
[00:03:40] S1: people are on Sundays. I'm I'm curious. Just ballpark figure, how many impressions are we talking during a game day campaign? Well, [00:03:48] S2: yeah, if... Just off the top of my head, if you think about it, you know, these stadiums, you have 70 or 80,000 people coming. You know, 30% of them are probably coming through mass transit or more, but even the ones who don't come through mass transit are going be in and around the stadiums, in and around the stadium stations. So just on a people basis, take 80,000 people, throw a few impressions on top of that because they're going to see multiple ads and, you know, you you easily can get into the millions across either the transit or the stadium itself in terms of ad ad impressions, and it's a highly engaged audience. [00:04:21] S1: Well, I was just gonna say highly engaged audience. It's like the captive audience, and you already know the most important things about them in terms of their passion in a way.
00:04:21 · Daniel Brown, Chris Grosso
[00:04:21] S1: Well, I was just gonna say highly engaged audience. It's like the captive audience, and you already know the most important things about them in terms of their passion in a way. [00:04:28] S2: No. No. For sure. And and, you know, what you can also start to do too is when you're advertising on game day, you you advertise at the stadium, but you also know where people are coming in from a transit, perspective as well. So you can advertise around game day at the stations or on the street furniture on the route into the into the game itself. And that could both be countdown clocks, that could be hype content, that could be preview content, like starting lineups, and that kind of thing that you can put on the digital signs. So again, you want to be a smart city. Part of being a smart city is being smart in how you communicate things to people, and game day content on screens in the city, even if people aren't at the stadium, is another way to, engage the sports fans very effectively. [00:05:12] S1: Do you have some outstanding examples of some of
00:05:12 · Daniel Brown, Chris Grosso
[00:05:12] S1: Do you have some outstanding examples of some of [00:05:15] S2: the creative examples of how people are starting to leverage this this growing medium? Well well, one area that folks have leveraged is putting a permanent presence near stadiums. And a perfect example of that is BetMGM at the Meadowlands actually renamed the line that goes to the Meadowlands. It's the BetMGM line. So it's a permanent presence that you can build next to the stadium that affiliates, you know, your brand with that experience. So I think that's a very good example. Another good example is how brands will sometimes sponsor rides home after the game, and a lot of transit authorities will provide free transportation post game to... As a as a service to the city and could put a sponsor against that. And that's something, you know, we've worked with the transit authorities to do as well. So I think there's multiple opportunities beyond just the throw a sign, which is a great opportunity too, just put the sign up outside when people are going to the stadium is certainly something that's a great thing to do. But you can also do these other sort of more creative ways of showing how the brands are sponsoring... Are helping sponsor the experience of getting to and from the stadium. [00:06:25] S1: I had no idea that you could literally get a free ride, if you will, to and from the game. Like, what kind of brands are doing this? [00:06:32] S2: You see beverages do this kind of thing a lot.