Digital Signage Today
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.
00:06:32 · Chris Grosso, Daniel Brown
[00:06:32] S2: You see beverages do this kind of thing a lot. [00:06:34] S1: We see this rise not only in the ad targeting and programmatic or PDOH, but I'm seeing so much about the AI integrations. And, of course, that's the big buzzword is artificial intelligence. How is that changing the game here?
00:06:47 · Chris Grosso
[00:06:47] S2: Well, you know, I haven't seen a lot of AI in out of home specific to to sports yet, but what you are seeing with AI is in the customization of advertising, on digital signage at scale in a way that you were never able to do before. And what I mean by that is, you know, every time you make a creative, you need, you know, you need a person to create that different pieces of creative. With some of the more generative AI tools, you can make hundreds and hundreds of pieces of creative that are highly customized. And you can start to imagine ways that could tie into sports as well. But at minimum, is there a world where, say, we have... In New York, we have 2,000 link WiFi kiosks. There could be a world where every one of those units has a customized piece of art from a sponsor that's highly tailored to that individual block or individual neighborhood. That's something you never could do before. And I don't have a immediate answer on how that applies to football, but, you know, you could certainly see ways of using that kind of customization power to customize content highly tied to the fans themselves. And again, you know, what's beautiful about sports is it's one of the few things in today's society that everyone in a community can rally around, which I think is really what makes it so special. You know, there's pretty consistent, you know, if you're in Philadelphia, you're gonna root for the, you know, for the large park, gonna root for the Eagles, and nothing can bring a city together in a productive way like a sports team's run towards a championship. So it's just, as someone who looks at cities, spends time in cities, and and thinks about cities a lot, you know, these sports teams play a hugely valuable role in in bringing people together, and that's something that's... You know, doesn't always happen in in today's world.
00:08:40 · Daniel Brown, Chris Grosso
[00:08:40] S1: And the power of local communities. And what strikes me hearing you talk about even the... Some of the AI generated content making it more affordable. I'm thinking, okay. We're seeing a mass movement towards the democratization of the digital signage and advertising landscape for small to mediums, indies, mom and pops. So I'm thinking, well, if I own a little, you know, bar and grill near the stadium, suddenly maybe I can, start profiting and leveraging from this in the same way that, one of the big beverage companies is, and that further builds the local community and puts money back into the local community. [00:09:11] S2: Yeah. No. I think that that's very, very much true. And I think one of the the real opportunities for for marketers when they're supporting the transit or the street furniture or or some of these other advertising categories is that the media investment people are making is immediately going back to the community. So whether it's us or JCDecaux does this, Outfront does this as well, it's not just us, but a lot of times, collect that revenue, a lot of that revenue goes right directly back to the community in terms of literally cash payments. And another big chunk of that revenue will go to fund critical amenities like the bus shelters, like the free WiFi, like the digital communication networks. So, you know, it's a way for brands to really, really support these communities in a positive way.
00:09:11 · Chris Grosso, Daniel Brown
[00:09:11] S2: Yeah. No. I think that that's very, very much true. And I think one of the the real opportunities for for marketers when they're supporting the transit or the street furniture or or some of these other advertising categories is that the media investment people are making is immediately going back to the community. So whether it's us or JCDecaux does this, Outfront does this as well, it's not just us, but a lot of times, collect that revenue, a lot of that revenue goes right directly back to the community in terms of literally cash payments. And another big chunk of that revenue will go to fund critical amenities like the bus shelters, like the free WiFi, like the digital communication networks. So, you know, it's a way for brands to really, really support these communities in a positive way. [00:10:00] S1: That's brilliant. We were just talking to, in Spokane, we were talking to the public facilities department about how, you know, it's it's not a for profit thing when they bring in these big concerts to the public arenas. It's it's how they're funding the infrastructure, and that benefits everybody in the local community. And I think that's a very powerful thing. Now in terms of the technology used, are we talking about epaper? Are we talking about traditional LEDs? Is it some kind of mix? In terms
00:10:26 · Chris Grosso
[00:10:26] S2: of our signage? Yeah. You know, I think, look, there's two big buckets. Right? I mean, we'll do traditional LEDs that could be both small format or large format. LEDs is is kind of our... You know, that's kind of the bread and butter of our digital business. But there's also just the traditional static printed advertising that also works well. But, you know, what we've been able to do and what the industry has been able to do is overlay digital technology on the printed ads so that, you know, we have a sense based on the digital mobile devices that data that you can get from third parties in a privacy friendly way to understand who's actually seeing the ad and what they do afterwards. What's really interesting, and again, I think this is the medium and the locations more than anything, is that every time we looked at whether or not people who've seen ads and interacted with the ads and what they've done afterwards, these ads have huge performance in terms of driving online behavior. People see the ad, they might see the ad digitally, they might see the ad static, but then they will take an online action afterwards. So it's a very valuable way for brands to acquire customers, build relationships with customers and acquire customers as well. And that goes beyond both the digital sign for sure, but also even the traditional printed sign as well.