Digicom [1], the UK’s leading independent digital out of home sales house – come on guys you are in fact the UK’s ONLY independent media sales house, Ed announced today that it has been appointed by Fitzgerald Shurey Tarbuck (FST) and Simply Media Salon TV to sell advertising across both TONI&GUY TV & Simply Salon TV networks.
[2]Back in March 2009 after the demise of i-vu, FST and Simply Media entered into their own partnership [3] – Simply Media were to handle agency requests for TONI&GUY.TV alongside their own networks (Simply Salon TV and of course the resurrected remnants of i-vu).
We said at the time that “this is obviously an incredibly sensible move and one that would have made sense had the arrogance of the previous i-vu’s management had allowed earlier”.
This new deal with Digicom is an even smarter one – even though it may in fact be a tacit admission of failure by Simply Media media sales folks to have made any measurable impact on the market since March 2009.
In March 2009 this ‘partnership’ was touting 5,125 screens and 6.2 Million impacts (in any two week period) so it’s interesting to see Digicom now quote a network of over 3,700 screens in 570 high-end salons and a much more realistic 1.26 million impacts across the same period!
Why do we wonder that sometimes our industry does so poorly when facts and figures are quoted so willy-nilly. Knowing the Digicom people as we do they will have undoubtedly done their due diligence and we can rest assured that these new figures are accurate.
What damage over-inflated figures do to the digital industry and any respect that media buyers and planners have for us is anyone’s guess though.
Anyway, the Digicom press release goes on to say that “Together these networks provide an unrivalled way for advertisers to communicate with a desirable captive audience of hard-to-reach 25-34 year-old ABC1s”
The vast majority of whom are women of course and are in a receptive and indulgent mindset with an average visit lasting 90 minutes!
Tom Goddard, Digicom Executive Chairman told us “We are delighted to partner with both these excellent networks and to make the opportunities easily accessible and fully accountable for advertisers. Together they provide a unique opportunity for national brands to reach a highly desirable audience, traditionally one that is very hard to reach, and certainly one that is almost impossible to access in the receptive, focussed mindset that they are in when visiting these salons for beauty treatments.”
We wouldn’t necessarily say that the networks were ‘excellent’ – many of them have a lot of work to do and they need to gain credibility both with the hair salons themselves and the media buying and brand communities.
Mind you if anyone can do that then Digicom can. These contracts of course add to Digicom’s growing stable of high quality networks including Amscreen’s BP Connect, Healthcare and the Powerleague opportunities.
3 Comments To "Digicom Wins More New Business"
#1 Comment By ‘Total Horse’ On 7 January 2010 @ 12:49 @576
So, they’re now “high quality” are they? Here’s me thinking that you spent most of last year slagging them off!
#2 Comment By Adrian J Cotterill, Editor-in-Chief On 7 January 2010 @ 17:07 @755
Pferd, you are mistaken. I believe we have criticised Digicom once or twice but ‘slagging them off’ never. Maybe you confuse them with Amscreen – again a company we admire but not for their screen design!
Digicom made a big thing before they launched that they would only take on quality networks – we questioned that with some of their business but hey! we understand that business is business and there is no doubting that Tom Goddard has assembled a first class team of people.
Digicom has the ability to help many networks improve standards and accountability and we are confident that folks will see big improvement in all
aspects of the salon vertical over the next two years on the back of their efforts.
#3 Comment By Jon Southcombe On 8 January 2010 @ 18:01 @792
As it’s the start of 2010 and we are all excited about what this year holds in store – I felt that we could not let it go by unchallenged that DigiCom are somehow now being referred to consistantly as the ‘only independant’ outfit in town…
abc media group has remained independent for the past 6 years and we now represent over 10,000 stores with extremely high quality digital screen and audio networks (including Europe’s largest screen network within the Co-operative; WHSmith, Martin McColls, The Post Office, Thomsons, etc…).
We also operate the leading and award winning ‘planning platform’ [planmymedia.com] for people wishing to engage with digital and multi-channel traditional media across our expanding portfolio. [This is a platform which can be used under license by anyone in our industry by the way!]
Our advertisers certainly appear to welcome the ability to negotiate on an aggregated national scale. We had a record month in December to seal the cap on yet another wonderful year of growth…
We announced this week that we have invested in a new Senior Sales Manager [Richard Rowley] who has joined us with a very strong pedigree in out of home – and more announcements coming soon!!!