Gail Chiasson, North American Editor
Tuesday’s keynote speaker Gary McGuire, CEO, RMG Networks, led off the Digital Signage Investor conference with so many good points that, frankly, it was hard to choose one for a lead to this article.
Sell audience, he told the approximately 80 registrants – a slightly smaller audience than last year (unfortunately, because if last year’s conference and today’s keynote is any indicator, this is one of, if not the best of conferences of the year.)
“It takes about 10 years for any industry to mature, and the digital out-of-home industry is at that tipping point,” said McGuire. “So speak with one voice. Make DOOH easy to buy.”
McGuire forecast that 25% of the industry will be involved in mergers or acquisitions in 2011. And any company that isn’t making at least $25 million in annual revenue is either going to be sold or go out of business. RMG itself is about to announce two more acquisitions in the next few weeks. McGuire also forecast that a big company like Yahoo! or Google will expand into the digital signage sector – as will a holding company like Publicis.
A quick rundown on his talk:
- Brands are coming into the industry. The risk is gone and the top 10 advertisers in the U.S. have each spent more that $1 million in the past few months in DOOH. Advertisers want to re-engage with the industry.
- Talk to advertisers about audience. The numbers are important, things like segmentation and location are important, but audience is foremost. And don’t be afraid to pull in partners to spread the advertiser’s message.
- Active consumers are the key. Research shows that 70% of Americans are aware of digital advertising and, further, 20% of them have made a purchase as a direct result of something they’ve seen on DOOH. And as result of that, advertisers are beginning to take notice.
- Industry has to look at showing consistency and at leveraging scale and research. It’s not doing that yet. Agencies have been thinking of it as an addition to other media, not as a replacement. However, the industry is now getting it right: it has to show that it’s relevant, offer consistency and predictability, additive and easy to buy.
- If you are selling advertising, sell on the whole active consumer, not on special age groups or locations. Partner with others to offer the advertiser a full way on engaging the active consumer everywhere he/she is. Optimize your reach.
- The industry must get better about talking what it does and offers – and results with case histories. Sell the power of the media. And speak with one voice.
October 11th, 2010 at 16:46 @740
Nice summary points. But who covered or where are the investor/analysts perspectives from the conference. Where is the coverage on deal types, debt vs. equity, M&A horizons, angels versus VCs versus super angels.
I stayed back this year to see how many investors actually would show up. I thought last year’s (09) conference was lite in # of investors attending or speaking. Judging from the attendance coverage I see that less that < 10% actual investors attended out of 65 total attendees. What's going on here? How do you call an DOOH investors conference a success with so little coverage or attendees fitting that mold.
I love our industry and my fellow networks and competitors, but we all do have to step up and discuss the real success metrics in growing our industry. What do investors think of advertisers current and future pace in DOOH spending. What do advertisers think of investors? What are the investor-desired milestones for network deployment growth. etc.