PRN Upfront

PRN ^[1] held its second annual Upfront in New York last night, and I can truthfully say that it is one of the better ‘selling’ jobs by a company in the ad business that I’ve seen in a long time.

The PRN team was out in force, of course, starting with Richard Fisher, president and CEO, and all the key executives and sales personnel from San Francisco, New York, Chicago, and Marietta, Georgia. The Highline Ballroom was decked out with various PRN screens. The audience numbered about 250 – double the first event a year ago. The show was crisp, short and to the point, backed by interesting facts and figures on the screen, and hosted by actor Jonathan Brooks.

And the show was capped by a good half-hour performance by The Bare Naked Ladies ^[3], who not only got the audience involved in its hit If I Had A Million Dollars, but also performed a song entirely about PRN and the digital signage advertising business. I do hope somebody recorded it in full. Ed.

A key announcement was the addition of Meije ^[4]r and BJ’s ^[5] chains to the PRN networks, bringing the company’s reach to 97% of the U.S. market and 175 million commercial viewers monthly.

Basing the sales pitch on the individual ‘Me’ (cleverly part of ‘me-dia’), company executives quickly ran through the way that its various retail dining TV, TV wall, and check-out TV networks engage consumers – accompanied with graphics and figures. PRN will also have some new offerings in the months ahead, we were told.

PRN management was keeping the amount of new businesses generated last year and this by the Upfronts to itself. “We don’t want to upset and worry our competitors,” we were told. “And this show is more to build awareness than anything.”

Although the evening was mainly for agencies and advertisers, I personally didn’t meet many although they must have been there. We did chat with Stephen Randall, celebrating LocaModa ^[7]’s recently announced new partnership with PRN ^[8]. And interestingly we had a lengthy chat with several investors “here to learn more about the business.”

All in all, I’d say that PRN did itself proud!