At our #DSInvestor conference back in October in New York John Muszynski, chief investment officer, Starcom MediaVest Group Exchange [1] said “Digital Out-of-Home isn’t the easiest media to buy” and almost in the same breath gave a particularly glowing reference to NEC’s VUKUNET solution.
It wasn’t the only mention for VUKUNET at the conference, or indeed that week as the solution was an often mentioned subject by speakers and panelists at the DPAA Digital Media Summit as well.
So let’s take a quick look at where VUKUNET stands at the moment:-
- Whilst many online planning tools / aggregators have come and gone (SeeSaw [2], BookingDooh, etc), some have never got off the ground / got going (SelfAdvert [3], Ngage [4]) and some were announced but have never really seen the light of day (Symphony [5]) it’s clear that NEC (a typical Japanese company in this instance) are in this business for the long haul
- When initially launched in North America, VUKUNET did not get off to a particularly good start but (to their credit) they have stuck with it, are starting to be taken seriously, are getting a lot more traction, have hired well in Europe [6], and as we will see below, in a minute, are now running campaigns through their European business
We had notice Monday that Germany and the UK are the first countries where selected partner companies have been testing the ad serving platform for some time now and it seems, have been overwhelmingly positive with their praise.
- OMG Outdoor, the Omnicom Media Group agency specialising in all out-of-home media, has already launched the first advertising campaign on VUKUNET in Germany. The customer is BRIGITTE, Germany’s leading women’s magazine and more than 607 branches of the supermarket chain EDEKA (a Neo Advertising network) are now showing BRIGITTE ad spots across the country – either placed at entrances and tills or centrally positioned in the supermarket. The ads, we are told, borrow their design from the magazine’s own ad campaign
- Wonderworks Walkway Media Ltd. is VUKUNET’s first partner in the UK. The company operates a wide-ranging digital out-of-home network of more than 30 shopping centres across the country. Wonderworks Walkway Media Ltd. aims to have one of the largest DOOH portfolios in the country’s malls by the end of the year
Matthias Grawitter, Managing Director of OMG Outdoor told us “The VUKUNET platform from NEC gives customers like BRIGITTE clear benefits. The new solution simplifies processes to enable national campaigns to be planned faster and more transparently than ever before. We hope to see the platform set new standards in external digital advertising.”
DOOH network operators can register at http://english.vukunet.com [7]; media agencies can access VUKUNET at http://english.advuku.vukunet.com [8].