Out of Home is Smart-The OVAB!

Ah, I have a special place in my heart for out-of-home media. In many markets out-of-home has become highly demanded, thus climbing up the food chain. After years of hard work and technology advances the industry is gaining footing and rates are going up as inventory becomes more demanded and available at the same time. Digital billboards, D-EPs, wallscapes, digital signage networks, placed based TV (video), street teams, mobile billboards, posters, movie theater advertising, and sampling are some of the valuable and must have outlets for a brand that wants a well rounded and diverse campaign on a national, regional and local level. As TV ratings decline; newspapers get sold, move online, and lose overall readership, the demand for OOH in some markets is sky rocketing. Companies such as Fairway, Adams Outdoor and Lamar have rasied thier rates to fit the demand, and extra resources they are using (including the purchase of digital billboards and the staff to operate these systems). The article below is about the OVAB tapping into the cable industry and the leveraging of cable's not so long ago past of being a "new channel" and successfully moving through the phases of entering the market. Educating the buying community, while still selling the "media" is a common challenge that was faced by both cable and the internet and now narrowcast out-of-home networks (dgital or video). Narrowcast networks are very similar to cable in terms of targeting, but not in creative (at least not digital signage)-it makes sense that a cable veteran would be an ideal hire for any of these networks, if coupled with other professionals that can work as a team using strengths of each executive to build out the network from deployment to content to sales and operation. It just makes sense. I am a little confused about why the OVAB is not both video and digital (I may be uneducated here?)-I hear very different opinions about engagement and the content on these networks. It may be that measurement of these networks can be weighted based on the content matching the demographic.

MediaBuyerPlanner: The newly formed Out-of-Home Video Advertising Bureau has tapped a top executive from Comcast's TV ad sales organization as its first president.

Kim Norris, formerly division vice president at Comcast Spotlight, worked closely with the Cabletelevision Advertising Bureau during the early years of cable when the new medium was struggling to get on base with Madison Ave, writes MediaPost. Norris plans to follow a similar game plan - which would call for setting standards and developing research that would make disparate out-of-home networks comparable and easy to understand and buy - to establish the OVAB.

Norris's appointment comes a day after Reactrix, a digital out-of-home media company, also named a well-know cable TV sales vet as president. Sue Danaher, most recently one of the top sales executives at MTV Networks, is a veteran of cable's pioneering days at Turner Broadcasting.
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