Wallspace Effect-the New Billboard Channel

Marketers Turn Vacant Storefronts In Mall Into Ad Venues

Full article composed by Sarah Mahoney at Media Post's Marketing Daily.

The economy has been especially punishing for retailers, with such chains as The Sharper Image and Levitz filing for bankruptcy, others like Linens 'n' Things teetering on the edge, and dozens more -- including Zales, Ann Taylor, and Talbots...

In the first quarter of this year, the International Council of Shopping Centers says that of the 28 retail chains it tracks, there have been 2,122 store closings, with 38% in apparel, followed by 30% in home entertainment.

So WindowGain, a start-up based in Newton, Mass., has pounced on store vacancies as a new ad medium, with five displays currently running in Boston and eight in the UK. "We have our in-house staff securing high-traffic and high-demographic locations," says COO Prem Hira and then selling the ads to marketers, typically in four-week flights. But given the softness in retailing, "we also offer incentives for longer-term contracts. To date, our longest campaign is 16 months."
The business model is like any other out-of-home advertising company, he says. "We sell advertising time on our digital displays, and we compensate the real estate owners with a fixed monthly fee or a revenue share."
"We all know that traditional advertising is shrinking, and that alternative - including digital and out-of-home-advertising is growing," says Marc Feldman, VP/new business development at Developers Diversified Realty (DDR), a Beachwood, Ohio-based commercial real-estate company that has just entered an agreement to bring window displays to about 75 properties in the next 15 months. "Companies need to reach people where they are. People are spending more and more time at the mall, and our traffic numbers show that," he says. "So this is an innovative way to reach them. When people look in windows, they expect to see things."
Feldman says the technology is especially appealing for marketers with creative that has plenty of movement. "It looks really great when you see fish swimming or balls bouncing," he says. Boston sites have featured sea monsters (from the New England Aquarium), twirling cell phones (Verizon) and even windows (the Museum of Fine Arts Boston recently had an Edward Hopper exhibit, and its display used a moving version of what may be the most famous storefront art ever-the artist's 1942 "Nighthawks.") Right now, DDR, with about 740 properties throughout the U.S. and internationally, is rolling new ads out in its Atlanta properties.

"Ground-floor digital displays are ideal for just about any brand that wants to reach people on the go," adds Hira. Benefits specific to digital displays include real-time information. For example, the Boston.com spots actually pull news, weather, etc. from the boston.com web site.
The economy's loss may well be a boon for companies like WindowGain. The International Council of Shopping Centers predicts that store closings may total 6,500 for 2008, or about 1% of existing stores, which would be the highest since 2001.

Windowgain has a solid foundation and I expect that they will continue to do very well. Reaching the consumer on the move-window shopping-driving by-that is the goal and a smart target to focus on for advertisers.........I do want to mention that I first heard of this company at Digital Signage News Blog

Visit Windowgain to view the entire story.

Billboards Are Sticking Around-With or Without Glue

Billboards are sticking around - with or without glue

Simon Marquis (an advertising industry consultant and a former chairman of Zenith Optimedia)
The Guardian
Monday October 29 2007


One of the curiosities of advertising in our souped-up, interactive, digital age is the enduring popularity of poster advertising.

Even the glue is new. I enjoy hearing broadcasters, media buyers and planners and other advertising professionals gripe about the cost and rates attached to Outdoor. Sold out in many markets (so they claim), well then just sell by Q or even a few weeks for a whisper campaign or product launch....or you know something of that nature. OOH has worked hard and I'll let the professional tell the rest, as he has the knowledge, wisdom, insight, and character that I look up too-even if they are

As the internet devours ever greater chunks of the advertising cake each year, you might have thought that dear old-fashioned billboards would be the first to suffer. Not a bit. Outdoor (or Out of Home, as it has become more properly known to reflect the multiplicity of advertising opportunities) is positively bouncing with health, while other established media are fighting hard just to stand still. A medium characterised by such hi-tech wizardry as blokes on ladders with pots of glue and very large sheets of printed paper still cuts a dash in today's online world.
There are many reasons for this. For one thing, the medium is less and less about blokes on ladders. Many of the media that now qualify for the category Out of Home are themselves digital (escalator panels in some London underground stations for example). Others (taxis, toilets, health centres, trains, boats and planes, supermarkets, the backs of buses, airports - you name it) are modern media operations that don't require an overalled labour force armed with gluey brushes.
And there are brand new techniques of installing advertising images on to poster sites: leading outdoor company JC Decaux has recently launched its "dry-posting" technology in which new ads are posted without glue and in one piece - a palpable efficiency and one that the company believes is the most significant advance in the medium for decades.
Then there are the sites themselves. Long gone are the days when posters were just 10ft by 20ft panels with a simple wooden surround. Travel out of London towards Heathrow airport and you'll see a variety of shapes and sizes of poster site, housed in elaborate architectural constructions that draw the eye. Even St Paul's church in Hammersmith has become a massive poster site thanks to the inventiveness of Ocean Outdoor, one of the smaller, newer outdoor companies.

This investment in quality presentation has kept the medium fresh and attractive to advertisers - and has proved highly effective in justifying the premium rates that can be charged for access to the huge audiences that these sorts of high-traffic locations generate. Innovation in any advertising medium is essential to its continuing popularity with advertisers and agencies.

After calls for outdoor to get its act together, the medium has responded with vigour, creativity - and money - and has reaped the rewards.

I really enjoyed the story that Simon wrote! I am posting this along with a few others sometime after they were released-due to not blogging for a bit. I am going to complain this one time-my computer has been fried-from my own doing (I will take blame, until I know otherwise from the IT folks). Okay, a bit less than three weeks ago, I left my laptop in the car all weekend-the weekend I went to the zoo (for those of you who want to know)....after being warned that heat can damage the HD so that it has to be reformated or worse if things melt....anyways it is in the shop.....for 8 days now, and I am excited to be looking for a new laptop. The simple things in life create an atmosphere for my happiness. (Not that a computer is simple, it has just become part of my daily life. Leaving that perception of a laptop being simple, to me it is, but 10 years ago, the perception was not even including a calculator). All of this to say that the media world is changing, being part of Y and even X (as a witness of sorts) a rapid transformation is taking place-and I lead it all back to advertising-yes the "great" media shift is due to "great" (and I mean that) advertising and marketing ideas, campaigns, giants, thinkers and the like.

"The trusted desktop-which I rarely turn on-gets the job done-and I am enjoying not being pluged-in everywhere I go, although I need to be in some cases...I speak of those 2 days a week, even three or four some weeks" DE

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Brandless Ads from Suncom

A follow up on my last few post about carriers.....Suncom managed to get press from the billboards mentioned in this article from last year. Not the best PR though...

SunCom pitches new call plan

Mystery ads after loss of customers

John Murawski, Staff Writer

March 6th, 2006

The wireless company that lost 60,000 customers in North Carolina last year introduced the new plan Tuesday with advertising that deliberately omitted the company's name. SunCom has been running 14 billboards in Raleigh and Durham since last week that pose the question: "Who will your 10 be?" Six area television stations have run similar ads.

"The rationale behind the brandless ads is to build curiosity and suspense. It's form of interactive advertising, to get the public engaged in a guessing game. But it's anyone's guess whether such ads succeed or get tuned out, said Bob Lauterborn, a professor of advertising at UNC-Chapel Hill. Lauterborn hasn't seen the SunCom ads, but he says their effectiveness is dubious.

"There's this dopey assumption that people are watching your campaign and eagerly awaiting your next ad in the series," Lauterborn said. "C'mon, people are too busy. In today's world, people are not breathlessly waiting for your bloody ad."

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Virgin Mobile Changes Branding Tactics via Billboards

Virgin Mobile Changes Branding Tactics via Billboards
May 29, 2007By Kamau High
Adweek NEW YORK --

Virgin Mobile's first work from Havas' McKinney, now rolling out in New York, proclaims, simply, yet boldly, "You rule."The effort praises famed neighborhoods including Bed-Stuy, Chinatown and Hell's Kitchen with copy such as, "Presenting an idea as awesome as you: plans without annual contracts." There are also more generic iterations ("Car-service drivers, you rule") designed for posting in any area."We've attempted to change the conversation about wireless," said client CMO Howard Handler. "We like to say that our customers are in control."By the time the last sign goes up, within the next two weeks, there will be a total of 350 ads on bus shelters, phone kiosks, billboards and walls in New York.The campaign's print component is slated to run in Cosmopolitan, Vibe and the New York Post.In addition, the "You rule" concept will be featured on product packaging and the company's Web site, virginmobileusa.com.Other U.S. cities, as yet undisclosed, will get the "You rule" sign treatment later this year."This is a campaign that transcends localization. In the other cities, we'll maintain the notion of speaking directly to people," said Handler. "We're trying to celebrate the power of the individual and their ability to control their phones."McKinney, based in Durham, N.C., won the $15 million creative account earlier this year after a review. New York's Mother, the incumbent, declined to participate."This work was inspired by the truth that most cell phone providers want customers to make a commitment to them, and Virgin Mobile is all about making a commitment to its customers," said Jeff Jones, McKinney president.Virgin Mobile spent $16 million on advertising in 2006, per TNS.