Get to Know Digital Networks
Last month I was in San Francisco for the Salesforce.com Dreamforce ’07 conference when I stopped in a small pizza shop for lunch. It looked just like any restaurant I’d visited on the East Coast, with one key difference: something on the checkout counter that caught my eye.
Next to the register, which was probably older than I was, was a digital screen flashing advertisements. Even that, however, is something I’ve seen before. What I thought was most innovative was that every ad displayed a keyword and text-message number to find out more information. Even if I wasn’t attending a marketing and sales conference, that would have gotten my attention. The practice of installing screens everywhere from restaurants to malls to airports isn’t new, but the digital signage industry is growing rapidly.
As the article in this week’s Marketing X-Factor points out, digital out-of-home advertising is following consumers in places they couldn’t be reached before. In the October 8 issue of 1to1 Weekly, the second part of the story will detail measuring success and the phenomenon of marketing to a captive (literally) audience. A segment of digital sign networks specialize in grabbing customers’ attention when they have nowhere else to go (office building elevators, for example).
What some have called the “fourth screen” is catching up in popularity to mobile devices on marketers’ radar. Do you utilize digital sign networks to reach consumers? Do you think it’s an effective use of marketing dollars? Is there anywhere advertising won’t one day reach?
