Reality Check, 5 Years In, $7.5M Later: What’s Happening to Real-Time Audience Measurement for OOH?
The hunger for real-time measurement and intelligence for OOH/DOOH is at a tipping point. To contextualize this current exponential demand curve, AdMobilize’s sales have grown about 1,100% over the last 2 years. As a serial tech entrepreneur, I know that all technological breakthroughs go through a period of intense resistance, and then the market realizes that the new promised advancements can scale and actually do two things: maximize profits and/or improve efficiencies.
It’s hard to grasp that AdMobilize was launched 5 years ago with a clear mission: to provide real-time measurement and proof-of-performance analytics for Out-of-Home and digital signage. AdMobilize has raised over $7.5M in venture capital, and we have grown from a single employee (myself) to over 40 employees in 4 global offices (US/Headquarters, UK, Colombia, Brazil). Our solutions are now deployed in 82 countries (over 470 cities) and used by hundreds of clients; ranging from multi-billion dollar OOH operators, to experiential marketing agencies, retailers, integrators, and audience measurement associations, to name a few. I am sharing these stats to provide you with “insider-type” evidence of what the market is telling us.
I have always been obsessed about increasing revenues through utilization of data. Earlier in my career, and immediately after graduating from the Hotel School at Cornell University, I was charged to lead innovation at The Breakers in Palm Beach; one of America’s most iconic and profitable hotels.
How do you increase revenues by 20–50% when you have a restrained asset base?
How do you increase revenues per available room when you only have 500 keys?
How do you catapult advertising revenue per available digital screen with capped inventories?
It’s called yielding, but most of you already know that concept well. Revenue Management is commonplace in mammoth industries like the transportation and hospitality industries, as well as DOOH’s frenemy, the mobile/PC advertising industries. Everyone is trying to sell the most amount of ads (ie:. seats, rooms) per available asset, per length of time, while optimizing the rate.
The “secret ingredient” and the ultimate enabler is data. Back in 1999, yield management for the hospitality industry was done with pen and paper, maybe Excel for those earliest adopters. Market conditions changed fast with an explosion in personal computer sales, and people suddenly were connecting to the Internet. What followed, entrepreneurs began hiring the smartest computer scientists available, who implemented accurate data-capture mechanisms, developed algorithms that became increasingly more sophisticated, and launched platforms which enabled data to fuel decision making. Decisions were now driven by real-time data! It was a typical “Crossing the Chasm” scenario. Those early adopters were increasingly embracing the new thinking, proof points were achieved, and evidence-centric results enabled the eventual scalability of smarter revenue models. At that point the early majority embraced the “new normal.”
According to Future Marketing Insights, the digital-out-of-home industry is projected to grow at a healthy 11% CAGR through 2028. Similar uptick forecasts exist for the entire supply chain serving the digital signage industry.
AdMobilize is obviously bullish on the exponential growth of our industry and our sole focus has been solving the audience measurement scalability/adoption piece. When you compare the current state of OOH to the mobile and PC advertising spend explosion, we believe these things need to happen first:
Upon achieving the above-mentioned, we subscribe that OOH spend will move beyond the 4% mark. According to MAGNA, the total US ad buying spend will be $197B in 2018, while DOOH/OOH’s share will reach $7.9B (4%), growing at 2.1%. To significantly move this revenue needle, an inflection point needs to happen:
This “inflection point” (checklist above) occurred for the PC and subsequently the mobile advertising ecosystems. OOH is poised to follow the same footsteps but it will take continued collaboration, and most importantly, industry courage; to unlock OOH/DOOH to reap the benefits of this technological adoption curve.
Over the past 12 months, AdMobilize has seen a massive shift on how billboard operators, agencies, and digital signage integrators view the importance of audience measurement in OOH/DOOH. The OOH industry has a lot of smart people, with a large portion of executives who clearly understand the inner workings of the online advertising medium.
Our goal at AdMobilize is to bridge the online with the physical world, by providing the most complete cutting-edge audience measurement platform. We have developed our computer vision solutions based on already widely-understood measurement platforms existent in online advertising. The infographic below highlights our thinking:
By enabling OOH to operate, sell, and measure like our PC/Mobile digital advertising counterparts, we will be leveling the playing field. Thus, making it seamless for brands and agencies to massively adopt DOOH.
On my next thought piece, I will dig deeper on how companies globally are successfully (and not successfully) integrating and scaling audience measurement to unlock their revenues and also provide real-time data transparency to brands.
We would love to be of value in helping you reach your goals, feel free to reach me or our team at: info@admobilize.com. Customer service is of utmost importance at AdMobilize, a key part of our DNA, stemming from my earlier luxury hospitality days. Our team speaks 10 languages and are ready to serve you and the industry.
Kindly,
Rodolfo Saccoman
CEO & Co-Founder, AdMobilize
About AdMobilize
AdMobilize, headquartered in Miami, FL with offices in London, UK, Bogota, Colombia, Sao Paulo, Brazil is a venture-backed AI company with seamless solutions for implementing advanced computer vision technologies in the brick and mortar world. The company has one clear mission; connecting the physical world to the online grid. Our “drop in” solutions yield to each customer’s hardware/software needs. AdMobilize’s suite of analytics and engagement products are designed to be “Plug and Measure”, enabling real-time audience analytics and intelligence to be instantly activated at scale on any software/hardware platform. AdMobilize offers the industry’s most complete and accurate analytics/engagement solution for digital signage, OOH, DOOH, retail, live events, small business, malls, restaurants, and beyond. For more information, please visit www.admobilize.com.
