Traditional media such as broadcast (radio & TV), print and outdoor is still very much alive and ranks high in ad-recall studies though lacks the type of campaign performance data found with New media. New Media (such as the Internet) brings with it a variety of new ways to advertise and track the performance of your campaign with relevant interaction numbers instead of educated guesstimates that are the only numbers currently available with traditional media. Outdoor media, in this case the posters or billboards you are used to seeing along roadways, bus stops and airports etc., are slowly evolving and are also embracing new technologies.
The ability to see campaign performance with new media campaigns rightly sparked marketers to ask how to better track traditional media – and we are just now seeing some tools that may help marketers answer that question effectively.
I ran across an article in The Wall Street Journal regarding outdoor media and specifically the use of wireless routers within bus shelters that allows users to download apps, ringtones, etc., while waiting for their ride to arrive.
What’s interesting is that the ad space is being augmented not by the outdoor vendors themselves (CBS / clearchannel, etc., who you would imagine would be able to develop technologies to better serve their customers) but instead by other companies that re-sell this space and charge on a per-action basis. This means we are going to start seeing tracking reports for outdoor media in the future, which should provide a much clearer idea of the interaction and impact of a campaign executed through traditional media formats.
We’ll have to see what catches on. The technology is still new and there are a variety of elements that may skew results such as malfunctioning hardware (such as wireless routers), an audience that may need to have smart phones rather than “dumb” phones as well as other variables.
If you’re interested to read about the company heavily trenched in this outdoor technology, check out Amobee, who are headquartered in Redwood City, CA.
Christian Castro
Just Media, Inc.
