From drugs to drinks, DOOH drives sales
Research by digital out-of-home operators continues to show that the medium works to increase sales in environments as diverse as hospitals, sports arenas and fast-food restaurants.
Interactivation Health Networks’ Patient Channel in the U.S., for example, says that a study conducted for one of its pharmaceutical advertisers demonstrated a five-fold return on investment (ROI) after six months and eight-fold ROI after a year.
Researcher IMS Consulting calculated the ROI by comparing the prescribing activity of doctors exposed to the Patient Channel messaging to that of a control group which didn’t see the promotions.
In percentage terms, the uplift was relatively small by digital out-of-home standards – the doctors who’d seen the ads prescribed the promoted drugs 2.1 percent more often than the control group – but the high value of the products compared with the relatively low cost of the network airtime will have combined to create the impressive-sounding ROI.
“The reason why advertising is so effective at hospital bedsids is simple — we provide marketers with a unique and differentiated platform that offers compelling and essential health content delivered at the precise moment it is needed most,” said Suzanne Fleming, Interactivation’s SVP of sales.
“Our channels provide the ideal branding environment where consumers are highly attentive, highly motivated and ready to act. Connecting brands with our hyper-focused audience is an opportunity that is hard to replicate with traditional television advertising,” she added.
Supersized sales
Much higher sales uplifts – admittedly for products of much less value – have recently been reported by clients of Allure Global Solutions, the digital out-of-home technology supplier specialising in the leisure sector, and Stratacache, which focuses on the fast-food business.
Allure used sales uplifts to clinch a deal for digital menu boards at the Georgia Dome stadium in Atlanta. The venue’s 55 concessions, operated by Levy Restaurants, have now been outfitted with 216 LCD screens showing menus and full-motion video spots – as well as crew training after hours – following a pilot last year at three outlets.
That pilot, conducted across an underperforming outlet, a normally-performing one and a flourishing one, showed double-digit sales uplifts when compared to the previous year’s figures for the same locations.
And the 80,000-seater Dome will be looking to maintain that boost to business by using the 42-inch displays to target the catering needs of each event’s distinct audience.
Said Craig K. Chapin, Allure’s president and CEO: “We can now brand the menu boards to the event they have going on, whether it be an Atlanta Falcons game, Georgia State University Football, or any other type of event. Also, we can change menus at stands on an event-by-event basis. For example, last year for the U2 concert, Levy changed a large stand from a full food-service site to a bar, then changed the [digital menu board] back instantaneously.”
But such sophisticated tweaking of content on menu boards isn’t always necessary to produce uplift: sometimes, simple promotions will do the job. For example, one user of Stratacache’s digital menu boards, based on its ActiVia for QSR software, cited a 53 percent increase in sales – toward the top of the typical range for DOOH-prompted sales uplifts – for a menu item in the first week that it was promoted on-screen.
Another Stratacache customer quoted 427 percent uplift, an exceptionally high figure, for sales of a new premium product in outlets with the digital menu boards compared with sales at sites still using printed menu boards.
Firms like Allure and Stratacache will be hoping that these gains, as well as new requirements for U.S. fast-food operators to provide nutritional information, spur more restaurants to adopt their systems.
Stratacache itself recently installed its 10,000th digital menu board and expects to reach 25,000 by the end of this year; it is investing $2m in a new Ohio production facility to handle that growth. Sales uplift, it appears, can sometimes apply to the vendors of digital-signage systems as well as their customers.
www.allureglobal.com
interactivation.com
www.stratacache.com
www.thepatientchannel.com
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DOOH Continues To Go Mainstream
Posted 29/07/10 20:32 by J.R. Howard of A2aMEDIA
The study from IMS Consulting demonstrates yet again how quickly digital out-of-home is pervading the advertising landscape. It’s clear that digital signage is no longer tied to sports stadiums or digital billboards alone—research has demonstrated time and again that the medium provides sales uplift across venues. Over the past year we’ve seen advertisers use digital signage across locations—from hospitals and retail outlets to parking garages and offices—with lots of success. This study is just more validation that digital signage and DOOH cannot be segmented into any one venue, but are becoming a great option for advertisers across locations. For further discussion of digital signage, advertising and related topics follow us @A2aMEDIA.