The SCREENS.tv Blog

From DiFranza to Dubya: more stuff to shock and awe (0)

 

“All content goes mobile. News media that survive will move to the subscription model, in whole or in part. Connecting remote data to people and things in real time will lead to a series of exciting new devices and applications.” Heard it all before? Well, the predictions of Strategic News Service CEO Mark Anderson may have a touch of the...um, predictable about them at times, but they're worth checking out if only for the way they locate digital out-of-home developments in broader technological, business and social shifts.

(Too late for predictions, you say? Au contraire; just be glad we held back from bringing them to you at the end of last year, when – as every December – it was impossible to fight your way through the Web or the newspaper for all the retrospectives and forecasts.)

“From bad economies spring new media channels,” writes Mike DiFranza of Captivate Network and OVAB on FT.com. (You'll have to register. But surely you can't wait to know why the bad news is good...)

NEC's viewer-recognition technology is now “pretty good at getting within ten years of a consumer’s age”, according to the StorefrontBacktalk blog, although the firm expects to find it harder outside Japan, where physical traits are more uniform than in much of the world.

“The ability to use video billboards as a broadcast platform is transforming the way marketers look at Clear Channel Outdoor,” says John Partilla, executive VP and president of global media sales at the firm. Among those embracing the medium – and taking advantage of Clear Channel's range of other media too – are movie companies including Disney, Fox, Lionsgate Entertainment, Sony Pictures and Warner Brothers.

Yeah, it's a press release, but it's one with an unusually large implication: that instead of nibbling at the edges of big brands' ad budgets, as it so far does in most sectors, DOOH is ideally positioned to take a large bite out of the film industry's.

And just in case you doubted the power of (non-digital) outdoor: “A single billboard in rural Minnesota with the words 'Miss Me Yet' and a photo of President Bush was enough to start a national conversation,” reports the Christian Science Monitor.

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