Eric Steinert, CRO of Adspace
Networks, has always been in the out of home marketing and advertising sales
space. From college he joined the sales training program at News America
Marketing selling print space to packaged goods clients and gaining experience
with retail signage before joining MasterCard. From there he joined Adspace Networks
and helped to build a massive video network with the nation’s top mall
developers. According to Steinert, “the moment of truth (to make consumer
buying decisions) is in the common area of the mall. We reach the consumer when
they are in a shopping frame of mind and cannot skip the ads.”
I spoke with Steinert about his
work and company sales proposition, measurement and metrics, the impact of
cross platform on his business, the future of malls in a mall-centric business
and, looking ahead, how will his business landscape change and how will media
change in the next few years.
CW: Tell me about Adspace
Networks.
ES: In terms of impression
delivery, according to Nielsen, Adspace is the nation’s largest digital place
based video network, with distribution in over 300 malls. Adspace Networks is
mall-centric, only serving malls and shopping centers, and offers both short
form programming content and advertising to mall visitors. The content is a
variety of shopper centric features developed both in-house and provided by
outside media companies such as Hearst, AccuWeather and NowThisNews. Our content is designed to engage and inform
the shopper on their visit to the mall.
CW: What metrics do you use to
measure?
ES: We were a founding member of
the Out of Home Video Advertising Bureau (OVAB) which became the DPAA. We
collaborate with leaders in the OOH space to decide on common metrics and
nomenclature, creating formulas and standard guidelines that we can all use. We
also conduct independent research, primarily with Nielsen, to quantify the
percentage of shoppers that view our screens and recall the advertisements. Factoring in consumer notice rate, dwell time
and loop length we are able to calculate the impressions we are providing to
our advertisers, arguably our most important metric.
CW: Do you use Nielsen’s On
Location report?
ES: Yes, we’ve kept our research
updated to be a part of this report. Our
2Q15 measurement study from Nielsen also included the 140 mall food court
network we are now representing. We were
very pleased with our 2015 results, which reflect the fact that consumers are
paying attention to our screens, and recalling the advertising.
CW: How has your part of the
media industry changed since you first started?
ES: With technological advances,
it has become easier to manage the network and distribute our content and advertising
efficiently. We first started with satellite dishes on mall roofs but now use dedicated
DSL lines into each property.
CW: Do you use beacons?
ES: We are constantly testing
ways to engage with consumers in the mall space. Over the past ten years, we’ve
tested everything from text messaging to NFC to serving mobile ads in a
geofenced zone. We are now exploring
sensor technology that uses mobile location data to track a consumer’s journey
throughout the mall environment to see the impact of advertising on our network
in driving foot traffic to specific store locations.
CW: Isn’t there a privacy issue
here?
ES: There are no
privacy issues with our use of sensors. The sensor technology that we deploy only
recognizes and collects the identifying characteristics of a shopper’s mobile
device, this includes the phone’s MAC address, manufacturer and signal strength.
No personal information is collected or shared. To take privacy even a step
further, the MAC addresses collected are anonymized before they are sent to our
data partner of analysis.
CW: I have read that malls are in
trouble. Many are closing. What is your opinion regarding the future of malls
and how that will impact your business?
ES: That is a good question. Some
malls in smaller markets have struggled, but the stronger Class A malls are
absolutely thriving. Top malls operated
by Simon, General Growth Properties, Westfield and Macerich, some of our top
partners, are doing exceedingly well with strong traffic, low vacancies and
high sales per square foot figures
CW: Looking ahead to the next
five years, where do you see your part of the industry going?
ES: I see continued migration to
all things digital. The days of static posters that don’t offer the power and
impact of video or the ability to post or rotate creative instantaneously are
starting to dwindle. Top marketers are
increasingly developing quality content and advertising for placed-based
screens, further enhancing the growth of our space.
From an advertising perspective,
there is a continued shift to video agnosticism, where a piece of video is
distributed across multiple channels, be it TV, on-line video, mobile, cinema
or screens in malls. I believe we will continue to see more integrated
marketing programs that will take into account the fact that consumers are more
frequently on the go and that is increasingly important to reach your targeted
consumer wherever they may be.
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