Agency giant's strategist looking for less hype, more action

November 21, 2007 by Dave Haynes

UK blogger Adrian Cotterill is in India at a conference, so he may not pick up on this bit from an Institute of Practitioners in Advertising conference in London this week. So I will.

The chief strategy officer for Mediacom, part of the mammoth WPP worldwide agency group, told digital out-of-home she is looking for less hype and more action.

“Don’t just do it [digital OOH] because you can,” said Sue Unerman, as reported on mad.co.uk. “We have all heard the hype and seen the investment … We now want to start to see some real case studies putting it into action.”

Speaking to about 250 people, she joined the chorus of agency people urging our mob to develop some real research and analysis.

Truly capturing behavioural targeting, propelled by great copy, was also on Unerman’s wish list for the medium. Using the example of buses emerging with advertising panels linked to a GPS system, the CSO recognised the potential to have targeted messages based on where the bus is driving, could open the door to lots of engaging ads.

The story also reports on strong and sustained growth in digital by CBS Outdoor (UK) and nearly 50 per cent growth in that sector as a whole.

Unerman also said an interesting thing I had not bumped into, or thought about, before.

Unerman tempered the flag waving slightly by suggesting that the growth of PDAs and iPods was proof that actual dwell time out-of-home is diminishing.

Oh Lord, another thing that needs to get measured …

  1. I did indeed miss out on this conference, which had some great speakers and an incredibly long waiting list for delegates such was the excitement about the event…

    …the cynic in me would reply to Sue Unerman “why innovate when you can do the same thing your industry has done for the past 10 years?”

    We keep hearing this story from the poster specialists and other out of home media buyers and planners – prove the medium works and we will throw advertising spend your way!!! They don’t require that level of proof with traditional media – in many cases (IMHO) it is just an excuse for not adopting something new that they don’t quite want to understand.

    The GPS equipped bus is often thrown up as an example. It’s clever, not practical and not a good measure of what the DOOH industry can, will and is delivering.

  2. fhb418 says:

    Unerman tempered the flag waving slightly by suggesting that the growth of PDAs and iPods was proof that actual dwell time out-of-home is diminishing.

    Oh Lord, another thing that needs to get measured …

    ==============

    I recently wrote a post about this issue
    http://adnmontreal.wordpress.com/2007/11/02/blog-jadn-popularite-des-lecteurs-video-portables-et-impact-sur-laffichage-numerique/
    It’s in French for JADN.TV but I’ll translate it son enough.

    I was basically saying that DS networks displaying news and general content will have more and more difficulty to compete with personal video players where u watch what u choosed. It may call for more specific and location-specific content, something you need here and now.

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