Neo starts Booking DOOH for other networks

January 8, 2009 by Dave Haynes

Neo Advertising, the dominant digital out of home player in Europe (disclaimer: client of my guys), has launched the online media planning tool it started making some subtle noises about last year.

In a press release sent around to news wires and knuckleheads like me, Neo Managing Director and Founder Christian Vaglio-Giors says “BookingDooH’s objective is to support the entire DooH market by proposing a user-friendly platform that brings together and harmonizes different types of DooH networks, with the ultimate aim of facilitating the planning and booking process of DooH campaigns.”

The site is live and you can poke around or register as a network operator or media planner-type at www.bookingdooh.com. The site suggests it has about 3,600 screens currently available to book time to, most of that in Switzerland, where Neo is based and got its start.

BookingDooh is a free virtual marketplace where digital-out-of-home operators and media buyers meet. Screens networks are referenced in an easy-to-use and friendly manner so that media buyers can plan, book and pay their future campaigns in a few clicks.

With the launch of the BookingDooh platform, digital-out-of-home advertising is entering a new era. BookingDooH will bring additional revenues to network advertisers and at the same time allow media buyers to drastically simplify the set up of their DooH campaigns. BookingDooH proposes thousands of screen displays on a single platform and organizes them by geographical location, type of venues and screen formats.

With BookingDooH, network operators are able to promote their DooH network throughout the world and collect additional advertisement revenues. Media buyers entering the BookingDooH platform discover a Google-like platform where thousands of DooH networks are on display.

Significant changes that the new BookingDooH platform will bring to the DooH industry include:
•    Free online access
•    Unlimited number of potential clients
•    Vast choice of DooH networks
•    Instant booking from any place on earth
•    Content can be uploaded directly to the platform
•    Unique virtual marketplace to compare offers
•    New opportunities from a wide range of advertisers

BookingDooH will make its money by process the advertising insertion orders, billing and collecting the money from the media buyers, taking a commission that will be in the range of industry norms for sales rep shops, as in 20% or so.

This is European-centric but the press release makes it clear participating network operators will have global reach, so the service will compete to some degree with SeeSaw and Adcentricity. Neo also has North American operations – primarily its mall food court network that spans across most of Canada.