Onestop rolling out screen network in residential lobbies

 

Toronto-based Onestop Media Group has branched out into a new market – setting up an ad-supported network in the lobbies of condos and apartment blocks.

 

As reported in Media in Canada, the company has done deals with seven major residential property owners, including Minto Management, Park Property Management and Berkley Property Management. The various companies own several hundred buildings in major Canadian markets. About 30 buildings in the Toronto region are already up and running and the company is talking about 200 buildings within the next 12 months, all in the same region (read: critical mass).

 

A national expansion would follow.

 

The screens are 22″ to 32″ LCDs, installed at the elevators. The screens have roughly the same layout as the ones that Onestop has operating in the city’s subway system, on the platforms. But instead of news about the next train, there is space for the building owners to get pertinent information to tenants.

The residential network currently has long-term ad deals, including category exclusivity, in place with Rogers (cable and wireless) and Shoppers Drug Mart. The arrangement has Onestop and the buildings splitting the cost of the system, Girgis told me.

 

The attraction for the buildings is they have a way to get out information that everyone should see, like the parking garage being paved, and in theory at least the number of flyers for pizza joints getting dropped in the building might go down if the market is somewhat covered by the footprint of this screen network.

 

That’s a bit more of a reach, but …

 

Onestop also has screens in major malls in a partnership with Pattison Outdoor, and works with retailer Sporting Life. The company is also the one nudging the Toronto school board on the, so-far, curious plan for ad screens that can’t really show ads, except PSAs and college recruitment stuff, in city schools.