Elevator Giant Schindler Expands Its Own DOOH Media Network Via EU Partners
April 25, 2024 by Dave Haynes
I found my way into the very nascent digital signage and DOOH sectors 25 years ago, puzzling the hell out of my daily newspaper colleagues by saying I was leaving the business to join a start-up that was putting ad-driven information screens in office tower elevators.
Back then, the big international companies that manufactured, installed and service elevators looked at what we were doing as a bit nutty – but also a new revenue stream for them, charging extortion-grade labor rates to take elevators out of service and mostly stand around watching us put the gear in place.
So it is interesting to see, all these years later, one of the biggest global manufacturers of elevators expanding its business of putting ad-driven screens, that it owns, in elevators.
The Swiss elevator manufacturer Schindler has what it calls the Schindler Media Network, and, as reported by my friends at invidis, now has screens it owns and manages in the elevators of high-rise residences, hotels and office towers in Germany, Switzerland and Austria.
A partnership with the Berlin media company Framen sees them selling ads for Schindler Media Network displays in Austrian hotels, while another German media company, Hygh, sells into residential and office buildings. The media network is even tied into programmatic platforms like Hivestack, Broadsign and Viooh. There are some 650 screens in roughly 100 residential buildings sold by Hygh.
Schindler launched the network in 2021, and along with media startups like Framen, works with well-established OOH companies like Ströer in Germany and APG|SGA in Switzerland.
The Canadian OOH media company Pattison has screens in building elevators, and there are also some smaller companies doing similar work, but the US and Canadian markets are dominated by Captivate, which has been at it since the late 1990s (and was shotgun-married/merged by VCs with Elevator News Network back in 2001).
The elevator manufacturing and servicing companies that work the North American market, as far as I know, have stayed out of the media business … though Otis, again back 25 years ago, briefly partnered on the idea with a now long gone place-based media company.
This was news back in May 2022 http://www.dailydooh.com/archives/152892 – what has changed?
expanded coverage and indicators that Schindler is serious about this … lotsa tech companies, as you know, get into fringe (for them) products, and then back out