Digital Media - OOH space
Here I am again. To talk more on DOOH as they call nowadays. The digital media in OOH category. It all started in India with a brand name OOH! Banana placing its first LCD screen at the 24 Karat Multiplex in Jogeswri suburb. Just above the Popcorn counter. and I have seen all kinds of curves in the growth after that. But there was only one curve for money earned, and that was GO DOWN, burn more cash, get weak.
I saw several DOOH networks coming in the time from 2006 - 2009. Adimpact, OOH Media, V-Jive, Flash Media, DSN, Live Media, Laqshya , Future TV, Times OOH and many others even those single screen owners at HUB Mall for 1 month in Goregaon suburb of Mumbai! The problem identified be me:
All fighting in Bloody Red Ocean with Capital among their major differentiators and land grabbing as their only success meter. It helped a lot to hype the media to see a growth of more than 10K screens suddenly out of nowhere within 2 years of time across the countries in Malls, Multiplexes, Stores, Fast Food & Coffee joints, Railway station booking offices, Restaurants, commercial buildings and now a section called transit network (In Buses, Trains, Taxis)! All talking about Focus Media China, but all forgot that there is only one such network in the world. Rest thousands are all like Indian ones!
The stage was set to take DOOH to a new level in these last 2-3 years. but media industry was in no mood to take it up. They always found many reasons to not to take it up.
The biggest problem was no one wanted to justify the customer needs or address their questions while they try to push their concepts and sell inventory. Slowly, it is reaching a stage when media agencies start saying: "Oh, is it one more of those LCD screen company?". and believe me, it will take a huge task of educating the customers that time can change and better things do evolve.
And what happened next? One by one fell to ground. Just because customer wants something else. and almost $ 30 Mn in drain. The only people who are happy are the premise owners who got money out of it..
And then came the recession of 2009-10 a nosedive in industry size by almost 65%. its a dead scene out there. The most established players took a hit. Suddenly the most happening and demanded hoardings are showing Contact numbers! Newspaper got slim. TV channels are the only one media working comparatively. DOOH took further hit due to committed outflow of operational costs including rentals and no ad booking. Cash flow have reached alarming situation and accordingly, they started re-negotiating the premises contracts for the first time in their small history. They forgot how were they desperate to fight for the same space and felt jubilant when acquired, just a year back. Many removed their screens. Many closed their network. Many realized their mistakes. VCs lost their hopes. Management got defocused with dropping moral of sales force.
Even now, I do not see their situation improving after so many months of experience. Just because their innovation is still limited by restructuring the financial deals. Not on the solution for their customers!!
I am expecting a new wave in the next 3-5 years in Transit section with another 10K - 25K screens being installed by various players.
I would like to stress, next time, more on the actual expectations of the customers which none of these players could provide in their solution and probably would work good for them. Its time to go.
I saw several DOOH networks coming in the time from 2006 - 2009. Adimpact, OOH Media, V-Jive, Flash Media, DSN, Live Media, Laqshya , Future TV, Times OOH and many others even those single screen owners at HUB Mall for 1 month in Goregaon suburb of Mumbai! The problem identified be me:
All fighting in Bloody Red Ocean with Capital among their major differentiators and land grabbing as their only success meter. It helped a lot to hype the media to see a growth of more than 10K screens suddenly out of nowhere within 2 years of time across the countries in Malls, Multiplexes, Stores, Fast Food & Coffee joints, Railway station booking offices, Restaurants, commercial buildings and now a section called transit network (In Buses, Trains, Taxis)! All talking about Focus Media China, but all forgot that there is only one such network in the world. Rest thousands are all like Indian ones!
The stage was set to take DOOH to a new level in these last 2-3 years. but media industry was in no mood to take it up. They always found many reasons to not to take it up.
The biggest problem was no one wanted to justify the customer needs or address their questions while they try to push their concepts and sell inventory. Slowly, it is reaching a stage when media agencies start saying: "Oh, is it one more of those LCD screen company?". and believe me, it will take a huge task of educating the customers that time can change and better things do evolve.
And what happened next? One by one fell to ground. Just because customer wants something else. and almost $ 30 Mn in drain. The only people who are happy are the premise owners who got money out of it..
And then came the recession of 2009-10 a nosedive in industry size by almost 65%. its a dead scene out there. The most established players took a hit. Suddenly the most happening and demanded hoardings are showing Contact numbers! Newspaper got slim. TV channels are the only one media working comparatively. DOOH took further hit due to committed outflow of operational costs including rentals and no ad booking. Cash flow have reached alarming situation and accordingly, they started re-negotiating the premises contracts for the first time in their small history. They forgot how were they desperate to fight for the same space and felt jubilant when acquired, just a year back. Many removed their screens. Many closed their network. Many realized their mistakes. VCs lost their hopes. Management got defocused with dropping moral of sales force.
Even now, I do not see their situation improving after so many months of experience. Just because their innovation is still limited by restructuring the financial deals. Not on the solution for their customers!!
I am expecting a new wave in the next 3-5 years in Transit section with another 10K - 25K screens being installed by various players.
I would like to stress, next time, more on the actual expectations of the customers which none of these players could provide in their solution and probably would work good for them. Its time to go.
|
|
