While stock markets around the world retrace, the financial picture of Greece and Spain flounders and the world holds its collective breath waiting to see if there’ll be an attack on Iran and a spike in oil prices, there is a piece of outstanding economic news for those involved in the place-based digital media market.
2011 was a great year for digital out-of-home advertising, and this year is setting up to be even better. Data from PQ Media released in April show that global digital place-based networks, billboards and signage operators saw revenue grow by 15. 3 percent to $6. 97 billion last year Digital Global Times
. This year, the revenue figure is projected to be even better, growing 19. 2 percent.
In the united states, DOOH operator revenue climbed by 11. 2 percent last year. According to PQ Media, an econometric research and consulting service in Stamford, CT, digital billboard operators saw double-digit revenue growth and operators of place-based networks saw a high single-digital rate of growth.
According to the PQ Media “Global Digital Out-of-Home Media Forecast 2012-16, ” the compound annual global growth rate for the five year period will be 13. 7 percent. Much of the revenue growth appears tied to a recognition of how important it is to reach consumers outside the home where they make purchases. “While TV remains the 800-pound gorilla of ad-based media due to its reach, scarcity and measurement, DPNs (digital place-based networks) offer brands opportunities to extend their reach by engaging target consumers with contextually relevant content in venues outside the home, ” said PQ Media CEO Patrick Quinn.
Digital signage networks were one of the fastest-growing ad-based media in the united states last year. While PQ Media acknowledged a deceleration in the rate of growth in the second half of 2011 due to cyclical economic events, it found digital place-based networks experienced a revenue increase of 10. 7 percent from 2006 to 2011.
According to PQ Media, digital place-based networks are likely to benefit indirectly from the Summer Olympics in London and the U. S. political campaign this fall. Both traditionally inject significant revenue into local television stations as well as cable and broadcast networks. This time around, however, PQ Media foresees a scarcity of TV inventory. As a result, major brands squeezed off television could be forced to consider other video platforms, such as digital place-based networks, said Quinn.
The latest revenue tally from PQ Media is another in a growing string of positive developments over the past couple of years for the digital signage industry. Together, they wins demonstrate that digital placed-based media is a viable and being taken seriously by companies with products to sell and the advertising agencies they hire. If you haven’t heard or read about the outsourcing trend, argument, discussion, fervor, whatever your side of it may be – especially the digital bridges of gold-pressed latinum being built in India, China and other places outside our backyard; then you need to Google-it or Yahoo to your heart’s satisfaction and move out from the cave of silence you’ve been in lately. What we are focusing on here is a simple case – ‘Build IT and they shall come… ‘
India is closing the digital divide in the unique way that is being championed in our neck of the woods – digital divide education. By educating their people in what major companies like IBM, Intel, SAP, Oracle, J. P. Morgan and a whole host of others, all global companies with technology based services and/or products who need tech-savvy employees to stay global and thereby attracting investments in tech centers and other knowledge warehouses to communities worldwide. It has begun changing the way global companies do business to the degree where thousands of jobs are going overseas – outsourcing to India as it is called.
Teach you children and they shall come… Build IT and they shall come, sound familiar. The reason for digital divide education in our own backyard should become clear by the end of this article. Stop looking for handouts or complaining about the problem, when the solution has been within our reach for decades – and is being applied globally. In Ireland, China, Japan, Taiwan, India and other countries they have been bringing in billions and changing the economy for years – while it looks as if we in the U. S. have been asleep at the wheel.