CHELMSFORD, Mass. — Responding to advertisers’ hunger for new ways to engage consumers during a recessionary economy, Captivate Network has launched an array of new services for driving sales through digital out-of-home ad campaigns. Captivate’s new design and measurement services provide brand managers, strategic planners and media buyers with an efficient, quantifiable channel for reaching “spend-ready” consumers during the work day.
Guided by custom PQ Media market research findings, Captivate Network added the new services to its established foothold in digital screen networks, providing advertisers with a complete range of options for engaging consumers during the 33 percent of the day when they’re consuming media outside their homes. Unlike conventional media, Captivate Network is specifically focused on reaching consumers in their workplace during the day.
The company’s network of over 8,900 digital screens reaches an audience of nearly three million daily viewers in nearly 1,000 North American office towers and are in 15 of the top 20 major metro areas. Enhancing this strength with services such as an interactive Web site enables advertisers to reach the spend-ready audience during downtime in their workday: when they are riding in an elevator, walking through the lobby, or taking a break at their desk. Spend-ready consumers are broadly defined as educated professionals earning more than $75,000 per year. A typical 50-story office tower hosts about 5,000 spend-ready consumers who take an average of six elevator rides and several walks through lobby areas per day.
This multi-platform approach is unique to Captivate Network, which will detail its new services in announcements over the coming weeks. They will include new, enhanced custom research offerings and adherence to the new Audience Metrics Guidelines created by the industry group OVAB (Out-of-home Video Advertising Bureau). The guidelines enable out-of-home video advertising networks to provide audience metrics that help advertisers more easily evaluate, plan and buy these networks.
The new, interactive Web site supplements content displayed on Captivate Networks’ digital screens in office tower lobbies and elevators. It also provides Captivate Network advertisers with richer data on engagement. Half of Captivate Network viewers consider the company’s digital screens their primary news source during working hours. Already, 55 percent said they would go online to access news stories they saw on screens, and 52 percent have gone back to their desks to visit an advertiser’s Web site.
The new Web site, www.captivate.com, features Captivate Network news feeds; custom content such as “Word of the Day”; and blogs on topics such as technology, books, food and the environment. It is designed to build a community among Captivate Network’s viewers, who advertisers can reach through sweepstakes, offers, banner advertising and sponsored content.
“Advertisers hunger for more interactivity with consumers. They don’t want to blare messages; they want to create an authentic, ongoing dialogue,” said Scott Lyon, vice president of marketing, Captivate Network. “Our new Web presence is the first of many services from Captivate that will enable advertisers to sustain a two-way conversation that builds brand preference via an engaged community.”
Survey confirms advertisers want concrete results
A PQ Media study of the digital out of home market, completed in April 2008 for Captivate
Network, confirmed that the absence of detailed customer behavior metrics is the No. 1 obstacle to growth for digital out-of-home media. Advertisers considering digital out-of-home media “have major concerns with measurement” and want specific metrics that show how advertising turns into sales, according to the study. More than half of advertisers (58 percent) use digital out-of-home media because it targets a hard-to-reach audience, and nearly 50 percent of them expect a measurable effect from their advertising. To quantify digital out-of-home’s results, 38 percent want broader and deeper metrics for evaluating digital out-of-home’s effectiveness.
“Captivate showed vision and acumen in hiring PQ Media to provide actionable strategic intelligence to navigate a rapidly changing media landscape and a deep economic recession,” said PQ Media president and chief executive Patrick Quinn. “Our research uncovered important findings that gave Captivate the confidence to launch several bold initiatives in 2009 related to consumer behavior and engagement.”
Captivate Network spent most of 2008 and early 2009 developing products and services to meet those needs while enabling advertisers to reach spend-ready consumers during daytime working hours.
“We’ve done a lot over the last 10 years to build a great platform for strengthening brand identity and successfully supporting and measuring brand awareness campaigns. Today’s announcement marks another important step in this ongoing mission to meet advertisers’ needs,” said Captivate Network president and founder Michael DiFranza. “We are expanding our service offering into a multi-channel platform that reaches consumers during the work day and provides insight into their actual behavior. This is important because advertisers need to know what kind of engagement they’re getting from their advertising buys.”
