News

SeeSaw, LocaModa partner to connect digital social networks

April 14, 2008

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. — SeeSaw Networks, a digital out-of-home media company and LocaModa, a technology company providing a mobile social platform that connects consumers' favorite online and out-of-home locations, have joined forces. The partnership leverages SeeSaw's network and LocaModa's platform to provide advertisers with new ways to engage people using digital out-of-home media, the Web and mobile phones.

This combination allows patrons to use their mobile phone to interact with a digital screen in a place like a bar or coffee shop and have those interactions posted to social networking sites like Facebook.

Now people in social places like bars or restaurants can connect with others in the venue as well as their online friends by engaging with interactive digital signs. Friends with access to the Web will be able to virtually join their friends in a bar without leaving their homes, see what's going on in their favorite hang-out, and participate in conversations through social networks like Facebook and Twitter.

"The mixture of digital signage, the Web and mobile devices extends an advertiser's investment in impressions to engage a larger community of people through viral marketing opportunities on social networks," said Monte Zweben, co-founder and chairman of the board of SeeSaw Networks. "With LocaModa's mobile social platform, an impression on a digital sign can turn into a conversation among the people at a location, the people monitoring a location online, and ultimately through the people connected as friends on social networks."

How it works

LocaModa enables SeeSaw affiliates to create a virtual presence on social networks for each of their venues. For example, a particular bar or coffee shop on Main Street can also exist on Facebook, where people in the venue or fans of the venue appear online. LocaModa also provides a suite of interactive applications like contests and games that networks can incorporate into their programming to attract people to participate, thus making the screens more engaging and rewarding for the consumer.

As consumers in a venue respond via text messaging to the interactive call-to-action in a digital signage ad, those responses are posted on the venue's social network pages and feeds. If the consumer chooses, those interactions can also be automatically posted on their Facebook page or Twitter feed, thereby multiplying the reach of that original impression.

The interaction can be customized per network. For example, on a digital screen in a bar, an advertiser can provide videos or sponsored content that guests can add to their social network profile page by sending a text message with a specific keyword and location name to a shortcode. Bar patrons can also create a "Shout Out" and have it appear as a comment on the Facebook page for the bar, as a Twitter message directing friends to meet them there, or on digital screens in other locations. SeeSaw provides agencies with a one-stop shop to buy digital out-of-home media across 22,000 venues nationally and to buy mobile marketing campaigns across those venues.

"The mobile phone is a social and interactive device that's been underutilized in out-of-home networks," said Stephen Randall, chief executive officer of LocaModa. "We're excited to be partnering with SeeSaw to make the out-of-home experience more engaging and valuable for brands and consumers alike."