Digital Signage Connection

Municipal transit authorities, faced with increasing costs, have over the past several decades increasingly turned to advertising as a way to supplement revenues without continually increasing ticket prices or reducing services. Traditionally, advertising has been made up of large format paper or vinyl posters mounted throughout the transit authority's property in locations such as train platforms, inside train cars, on the inside and outside of buses, inside train stations and other venues owned or operated by the agency.

As the costs to operate municipal transit systems continue to rise, transit authorities look to their advertising partners to bring in interesting and innovative ways to increase value. Digital out-of-home (DOOH) advertising is extremely attractive for both the advertising sales representative and the transit authority. 

Digital advertising systems offer the transit authority several important features. First, they provide a vehicle for increased advertising. Rather than one advertiser taking an ad position for the entire campaign duration, five to 10 advertisers could occupy that same space. Because of the increased attractiveness that the digital media offers, it can command a premium rate over the traditional static inventory. Second, the digital platform provides the transit authority with a much-needed medium for rider communication. Through the system, the transit authority can update its riders with important information including delays, outages, or even emergencies. Third, with the ability to provide editorial content such as updated news, weather, sports and other content, the digital platform increases perceived value to the transit rider. 

As a result of Titan’s successful development of digital outdoor platforms, we have learned about some of the major challenges in deploying digital advertising networks in a transit environment. Many of the challenges are not unique to transit, but some may be magnified by some of the environment's unique requirements. 

Challenge #1: Implementation cost
A transit authority is, first and foremost, a government entity put in place to provide transportation services for the community. As such, it is heavily scrutinized by the public and must ultimately answer to them. With the increasing pressure to maintain services while not increasing rider fares, they are typically not able to provide upfront working capital for digital signage deployments. The cost for these deployments would generally be borne by the advertising sales organization. This cost would include all the necessary screen hardware, software and back-end systems as well as installation labor and any custom development needed. The costs are then recaptured by the ad sales organization through ad sales revenues. On a large deployment with many screens, the upfront costs can be tens of millions of dollars before ad revenue starts coming in.

Challenge #2: Actual installation
As previously mentioned, the transit authority's purpose is to provide transportation services to the community. Unlike other environments such as malls or retail stores, transit service cannot halt for the deployment of advertising signs. The installation teams must work in and around operating trains and buses. Access to facilities is often not quickly available. When working on train platforms, the installation teams will typically  need to pause several times during the installation process to move out of the way of oncoming trains. These constraints cause the time it takes to install to be much longer. We found that a typical installation, for instance, in Chicago, took seven to 10 days to complete rather than a more typical three to five days in an environment without these access challenges. 

Challenge #3: General difficulty of installation due to structure, power and other constraints
For the most part, digital advertising displays were not considered during the design of rail stations, train cars and buses. A majority of the facilities and equipment were built and designed before digital advertising was conceived. In fact, many of the rail stations even pre-date the invention of the television. Because of this, much of the infrastructure is inadequate to support a digital signage installation. Power, in many locations, can be at its maximum capacity. Clearances in many cases are not sufficient to comply with ADA regulations, and finally the physical structure is in some cases not strong enough to support the added weight of the digital screens. All of these issues add to the overall project cost either in additional labor or hardware redesign/modification costs. 

Challenge #4: The transit authority itself 
A transit authority is a large organization with many groups that must cooperate to maintain a working system. It can be very challenging to get and maintain consensus within and between the different sub-groups within the organization. Each group has its own goals and areas of responsibility. In many cases, some of these goals may directly conflict with the goals of one or more of these groups. As an example, the bus operations group is responsible for maintaining a certain service level to its riders. It needs to deliver the correct number of buses to each route in order to meet rider demand. Its grading, and ultimately its financial incentives, are tied to its level of success in meeting its goals. Because of this, it is often challenging to gain access to equipment for installation and/or servicing of advertising signage. Coordination between groups is a key aspect of a successful advertising signage deployment. 

Opportunities in transit advertising
Digital advertising in a transit environment does provide some excellent opportunities as well. Transit riders are typically a captive audience. Although they are in the process of moving from one location to another, there are many opportunities to reach the rider. Digital advertising offers a unique platform for these riders. First, the inherent attractiveness of the digital platform will draw the viewers' attention. While static advertising is an effective medium, humans are programmed to be attracted to motion. Digital ads with their motion and light changes will naturally attract the viewers' attention. By providing a mix of advertising along with editorial content and relevant transit information, riders remain engaged with the display throughout their wait. On rail platforms, the riders have a typical wait time of five to 10 minutes. In other environments, such as the inside of train cars, rider dwell time is significantly increased – in some cases from 30 minutes to over two hours. 

Additionally, DOOH, especially transit advertising, offers key features that have been historically missing from out-of-home advertising – immediacy and relevance. Because it is a network-based system, the ads can be rapidly changed to meet the needs of the advertiser. Previously only an ability of television or radio, digital advertising allows for quick changes to copy or even more complex changes such as day parting or dynamic  content changes. This ability adds to the relevance of the medium as well, because it does not restrict the advertiser to strict posting durations, which would, in some cases, make the advertisement dated part way into the run. These two features will help out-of- home continue to erode the ad dollars allocated to traditional media such as TV, radio and newspapers. 

Digital deployments in the transit environment offer some unique challenges but at the same time, some unique opportunities. If done correctly, use of DOOH transit advertising can be extremely beneficial to the ridership, the transit authority and its advertising sales partner. 

Aaron Higley is the Vice President, Technology, at Titan, the largest transit advertising company in North America. Titan has exclusive rights to sell advertising on behalf of its transit authority partners in many of the major US markets including New York, Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, Seattle, Los Angeles and San Francisco. Titan is an industry leader in the development and successful introduction of digital outdoor platforms.  To gain unique insights into multi-channel marketing, how leading retailers are leveraging in-store technologies, and how to position and sell digital marketing messages to brands, plan to attend the PRI Retailer Education Forum on March 6 at Digital Signage Expo 2012.

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