This is the fifth in a series of Billboard Insider profiles of the companies who are automating the out of home sales process. We’ve previously written about Adsemble and Adquick, ADstruc. and Fliphound. Insider counts 10 North American companies that are trying to develop websites to facilitate buying and selling out of home advertising: ADstruc, AdSemble, Adquick, Broadsign, DoMedia, Fliphound, Kinetic, rVue, Vistar and Xaxis Places.
Company: Broadsign
Headquarters: 1100 Robert-Bourassa, 12th Floor, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, H3B 3A5
Phone: 514-399-1184
BroadSign provides cloud-based software which powers over 120,000 digital displays in more than 40 countries for high profile venues such as airports, shopping malls, health clinics and cinemas. The company is headquartered in Montreal and has sales offices in New York, Europe and China. BroadSign recently announced the first programmatic solution for digital out-of-home, BroadSign Serv SSP, which enables network operators to tap into new revenue streams. The company’s CMS, BroadSign Core, automates content scheduling across digital signage networks and provides proof of performance for digital ads. BroadSign Serv Direct is an automated inventory management and proposal generation platform which simplifies and shortens the DOOH sales process. Insider talked with Maarten Dollevoet, BroadSign’s Vice President of Sales.
How did BroadSign get involved in out of home advertising?
We first launched BroadSign over a decade ago to address the growing interest for digital out-of-home advertising. More and more locations were going digital, yet the technologies at the time could not keep up. BroadSign focused on creating an automated solution that is scalable and enables hundreds and even thousands of screens to be managed from one central location.
What products does BroadSign provide to the out of home industry?
For network operators to reach new programmatic revenues, we have created the first DOOH-specific solution, BroadSign Serv SSP. By making inventory available to media buyers programmatically, network operators can compete for advertising budgets previously only allocated to online media.
Our content management system (CMS), BroadSign Core, streamlines the digital signage management workflow. It eliminates the need to manually manage playlists by using rules to determine what content will play, what screen it will play on and at what time. This is especially handy for out of home advertising networks that need to schedule hundreds if not thousands of ads across their fleet of screens.
By assigning simple rules when an ad is first uploaded, BroadSign ensures that the right audience is being reached at the agreed-upon frequency. BroadSign Core also aggregates proof-of-play data for the network to report results to their clients.
We also recently launched an automated sales platform that network operators can use to reduce their sales cycle, BroadSign Serv Direct. The tool reports real-time inventory availability and demographic data. Sales teams simply select screens and audiences that match the client’s criteria and click a button to generate a client ready proposal. Without the need for many back-and-forths between sales and operations, clients receive a proposal in a matter of minutes.
Profile a typical BroadSign client and how they use your software.
A typical BroadSign client is a media network looking to schedule a wide range of campaigns across multiple screens. While the majority of our clients run ad-based networks, many do no not. But, they all need a flexible and scalable solution that allows them to work quickly and make changes as needed, without requiring an army of folks to do so.
One of the largest global out-of-home advertising company uses our technologies to power over 15,000 screens to reach audiences in over 75 countries. Even given this breadth, they only employ a small number of staff to manage content across the globe.
In addition to major out of home advertising networks, we also have clients from a wide range of industries including malls, transit, cinema, healthcare, retail, baking, gas stations and hospitality.
Do the products cover 14 by 48 digital billboards and static billboards in addition to smaller screens?
This is our core business. Our solutions can display content on any shape or form of digital screen. Many of the world’s most prominent screens are actually powered by BroadSign including Harmon Corner in Las Vegas, the London Underground, some screens in Times Square and in 12 of the world’s 15 business airports.
Any update on the litigation with T-Rex relating to digital sign patents?
There have been a few updates with regards to the requests that we filed to have three T-Rex patent registrations reviewed. While we still await decision on one of our requests, we are pleased to report that for the first two reviews the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) required T-Rex to clarify their interpretation of an important aspect of their patents. We believe the clarifications greatly limit their scope and clearly demonstrates that BroadSign’s products do not infringe. BroadSign is still evaluating its position with regards to further actions.
[wpforms id=”9787″]
Paid Advertisement
