LAS VEGAS — The changing media landscape and the growing ineffectiveness of time-honored marketing methods was the backdrop for Carre Dawson's presentation on Digital out-of-home (DOOH) measurement at GlobalShop last week.

Dawson, the director of business development, digital signage, for Harris Broadcast Corp., is a recent hire at the company after 15 years in retail. She began by making the case for DOOH, articulating the seismic changes in consumer behavior and attitude in recent years.

"Consumers have all the control," she said. "They have for a while, and a lot of marketers are figuring that out. Consumers have a catch-me-if-you-can attitude – 'I'm on the go, and if you want me, you're going to have to find me and empower me before I'm going to listen to your message. And then, maybe I'll buy from you.'"
    
She pointed to research which says that word-of-mouth is a far more effective influencer than television advertising — and that's from a study conducted before the rise of Facebook and Twitter.

"As marketers and retailers, we want to reach people where they are at, rather than at home — because they're not listening there," she said.

They're not listening there because, increasingly, they're not watching there: Dawson presented data from Arbitron indicating that 20 percent to 30 percent of TV viewing in the United States takes place away from home. During the 2009 Inauguration, that number jumped to 50 percent in many markets. Bar-based media is especially of interest, with 52 percent of U.S. residents watching TV in a bar or lounge at least once per month, as is airport media, which reaches half of U.S. adults once a year and one in ten at least once per week.

Dawson laid out the many options available to retailers that want to measure the effectiveness of their digital messages — surveys, gaze-tracking software, POS sales analysis software, path tracking, GPS or RFID mobile identifiers, opt-in mobile IDs — with special emphasis on the two that she sees as most valuable.

Ideally, she said, a DOOH measurement plan should gather some very specific information at a minimum: audience size (count), audience profile (demographics like age and gender), and audience behavior (presence, notice and dwell time).

POS integration, she said, is what the industry sees as a "holy grail," because of the enormous amount of data it generates and the extremely granular nature of that data.

"When you have POS data, you know if store sales are lifting, you know if the category is lifting, and you know if the SKU is lifting," she said. "And that's true, attainable information that you can use when you're telling your story."

She also explored video measurement technology, showing the Trumedia product as an example.

"This technology is great because you can say, ‘I know you had 100,000 people walk by, and I know you had 80,000 look at your message,'" she said.

Video measurement of DOOH messaging has 95 percent people-count accuracy, 90 percent gender-classification accuracy, and 85 percent age-range-classification accuracy, Dawson noted. She did acknowledge that the tech can be expensive — for instance, she has in the past recommended that it be installed in 10 percent of screens in a given deployment, strategically spread out across pivotal DMAs in order to get the most expansive sampling of data.

Dawson wrapped up her presentation with a case study from Whole Foods, which installed screens in an unspecified number of stores. Each store received up to 11 screens, stationed near product areas like bakery, seafood, produce, etc. Each station had one or more LCD screens, equipped with video measurement software.

"When (the screens showed) more product and brand messages, it was much more appealing and got more views than just general messaging," she said.

Foot traffic was found to be about 100,000 monthly, and the network had 75 percent viewership. Peak time-of-day impressions varied widely, but Tuesday was the day with the strongest weekday audience. Screens at grocery and supplements were viewed the most, while screens near seafood, meat and produce were viewed the least.

The gender mix was more than 2:1 females over male. Male audiences were higher near prepared foods.

"What do you do with that information? You could make more interesting Tuesday programming, or you could try to bring up another day that has lower ratings," she said.