We’re all looking forward to the OAAA conference in Nashville, but let’s make the most of the time we have to catch up! The Screenverse force will be there and ready to talk to brands, agency partners, and networks on all things OOH.

We Have Big News To Share

We’ve always committed to providing value to our partners through opening up new programmatic revenue opportunities– and this news will do just that.

Catch us at the event, or follow us on social!

Adam Malone, Co-Founder & President at Screenverse

2022 comes as another reminder that the only constant is change. 

We created Screenverse against the backdrop of a global pandemic. Three years hence, we find ourselves bracing for a global recession. And yet, our ambition for the industry, our partners, and our future couldn’t be higher. 

Screenverse has been humbled to contribute to the renaissance that the out of home industry is experiencing. 2022 was another record year for us, and the future of digital advertising in the physical world has just begun.

We intend to lead the charge in 2023 and beyond. We intend to ELEVATE!

But first, how’d we do in 2022?

Market Report:

In the first half of 2022, as an industry, we adapted to change and responded through innovation and perseverance. Advertisers took notice, and the market achieved 1st half revenues that were on par with record-breaking, pre-pandemic highs. 

The back half of 2022 was more challenged as advertisers reduced their budgets amid fears of recession, inflation, and a weakening US consumer.

From June, data from the Standard Media Index showed the US ad market in significant decline, signaling recession-like conditions for media owners and agencies.

In the broader advertising ecosystem, we’ve also seen these pressures reflected in massive shifts in spend by channel. 

Online consumer banner blindness, shifts within social media usage and effectiveness, and threats to the digital advertising industry with the impending “cookie-pocalypse” have left brands reeling to attract the interest of prospective consumers, at reasonable rates.

On the whole, 2022 was a mixed bag for OOH media – there were certainly bright spots and also notable challenges. 

We will explore three of the leading trends we saw in 2022:

• DOOH is the growth engine for OOH ↑
• Retail Media is a quiet juggernaut ↑
• OOH Supply is facing major challenges ↓

DOOH is the Growth Engine for OOH

Against that challenging backdrop, the DOOH portion of OOH – fueled by investments in new inventory and the adoption of programmatic (pDOOH) – continued to forge ahead.

In a recent Mediapost article, Patrick Quinn (PQ Media) extolled the rapid growth of DOOH in the US and world-wide, and he predicts that DOOH will continue to be the growth engine for OOH.

“We expect the digital out-of-home media industry to continue its double-digit growth in 2023, powered by a number of positive developments fueling innovation, creativity and further expansion,” says PQ founder and CEO Patrick Quinn, adding that “increased and improved programmatic advertising, smart technology marketing, better ROI measurements, and successful efforts by DOOH industry executives and trade organizations at pitching the convincing story” are accelerating its growth.

Jeremy Male – CEO of OOH leader, OUTFRONT – said in an earnings call that digital billboards are his best investment. He shared that although the cost to build a digital billboard is 2x that of a static billboard, he can expect 4x the revenue based on the amount of inventory he has available, the power and flexibility of the media, and the number of clients he can service.

Retail Media is a Quiet Juggernaut

There is no fear of making bold assertions on our part. The market for retail media is quite young. In light of the growing popularity (and revenues) of retail media advertising, it is impossible to dismiss the voices of major players.

It is already four times larger than all of US OOH, and The Financial Times adds “Retailers’ advertising revenues are already almost twice as vast as those of radio and print combined together”.

Brands have been seen shifting ad dollars from social media and other online platforms over to retailers. The ability retailers own to leverage their first-party data they have on their consumers and show relevant ads based on their individual shopping history have propelled retailers to be a sought after channel for brands globally.

But it’s not just digital – retailers have been investing in advertising technology to leverage their physical space to boost their ad sales as well. 

The opportunity that digital ad placements in the physical world presents to brands, now more than ever, can be seen as a huge contributing factor to the renaissance of DOOH.

OOH Supply is Facing Major Challenges

On the supply-side, the back-half of 2022 offered a stark wake-up call to even the most financially stable and well-run OOH operators.

Although the leading OOH media owners were likely able to eke out modest revenue and earnings growth in 2022, none were spared completely from the overall market sell-offs we saw in the back half of the year. Lamar – the best performing of the “Big 3” saw their stock price off 10% on the year, while Outfront declined 25%. Clear Channel was down nearly 60%.

Experts predict this difficult capital market will continue in 2023, as investors have pivoted swiftly to rewarding companies with proven business models and cash flows, rather than those growing at breakneck speeds while burning through cash.

This is troubling news for some of the up-and-coming DOOH players as well.

Volta, a DOOH company that initially emerged as a stand-out amongst the competition offering ad-based EV charging in high-traffic areas like malls, supermarkets, banks, and pharmacies. Once a VC darling, raising hundreds of millions and achieving unicorn status ($1B+ enterprise value), Volta recently announced the sale of the company to Shell Oil.

The all-cash sale price ($169m) was less than 1/13th of the value of Volta’s all-time high ($2.2B in February, 2021), and less than 50% of the value of the assets (chargers + screens) currently in the ground. 

No word yet whether Shell will be getting into the DOOH business – either directly or through partnership.

I don’t mean to harp on Volta, and they are certainly not alone; there are at least a half-dozen private companies in the DOOH and ad-tech space that have been running low-margin or negative margin businesses that will have to revolutionize their business models or be forced to slash costs considerably, sell, or go into bankruptcy protection.

The silver lining is that as in any down-cycle, there will be tremendous innovation and new companies forming to fill gaps and build something new and different. I remind my team at least once a month – “Great fortunes are built in down markets and harvested in up-markets.”

Our Partners:

The constellation of our ad inventory has grown to be both vast and wildly effective at driving lift in awareness, intent, and purchases (and we’ve got the data to prove it!). 

Since we’re one of the largest digital screen networks in the real world, we’ve taken great effort in selecting network partners that can help us meet the promise of reaching our target audiences at every moment of their day.

These touch points include:

Our footprint has grown vastly, giving us the ability to build awareness with consumers across 50 states as well as increase consideration and conversion intent with pinpoint accuracy using demographic, DMA, geofencing, retargeting strategies and more.

As of December 2022, we proudly now can serve over 3.5+ Billion total impressions across 62,000+ screens nationally through our exclusive partnerships. And those numbers grow every day as our partners invest in more and better screens.

Partnering with Smartify and Corner Media has allowed us to tap into a one-of-a-kind inventory that reaches both pedestrians and drivers in major cities through in-window displays and digital urban panels. Thanks to Pursuant Health, we can communicate with customers in-store at the largest retailer in the world, Walmart. Touchtunes, a wildly popular digital jukebox found in thousands of bars, restaurants and more, allows us to take advantage of in-person social interaction in the decision-making process for consumers. We’ve seen the platform grow thanks to its interactive ad experiences, high exposure, targetability, and a slew of studies showing the power to drive trial, intent, and loyalty.

KeyMe‘s network of over 2700+ ad-activated kiosks in critical business settings such as retail, supermarkets, and pharmacies has placed it at the top of the media hierarchy for companies seeking targeted reach, at scale, steps from the point of purchase. Healthcare-related companies and brands targeting new movers or multicultural audiences have a great opportunity to grow in these high-traffic areas. theBulletin has experienced explosive growth through 2022 by reaching affluent consumers through inventory in the lobbies of upscale residences and office buildings in metro areas.

SPIN Hubs’ scooter charging stations with digital kiosks in major cities offer inventory on city streets, at transit hubs, in rail stations, and at bus stops. EOS Linx allows us to reach eco-conscious, affluent consumers at gas stations, retail locations, hospitality venues, and high-traffic city centers. Enlighten, recently acquired by Weedmaps, is the largest in-store dispensary TV network in the US, reaching engaged cannabis and CBD consumers, a perfect fit for brands looking to reach high-income millennials.

Our own networks include:

Screenverse City Network: 300+ Outdoor Urban Panels in major cities across the US.

Screenverse Health: a content-rich, health-focused network reaching consumers across pharmacies, grocery stores, clinics, and doctor’s offices with 3,000+ Audio-Enabled Digital Screens.

Screenverse Billboards: We will be announcing something major in the coming weeks!

DOOH should be considered a core part of any digital media mix. All of our inventory can be bought both programmatically and direct, allowing us to be as agile as any form of digital advertising and is the core part of our 2022 growth. 

Our People:

We knew that in order to take our partners to new heights we needed to invest in exceptional talent. 

• We beefed up our tech team by adding Barry Mattern and Karen Brand.
• We brought in a top sales talent in Adam Biancosino.
• An SVP of Programmatic Partnerships – Edric Chan.
• An SVP of Marketing – Jess Reilly.
• & our first Customer Success Manager – Sean McKinney.

[We are hiring for multiple positions in sales, sales planning, engineering, marketing, and research — please reach out to us at careers@screenversemedia.com for more information!]

• We grew our Team => 6 new teammates (18 total)
• We added new Partners and Inventory => 3 Partners and 5,500 Screens (62k total)
• We grew Sales and Revenue => +97% YOY (David still wont let me say!)
• We were Profitable again this year and achieved our EBITDA goal (See you in Jamaica Screenverse team!)
• We have achieved 105% CAGR since founding

The Blueprint for OOH 2.0

OOH 2.0 is the future of advertising. It’s the seamless integration of the power of OOH with the precision of digital. OOH has always been about reach, presence, and impact in the physical world, but now it’s time to take it to the next level. Digital media came to be synonymous with targetability, click-to-action, and measurement. The mature digital ecosystem of the last decade has been incredibly easy for advertisers of all sizes and sophistication to access, while OOH can be cumbersome and slow.

We intend to revolutionize the industry by embracing the tools and tactics that have made digital the dominant force in advertising. 

With our focus on these key areas, we’ll unlock billions of additional advertising budgets in the coming years:

• OOH is already great, and we’re making it even better. Our sales narrative focuses on delivering digital advertising to audiences in the physical world. OOH is inherently brand safe, compliant with all privacy laws and consumer expectations, is fully viewable, and fraud-free. OOH is everywhere and now we are making it easy for advertisers to access it.

   

• Advertisers want options and the ability to run omni-channel campaigns, so we’ve adopted audience-based planning, CPM pricing, and attribution. Advertisers demand standard ad units and we are delivering that with our large networks and businesses built around a small set of standard ad units – 16:9, 9:16 | :08, :15, :30 :60 | Full motion, Static | Audio, No Audio.

   

• OOH 2.0 is technology enabled and all our media is managed in the cloud, fully programmatic enabled, and near-real time. We’re investing in ML and AI to optimize yield across all channels and give advertisers the best possible experience.

   

  This is the future of advertising and we’re proud to be leading the way.

2023 Outlook:

All ad-supported media will face headwinds in 2023, and we are unlikely to be totally spared.

However, from an OOH standpoint, the shock won’t be nearly as destructive as what we experienced during COVID, when audiences and budgets vanished overnight. We had to adjust more swiftly and completely than any other major media format, and I believe that this will actually help us weather the current storm more successfully than most.

While brand marketers most likely will not wake up tomorrow with the epiphany that OOH is a high-value alternative to their Youtube pre-roll budgets – we must tell our story as an industry every day and back it up with data! We are in a fantastic position to ride the growth in innovation in our sector, and unlock new budgets and advertisers who believe in OOH 2.0.

My advice to OOH operators, agencies, and clients is to navigate and ELEVATE.

New York, June 1, 2022 – Mesmerize, a prominent media company specializing in patient education at the point of care, today announced a partnership with Screenverse, Inc., a leading ad management company that specializes in maximizing revenue for digital screen owners.  The partnership will allow Screenverse the exclusive rights to manage and sell Mesmerize digital place-based media to programmatic advertisers.

Programmatic advertising is becoming increasingly important to digital POC network owners, as advertisers add additional reach, ease of use, flexibility, and measurability made available by Demand Side Platforms (DSPs). Advertisers who are in search of reaching captive audiences in key health care moments — in pharmacies, clinics, and doctors’ offices — will now be able to do so through their favorite dedicated or omni-channel DSPs.

David Weinfeld, CEO of Screenverse, is excited to add Mesmerize as a partner and its inventory to Screenverse’s digital ad network. “We think Mesmerize is a perfect fit for what we are doing and what our clients want. The addition of Mesmerize’s digital point of care inventory to our network will allow our new and existing clients to be where the people are, when they are making important decisions about their health care, personal care, and other purchasing decisions. This allows us to offer not only great reach and scale, but best-in-class content that educates and enriches the viewing experience for audiences we serve.”

“We are looking forward to working with Screenverse to make Mesmerize’s digital inventory at the point of care available programmatically,” said Craig Mait, Mesmerize President and Chief Revenue Officer.  “Partnering with Screenverse allows us to introduce Mesmerize’s network to a fresh set of brands and clients, increasing exposure to the value of advertising at the point of care.”

The Mesmerize digital place-based network will be available in Vistar and Place Exchange.

About Mesmerize

Mesmerize specializes in patient education at the point of care.  Mesmerize provides targeted educational materials including digital and static wallboards, literature distribution, and branded medical essentials to patients and caregivers in waiting rooms, exam rooms, and other high traffic areas of doctors’ offices, community-based organizations, AIDS service organizations, and independent and chain pharmacies.  

About Screenverse

Screenverse offers one of the largest digital out-of-home networks in the physical world. With nationwide coverage across retail, bars & restaurants, urban panels, residential and office, and health, Screenverse offers unparalleled reach to advertisers looking to connect with real people in the moments that matter.

Adam Malone, Co-Founder & President at Screenverse

Here we are again. The second annual Screenverse Year in Review!

No-one could have predicted this!

When we founded Screenverse in April, 2020, we expected that COVID-19 would persist for some months, maybe a few quarters, but the disease would be contained in due course. Soon the dams would be opened and people would flow through the world as they always had, while advertiser demand would follow close behind.

That is not, in a few words, what happened.

Luckily for us, we set out to build the Screenverse digital network and business as a financial adviser might compile a basket of assets – stocks, bonds, real estate – for her clients. We were very purposeful in the partnerships we struck with network owners, we followed audiences, sought counsel from demand partners, and invested in data, technology, and talent that would help us minimize risk and maximize reward for our partners.

How’d we do..?

Market Report:

2021 was another unsteady year for OOH; especially for anyone who owns or sells media that isn’t narrowly defined as a Billboard.

Data published by the OAAA shows that not only did the overall industry revenue shrink considerably from 2019 highs, but the percentage of revenue earned by Billboard owners skyrocketed, from 63.8% in 2019 to 84.1% through the first half of 2021.

The other side of that equation saw Street Furniture, Transit, and Place-Based Revenue-Shares contracted significantly. Place-Based media owners were the hardest hit, as they saw their share of the pie evaporate from 11.5% in 2019 to a paltry 2.8% in the first half of 2021.

While it appears to me and others that the back half of 2021 was a little better for Place-Based media owners, it is clear that the first money spent in OOH is going to Billboard owners and, if stock prices are any indication of financial performance, the publicly traded Billboard owners in particular.

According to analysis done by Billboard Insider, the three public OOH companies all outperformed the S&P500 in 2021.

There were some other bright spots, of course, as the programmatic platforms had banner years, leveraging their growth to attract fresh capital to develop their business lines and technologies.

Vistar Media Raises $30m in Series B Funding

Place Exchange Closes $20m in Venture Funding

Adomni, DOmedia, and OneScreen.ai all raised 7 and 8-figure funding rounds this year as well.

While the technology providers are seeing their value propositions born out in real time, there has been innovation and consolidation on the media side as well.

Atmosphere raised $100mm to continue its expansion

Octopus Interactive recently sold its ride-share tablet business to T-Mobile

They say necessity is the mother of invention, and while many believe it necessary for the OOH industry to standardize its universal measurement currency to attain new levels of growth and market-share, 2021 was a step sideways at best.

I wont belabor the drama this year between Geopath and OAAA. There are well-founded arguments for whether the proper metric should be “likely to see” or “opportunity to see” when adjudicating OOH impressions. What is clear to me is that a universal impressions standard is an “opportunity” that will “likely” deliver real value that will move the needle for OOH advertisers and media owners alike.

Will Epicenter or Comscore assert themselves with powerful datasets and thoughtful methodologies (at reasonable prices!) to fill the void?

2021 was a year of growth for Screenverse.

• We grew our Team => 10 new teammates
• We added new Partners and Inventory => 6 Partners and ~42,000 Screens
• We grew Sales and Revenue => +4.5x YOY
• We were Profitable again this year and grew EBITDA => +50% YOY

“Our Success comes down to our People and Partners” – David Weinfeld

Our People:

We were blessed this year to add 10 new people to our team!

We started the year with a bang by Acquiring the Danaher Group and in so doing adding senior sales, marketing, research, and operations leadership in Susan Danaher, Victor Germain, and Taylor Chiulli. In July we added two west-coast sellers (LA, and Denver) who know how to build digital media sales businesses in Susan Jaget and Tim Kennedy. After adding all of that sales talent, we needed to fill in our technical and media operations team to balance our services and prepare ourselves to scale. We were excited to welcome Junko, L.A., and Morgan in October, along with our VP of engineering, Erik Osmond, who is helping us centralize and enrich our data, tie together the systems we use every day, and giving our clients new levels of insight. Finally, in late December we offered Phil Donahue the opportunity to lead our midwest sales efforts.

We are committed to caring for, investing in, and developing our people. This year we offered full health benefits, 401K matching program, and authorized ongoing education benefits for the full team. We also created an employee stock options program that will reward our teammates as the business grows in value over time.

[We are hiring for multiple positions in sales, sales planning, engineering, marketing, and research — please reach out to us at careers@screenversemedia.com for more information!]

Our Partners:

We are betting on the growth of On-Premise and In-Retail:

Our big focus from the beginning has been to build a leading on-premise digital advertising network in essential businesses; Retail Grocery, Big Box, Pharmacy, and Convenience. In 2021, we secured new partnerships in Grocery, Pharmacy, and Point-of-Care to double down on our offering to advertisers who want to engage shoppers in healthcare environments and influence consumers at the point of care and the point of purchase.

Another pillar of our network is the TouchTunes digital Jukebox network. It is the largest digital network in Bars & Restaurants in North America and it is an absolute on-premise juggernaut. Available in all 210 DMAs, we can reach almost any audience and do so with both precision and scale! We saw hopeful signs in the Jukebox usage data in the summer-time and around key sporting-and-cultural events, but some markets have been slow to open and advertiser perceptions have hurt demand for on-premise advertising even as traffic and sales data have returned to pre-pandemic levels. Advertisers are leaning in to NFL playoffs, March Madness, and appear to have “priced in” a fully open economy by early-spring 2022. We’ll drink to that!

Enlighten – one of the nation’s largest Cannabis Dispensary network – is a perfect compliment to TouchTunes in reaching active and influential millennials. Both networks are age-gated and deliver 21+ audiences in brand-safe environments. As more states move to full Marijuana legalization and more research is done on the “Cannabis consumer”, the more interest and activity we expect from mainstream advertisers. We have already booked major campaigns in 2022 around the 420 “holiday” season, and leading brands in entertainment, DTC products, delivery services, and healthcare are connecting with their audiences via the Enlighten network — and this is just the beginning!

We are getting in front of Urban and Young Professionals where they Live and Work:

Advertisers are clamoring to reach Millennials, Gen Z, and Urban Professionals who consume way less ad-supported media than other demos. No-where have we seen more of a shift in consumer behavior than in this audience. This year we worked hard to find partners who offer 360 degree access to this coveted audience, at scale.

Two of the most exciting developments in 2021 were our partnerships we launched with high-end Residential and Office lobbies via theBulletin and TouchSource. We know now that the future of work is going to be a mix of work from home and go in to the office. Why not develop a media network that reaches urban and young professionals every day, no matter where they decide to work?!

We got out there in the Real World!

Finally, 2021 was our year to truly extend our offering from digital place-based, to digital OOH, to digital media in the Real World.

Our partners at SPIN, Smartify, and Corner Media significantly invested in growing their networks of 55″ street-level portrait displays in major US markets. These screens are big, bright, and represent new and impactful inventory in markets like DC, LA, and Miami where traditional OOH media is scant or inaccessible for many advertisers. We will also soon be announcing an exciting new partner in the EV charging space – a company who has deployed dozens of charging structures featuring 75″ landscape screens – and has plans to rapidly deploy many more charging stations in 2022. Watch this space!

2022 Outlook:

As we look ahead to 2022, there seem to be more questions than answers.

We face many challenges that will affect our businesses:

• Will Supply Chain issues persist, affecting advertiser demand as well as inflation?
• What will happen with Interest Rates and the broader capital and consumer economy?
• Will Digital Buyers and Omni-channel DSPs mold DOOH in their image?
• How will new capital, startups, and consolidation reshape the industry?

There are are many MORE reasons to be optimistic about what 2022 will bring:

• Our Industry has smart, awesome, people who know how to be resilient in tough times.
• There is pent up demand for services, events, and experiences around which [D]OOH campaigns flourish.
• The discussions around cookies and privacy will put a premium on [D]OOH media that delivers targeted audiences in relevant environments.

Most of all, we are grateful for the opportunity to build a business in such a dynamic and interesting world!

We look forward to working with new Partners, Customers, and Team Members in 2022 and beyond.

OOH Today

Screenverse Inc. announces the hiring of Phil Donahue to be its Midwest Sales Director. Based in Chicago, IL, Mr. Donahue is an award-winning DOOH professional, having worked at Starcom Worldwide, Health Club Media Network, WSJON, and ZOOM Media before joining Screenverse.

Mr. Donahue is no stranger to innovation in DOOH. At Starcom, he and his team won Adweek™ OOH Media Plan of the Year for a Morgan Stanley campaign that brought real-time Dow Jones Industrial Average information to street-level media in NYC. He launched the first major international DOOH program at ZOOM Media that incorporated custom content in the US, Canada, and the UK. Mr. Donahue sees “acceleration in DOOH innovation and a decrease in transaction friction via automation and new technologies. The lack of friction will optimize programs across placements, timing, and content.”

Mr. Donahue sees great opportunity at Screenverse as “the company combines scaled and complimentary national DOOH networks with technology that minimizes transaction costs and optimizes placement and content adjacencies. It is an incredible opportunity to work with people with this kind of vision.”

Screenverse CEO, David Weinfeld, sees Phil as the perfect fit, “Phil’s digital out-of-home experience, knowledge and expertise is an incredible asset to our team, networks, and brand partners. He embodies the type of professional we want on our team; someone who is smart, driven, and dedicated to delivering great service to our partners. Knowing we have such a strong team member guiding our growing Midwest business, makes me even more excited about what’s in store for Screenverse and our partners in 2022.”

Screenverse added ten members to the team in 2021 and is actively recruiting for positions in engineering, marketing, sales, tech/media ops, and sales planning. The Screenverse team is fully remote and offers competitive compensation, full health benefits, 401k matching, stock options, and a fun, competitive, and empowering culture.

David Weinfeld, Co-Founder & CEO at Screenverse

To try to get into the mindset of a DTC brand marketer heading into the holidays, I scrolled through Instagram, over the course of a few days, and wrote down every unique DTC advertiser that I encountered. I captured a list of nearly 1,000 DTC companies.

From fitness equipment to vegan snacks, furniture, shelf-top appliances, gift boxes for the holidays and everything in between, I have come to realize how difficult it is to run marketing for a DTC brand today. Advertising on social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook feels like a zero sum game. There are so many different DTC companies competing for a finite and fleeting amount of attention. With such enormous demand, there’s no surprise that Facebook ad prices are increasing exponentially.

On the battlefield of attention, if every DTC brand is using the same megaphone, how can a company possibly stand out?

The answer has to be for DTC brands to reach their target audiences in the real world. I’m not advocating for DTC brands to suddenly eliminate their Facebook and Instagram ad spending. I believe that  augmenting social ads with digital video in the real world will make a brand’s Instagram ads that much more effective.

While DTC brands have historically used out-of-home for massive subway dominations and Times Square takeovers, I believe the greatest opportunities for these companies to stand out are in place-based digital video networks. Location and environment provide incredible context to advertise a DTC brand.

Take a digital network like theBulletin that places screens in luxury apartment buildings and high-rises in major cities. These screens are the ideal canvas for DTC brands to enhance their marketing across every other channel. Digital in the real world is a tool to exponentially grow a DTC brand’s megaphone.

Why not break out of the mold of the standard DTC marketing blueprint and carve a path that is cost-efficient, scalable, and complementary to every other digital advertising channel? Advertising where consumers live is the exact place in which a DTC brand needs to command mind share. It’s most often where a DTC product is purchased, delivered and consumed.

Reaching consumers in the physical world is something that every DTC brand should make a consistent part of their media mix. For the smart DTC companies that do, they will be the ones that shift the battlefield of attention in their favor.