• by Erik Sass  @eriksass1, August 29, 2011

Digital out-of-home technology firm rVue is launching a new direct marketing platform, rVue Direct, with smartphone interactivity that allows marketers to offer consumers real-time, location-based Groupon-style deals and special offers.

The company's new online "Content Hub" is simultaneously offering rVue's DOOH network customers ready-made direct-response and social commerce deals. Consumers can respond to the ads via toll-free 800 numbers and embedded QR codes.

The rVue Direct online platform for DOOH networks and advertisers explains: "Daily local deals are streamed live, straight to your network... Networks that opt-in to promote daily deals receive a unique flash file to embed in to their playlist. The QR enabled file then populates your content loop with the most location relevant daily deals based on the network's IP address."

Networks choose when to run the deals and how often, rVue said, and deals are constantly updated via daily streaming.

The DOOH tech company is introducing several other new features with the expanded Direct platform, including mobile music downloads and PSAs. rVue Direct already offers short-form infomercial content courtesy of Global Infomercial Services. The company also sells premium and remnant DOOH advertising through its online demand-side platform.

Mobile interactivity and the growing popularity of social commerce deals could make the DOOH channel more valuable to direct marketers, which have traditionally limited their spending to remnant ad inventory.

Many direct-response offers, like music downloads at concerts, benefit from contextual placement, possibly justifying higher rates. rVue Direct can help DOOH network operators monetize ad inventory that would otherwise have gone unsold -- still a common problem in the DOOH industry, despite the rapid growth of spending on the emerging medium.

Industry analysts from PQ Media estimated in February that total DOOH operating revenues would increase 16.7% from $2.07 billion in 2010 to $2.42 billion in 2011, due largely to increases in ad spending.