• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, November 6, 2008

Campaign '08 rewrote the history books for most major media, including one with the least amount of history: digital out-of-home. Much has been made about the use of the Web, social media, email, and the big story Wednesday morning was how major market newspapers were selling out their newsstand issues. Over the next few days weekly magazines will begin playing various covers of the president-elect, and of course, TV brought us all the thrilling battleground play-by-play countdown of electoral votes. But in a small, but significant way, digital out-of-home played a unique role as the election returns took on an unusually public nature Tuesday night. Due partly to unseasonably warm weather in northern states, as well as to a groundswell of public participation, election-related digital signage was visible to pedestrians and TV and Web viewers alike.

 

Clear Channel Outdoor mobilized what was perhaps the most impressive array of digital boards to provide the public with a real-time tally of electoral updates. Located in 25 of its biggest markets from New York to Los Angeles, the Clear Channel network distributed live RSS feeds from MSNBC.com to 250 digital boards, and 300 digital "smart tops" on New York and Boston-based taxis, reaching millions of motorists, commuters and pedestrians.

But the most visibly integrated digital out-of-home arrangement was arguably the ABC News SuperSign in Times Square, which played a starring role in the network's coverage throughout Election Night. The sign, provided by Show+Tell Inc., featured several software refinements engineered specifically for the ABC newscast, which enabled the election results to be displayed on the sign in real time.

"We knew there was no room for error on this important night," said S+T Chief Technology Officer Manolo Almagro. "The sign had to perform flawlessly - there is no way to recover from any problems that occur during a live broadcast." It did, and the result was a Times Square standing ovation every time the SuperSign displayed new returns showing Barack Obama inching closer to election.

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SeeSaw Operationalizes New OVAB Guidelines

Less than a week after the Out-of-Home Video Advertising Bureau (OVAB) released its new digital out-of-home measurement guidelines, they've already been operationalized by one of the industry's biggest players: SeeSaw Networks. If that seems remarkably fast, SeeSaw Chief Peter Bowen says it already had a head start, as the qualification and data profiling processes it already has been using to vet new digital out-of-home network affiliates meshes precisely with the new OVAB guidelines, using the same principles of "presence, notice and dwell time" that OVAB does.

Not surprisingly, Bowen was a member of the OVAB committee that developed the new guidelines, but he boasts SeeSaw's qualification criteria are actually a little more rigorous than OVAB's, covering five key operational areas: audience metrics and "life patterns"; location and screen placement; content and programming; technology and operations; and compliance and testing.