• by Erik Sass , Staff Writer @eriksass1, March 4, 2011

This week brought another strategic partnership in the digital out-of-home advertising arena, with the announcement that Titan will serve as the exclusive sales and marketing agent for TargetCast Networks, which operates 3,500 screens in 1,200 locations nationwide -- concentrated in national and regional casual dining and fast casual restaurants including Applebee's, Chili's, T.G.I. Friday's, Outback, Tully's, Seattle's Best, and Coffee Bean, among others.

Under the terms of the deal, TCN will continue to operate as a stand-alone company, providing technology, licensing, content, and network operations services. Meanwhile, Titan has the right to license TCN technology in selected distribution channels around the world. With IP addressability and digital distribution, TCN supports multiple formats of creative and messaging, including 30 second video, Flash and XML injected RSS Feeds.

Titan president and CEO Don Allman said that the partnership would allow his company "to reach the active on-the-go consumer to complement our existing transit and place-based screens in what we are calling 360-degree campaigns." Altogether TCN claims to 53 million Nielsen-verified commercial views per month.

This is just the latest in a series of tie-ups in the DO marketplace, including a growing number of ad sales partnerships. For example in 2009 Premier Retail Networks assumed ad sales responsibilities for TCN competitor IndoorDirect, which operates a digital video network reaching 1,077 quick-service and family dining restaurants.

Last year RMG Networks (previously Danoo) struck a deal to share ad inventory and content with mtvU, MTV's 24-hour college network; RMG also serves as the exclusive DO sales rep for mtvU. In 2009, following a merger between Danoo and Ideacast, National Cinemedia began providing national and local ad sales representation to the DO networks.