• by Erik Sass  @eriksass1, February 27, 2006

Burgeoning place-based media network Captivate has reached a major milestone, surpassing 2 million screens in the elevators of U.S. office buildings, and beating the business audience reach of a major newspapers like The Wall Street Journal.

"Captivate is all about reaching business people during a time of day when most traditional media has had a hard time reaching them," boasted Captivate CEO and President Mike DiFranza, adding that it has long been the digital media network's goal to best the audiences reach of Dow Jones & Co.'s Wall Street Journal. The move is more than just symbolic, he said, but means Captivate now delivers more business professionals, and reaches them when they are at work and between office destinations.

Asked how the company calculates reach, DiFranza explained: "That's a function of building occupancy." The company currently has contracts with 1,100 buildings used by business professionals, all tall enough to deter even the fittest inhabitants from using the stairs. The relative security of the network's "captive audience" numbers are also a significant leg up on competitors: "When advertisers are trying to figure out ROI, they want to how much it costs to get the audience they want to reach, and what is the return on that cost," DiFranza noted. "We can deliver 100 percent coverage of that audience because we know 100 percent of those people are riding the elevators."

But is the captive audience actually paying attention? According to DiFranza: "We've done over 60 recall studies to help them understand the effectiveness of the medium, and we average somewhere between high 30s and low 40s, which is very good in comparison with traditional media."

Laughing, DiFranza touted the special appeal of elevator video advertising: "Frankly, our only competition is the little flashing floor display or the back of some guy's head--so of course you're going to watch."