• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, July 30, 2007

Advances in digital video technologies are putting ads in front of consumers in places many marketers would not have previously imagined - everywhere from gas station pumps to the elevators of high-rise office buildings. Now they're going to begin popping up where people go to dine and drink. In a new digital advertising network being rolled out nationwide, out-of-home media company Zoom Media & Marketing is installing Internet-connected, digital video screens in fine restaurants and bars in major media markets with a goal of creating the first media network of its kind.

The rollout is the first of several targeted, vertical, place-based video networks planned by Zoom and is the latest in what is proving to be the greatest land grab in U.S. advertising history, as developers seek to turn every conceivable venue into an opportunity for an advertising exposure.

Zoom's rollout comes as the burgeoning digital out-of-hone market has formed a new trade association - the Out-of-Home Video Advertising Bureau - to set standards for advertising formats and help define audience metrics for what is fast becoming the most explosive medium since the early Internet.

"We've been watching the digital space for a few years and we think the time is right for this," says Dennis Roche, president-COO of Zoom, citing improvements in technology and better economics associated with installing deploying high-definition video screens and digital ad insertion technologies in public places. How consumers and advertisers will react to the new medium remains to be seen, but Zoom already is installing the new screens - 36" x 22" LCD panel displays that are networked by a broadband Internet connection to a central advertising server - in restaurants and bars in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago, and if the initial rollout is successful, it plans to be in two dozen establishments this month and about 50 by November. They include places like Jack Demsey's and P. Diddy's Justin's in New York, the Lava Lounge and The Spot in Chicago, and Sonny McClean's and the Westwood Brewing Company in Los Angeles.

The boards, which are capable of digitally inserting static ad messages, rich media or full-motion video such as movie trailers or conventional TV commercials, represent a new frontier for advertisers.

And it won't just be digital video ads showing up in the new locations. Zoom also specializes in so-called "experiential media" - a catchphrase covering everything from "street teams" to venue-based sampling opportunities - and Roche says restaurant and bar network advertisers are likely to combine a mix of media in the new locations.

Zoom initially is charging a flat monthly fee of $500 per month per digital screen, and the buy includes one 30-second ad per five-minute programming loop, repeated throughout the day.