Last week, AdAge’s 3-minute video segment featured a story on a new digital out of home network called Wall Street Journal Office Network. The company, headed by CEO, Jim Harris, operates a network of LCD screens mounted in office building lobbies throughout the country. The screens stream news from the Wall Street Journal as well as advertising from media partners.
What makes this a unique proposition is that Harris coordinates the marketing messages on the screens with live events that are staged in the building lobbies. For instance, while ads are running on the screens for Blackberry, there is a live Blackberry demon being held in the lobby of the same building. According to Harris, this integrated marketing scheme has led to a 51% increase in purchase intent and 16% sell through up to 120 days after the events take place. “The bottom line on this is sales.”
The results that the network has been able to achieve are very encouraging for the future development of in-store programs, particularly in digital. It demonstrates the value of integrating digital with other marketing elements, in this case events, to present a continuity that will stick with the consumer as they relate to the brand. Harris has effectively taken digital beyond a vehicle for running looped commercials to a tool that triangulates the communication between the shopper, the digital message and the other marketing messages that are presented in the selling space.
