Guy Fawkes Night is approaching, and that is bad news for wildfowl, songbirds, owls, badgers, deer and voles. According to the Noise Abatement Society, these creatures can suffer from severe shock, burns, and broken ear-drums – or can simply die of shock from the sound of fireworks.
If you go into a bar, or a shopping centre you are unlikely to suffer from quite such a fate. But still you will find your senses assailed by music and by a barrage of images all, of course, intended to part us from our money in one direction of another.
A few years ago I wrote about a company called Imagesound, which supplies background music in shops and hotels. Afterwards I received an indignant letter from a member of the Noise Abatement Society. But for all the efforts of this worthy body – for which I have the greatest sympathy by the way - its representations in the field of shopping and boozing seem to have fallen on, if you will excuse the pun, deaf ears.
So far as investors on the stock exchange are concerned, there have been three ways to invest into this phenomenon. One has been the aforesaid Imagesound, while the other two have been Screen FX and Avanti Screenmedia – the latter until March of this year a part of the Avanti Group.
Unlike Imagesound, which purely provides sound in the form of music or in-store radio programmes, Screen FX and Avanti Screenmedia deliver both sound and video content, delivered via networks of large plasma screens that are typically either suspended from the ceilings of shopping malls or else from the walls of bars.
The basic concept behind these companies has been simple enough. Here, in a bar or shopping mall, is a large audience in the mood to spend money. Via screen entertainment and advertising they can be prompted to buy a Heineken or a new pair of Levis – which are of course on sale just a few steps away. And, unlike the so-called ‘six sheet’ posters that have traditionally carried advertisements in such places, the content of video screens can be changed at will and remotely controlled.
Advertisers needed on board
But these ventures have so far had limited success. Mall and bar owners have been happy to encourage the installation of screen networks, partly because they create what is seen as a dynamic and trendy environment but also, at least so far as mall owners are concerned, they get paid for the privilege. But advertisers have been slow to adopt the new channel.
Sir John Sunderland, the chairman of Cadbury, describes the opportunity to target consumers at the point of purchase as ‘intriguing’ and, indeed, the medium has already taken off in the US. But perhaps because big advertisers in this country are slow to change their ways or perhaps because of the difficulty of measuring the true impact of screen advertising, it has not quite caught on over here.
In consequence, investors into the shares of Avanti Screenmedia and Screen FX have had a torrid time. I have lost count of the number of times that these companies have held out the begging bowl for more cash, each time at a lower share price than the time before. Now though, according to Simon Rees, there are some indications of light at the end of the tunnel.
Simon, formerly chief executive of Mindshare, has occupied this role at Avanti Screenmedia since June and has, to boot, invested some of his own cash into the company’s latest fund raising.
Like all good incoming CEOs he has cut costs, and has renegotiated contract terms with Avanti’s biggest customer, the Mall Corporation. But he has also addressed Avanti Screenmedia’s fundamental problem of a lack of revenue. Now his sales team is signing up new advertisers in the locale of the shopping.
He has also signed a deal with EHM, which has 150 screens installed in hospitals and GP surgeries, giving Avanti the rights to sell local advertising. This could be the forerunner of other similar deals, because screens are increasingly being used in public places – railway stations, for example, or outside police stations – to disseminate information.
Using his contacts in the industry Rees has done another deal, to sell the advertising minutes within the programmes of sports broadcaster Setanta and, as the industry comes of age, he is seeing a greater level of interest and commitment from the mall owners themselves. Indeed, rival ScreenFX has, for the first time, been involved in the initial design of a shopping mall, working with the architects responsible for the new Drake Circus centre in Plymouth.
Whether we like it or not, giant digital screens broadcasting music, entertainment and advertising will become a fixture in our urban landscape. Avanti and ScreenFX lead the industry and are both keen to further their dominance of what is a fragmented industry - thus enabling them to deliver even more sets of shoppers’ eyes to prospective advertisers. I will try to ensure that mine are not amongst them.
Regards,
Tom Bulford
for The Penny Sleuth
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