Neo Advertising – “a Fresh View” of Out of Home Digital Media
Close-up on one of Europe’s largest networks
Coming from a banking background, Neo Group CEO, Christian Vaglio-Giors entered the Out of Home Digital Media sector with a “fresh view”. With his partner, Mr. Vaglio-Giors had spent a lot of time traveling in Anglo-Saxon countries where the idea of renting out screens for advertising first came about. “We thought that it was a definitely good idea and we thought it might one day become a medium”. In 2003, having identified this potential mass media, Neo Advertising was launched in Switzerland. “The timing was really good, and we had expertise in dealing with large client retailers in the specific area. My partner had an entrepreneur family in media, so he had the connections and basically we decided to join forces,” says Mr. Vaglio-Giors.
Neo has two main axes; firstly they have developed an advertising network using plasma and LCD screens and operating mostly in the retail, supermarkets and hypermarkets. Neo operates in shopping malls, with by far the largest network in the nation, running 40 of the top shopping malls there. They also operate in pharmacies and travel agencies.
With more than 1,300 screens, Neo already boasts more than 75-million impacts per year in Switzerland. While that seems like a lot of people, major advertising agencies are just starting to catch on to Out of Home Digital Media. According to Mr. Vaglio-Giors, agencies are just beginning to understand the interest of this medium: “What agencies are requesting now is to increase the number of screens, the number of locations, and the number of people, because we are still marginal in terms of contact. The reach of the coverage is not enough.”
Success Stories
Neo already has three major success stories in Switzerland. They managed to convince the three largest retailers in the country to “take the leap” into Digital Signage… quite an achievement! “As you know, these people are extremely difficult to deal with and convincing them was not an easy task. Now the market really sees the Neo Project as one of the key ways to institutionalise this media.”
Broadsign Adds Value to the Offering
In its early days, Neo used a “lite” software solution, but with the understanding that a high performance network was needed, they turned to Broadsign. “During the course of 2004 we were advised that developing software was definitely not the function where we had the most value,” says Mr. Vaglio-Giors. “We reviewed many solutions and finally decided to go for Broadsign. I always believed that for me technology should take no more than 1 hour per week, and using this software was certainly the best way to achieve this goal.” The application offers a lot of flexibility in creating content playback schedules, and it has media buyer-friendly documents such as insertion orders, campaign progress reports and affidavits. The estimation of CPM values for comparison to other media and ROI analysis is made possible through the use of Broadsign’s Dynamic Rate Card tool built into the software interface.
Neo assists clients in content creation
After two years of operations, the fact that only “broadcast” content was available became frustrating when planning campaigns. This fact had also hampered business: “We were not getting some business because at that time the clients often had no content for this medium, so we decided to create a service department to help clients make the shift from traditional media to digital signage.” Firstly this was done by creating light flash animations and today Neo has 8 full time staff working on content development for tier one clients. “I think this was key in our process to educate the market and to help them develop the right and appropriate content for this medium. My dream is that tomorrow we can broadcast 3-5 second spots and by developing our internal production team that certainly is the best way to achieve this goal.”
5 Years Out – Massive Growth Potential
The future looks very bright for Neo if growth projections are correct. “This market can definitely grab 5-10% of the entire media market in the next years,” says Mr. Vaglio-Giors; “10% being very aggressive and 5% being more realistic. If we assume that we will reach that objective over the next 5 years that still puts us in the 50-70% average growth rate!” Mr. Vaglio-Giors’ forecast echoes that of many others in the industry today. Given the right combination of talent, competencies and ideas, and with ongoing intense development of software by Broadsign in order to finally make media planning in Out of Home Digital Media “child’s play”, it is evident the major agencies will finally hop onto the bandwagon.