Excite is oOh Media’s new out-of-home retail screen ‘packed with sensory features’ and 50 of them are being rolled out across Australia as digital outdoor continues to surge. The outdoor company, which reported a 48.9 per cent digital revenue growth for its HY15, unveiled the new interactive panels with gesture control, voice recognition, web-cams, Wi-Fi, and audio, at its North Sydney office last night.
Brendon Cook, CEO, oOh Media
Speaking exclusively with Australian Printer at the launch, Brendon Cook, CEO of oOh Media, says the new product, which he calls a ‘milestone’ will provide engagement, and network national reach that give advertisers opportunities to interact with consumers. Cook says, “The real significance is that we see globally and in Australia a lot of ideas that infect us and go viral. And what we have done is put all of those ideas and innovations together to create a forum that will allow the creative community not only to deliver mass reach but also allow deeper engagement by allowing their consumers to touch, feel and talk to their brands, and immediately engage through their own phone, online and social media. “Little things have been happening but no one has said how do I take the best of the breed and pull it altogether to make an all inclusive broad based technology allowing creatives to do what they want.” Cook, who has been the owner of the company for more than 30 years, says digital is not taking over static outdoor despite its rapid growth. Cook says, “Digital plays a large role, but static signs can get involved in digital’s growth as well. The reality is that digital allows you to take it to another level and the digital sign, Exicte, literally allows you to connect to social, mobile and online. 
“Digital sign is not a digital strategy it is an implementer, it is a tool, which allows for engagement and brings online social ideas to life. “It may seem that digital is taking over with its rapid growth, and that is because it is growing from a small base, while static has then there since the beginning. We are converting some of the static signs to digital, but static is also growing on the like to like basis.” However, he says technology is not the enemy and capitalising on that will allow the outdoor industry to expand. Cook says, “Technology is our friend and what it allows us to do is engage clients in more ways giving them options of the different mediums. “So the static is used for big strong single message propositions. They use digital to for certain date/time and weather dependency type of stuff. And now we have the engagement model and what clients are doing is using all three of them at once. “In the next five years we will see 50 per cent of our revenue come from digital, we are at 30 per cent now, but that will only be 10 or 15 per cent of the actual physical structure. We should never forget that static signs have proven the test of time over being disruptive.” 
oOh Media will initially roll out 50 new panels in centres across Australia with Village Roadshow bring the first advertiser to use the capabilities for its new release, Pan. Cook says the Excite screens are strategically placed in high traffic spots – giving a wide berth for interactivity and crowd viewing, plus a long viewing time – such as the food courts in Australia’s top shopping centres. oOh’s newly appointed digital strategy director, Brendon Cropper, says the release of the Excite panels was an exciting evolution of the out-of-home sector worldwide. Cropper says, “We have spent more than $1m in the development of the Excite panels, which take the out-of-home industry to an entirely new level and set the benchmark for consumer engagement. “We know that the offer of interactivity is appealing to consumers, from our experience with 33,000 consumers joining a touch to play game on the screens during a two-week campaign. “We have packed in all the latest technologies we could to equip brands and their advertising agencies with the opportunity to be creative and develop interactive campaigns with both cut through and reach.”
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