The Imperative Group’s new NDB consulting scheme is designed to provide a cost effective option for those wishing to explore digital signage options.
Organisations considering a digital out-of-home media network have always been able to buy in plentiful technical expertise to save them the headaches of figuring out what plugs in where. But when it comes to developing the business rationale, historically the choice has been between paying big bucks to consultancies whose fees are only justified for major rollouts – or doing it yourself.
Now The Imperative Group hopes it can change that, with the launch of its Network Development Blueprint (NDB) scheme. The programme will, according to Imperative, provide potential DOOH users with sufficient management insight to speed up development, reduce costs, and establish benchmarks for their networks.
The NDB is based on a full-day workshop, preceded by a briefing and followed by a report, with the entire process taking around four weeks. Examining mobile and social media as well as digital screens and interactive displays, it aims to identify key performance indicators, consider how a DOOH network could add value to a business and how it might operate commercially, and finally define the best path toward implementation.
“Customers are now looking for high-value help without high management costs or waiting for months for an answer. In today’s economic climate, marketers, buyers and investors need to validate the opportunity and secure funding to take the thinking process into a test-and-learn phase,” said managing director Chris Heap.
“[The NDB] is not a feasibility study but is designed to provide enough clarity and substance to enable a customer to draw conclusions and give them the confidence to seek funds or deploy resource to take them to the next stage, which is either more paper-based development work or a test-and-learn phase,” possibly involving trial deployments, he added.
The Imperative Group is aiming it at possible DOOH users including retailers, landlords, corporates, media agencies and investors. And the company is also offering the NDB to firms which want to sell the service on to their own clients: “We are already white-labelling versions of this for a couple of companies operating in the eurozone,” said Heap.