White Paper Part 2 Interactive Dooh Experience
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The document discusses building an interactive digital out of home experience using mobile and social media. It outlines three key considerations: 1) Interactivity needs to be in real-time to engage users, with responses within 5-10 seconds for a good user experience. 2) Systems need to support "fly-by texters" who can interact without signing up, while also allowing richer engagement over time. 3) The call to action prompting interaction is important and needs to be clear, compelling, and framed around an enticing topic or question to encourage responses.
White Paper Part 2 Interactive Dooh Experience
- 1. PART II - BUILDING AN INTERACTIVE DIGITAL OUT OF HOME EXPERIENCE Basic Considerations for Mobile & Social Interactivity on Digital Out of Home Networks Stephen Randall, August 2009 Introduction • The Disruptive Effect of the Internet and Mobile Phones on Out-of-Home Digital Media - Bill Collins and Stephen Simple text-to-screen and photo-to-screen Randall, 2007 applications are commonplace at pop Contact loca_info@LocaModa.com for a copy of any of the concerts. Twitter feeds are springing up in White papers. conferences. It canʼt be too hard to add an engaging mobile and social interactive First Principles applications to digital out of home (“DOOH”) A capable interactive DOOH network networks, right? Wrong. supports real-time user engagement. This is part 2 in a series of 4 white papers Engagement might come from a user at the focused on helping brands, advertisers, location or via the web (e.g. via a social digital out of home (“DOOH”) network network connected to the location through operators and event planners understand the the affinity of a brand). Engagement might be strategic impact of mobile and social sporadic or frequent, but whenever it interactive media beyond the web and to happens, it creates an enhanced user navigate some of the tactical issues of experience as well as a measurable “mobile bringing it to screens in public spaces. click.” The resulting “pulse” for the location NOTE: The 4 white papers are: can then be used to help the location or • PART I - The Different Capabilities of Interactive Mobile & advertiser improve services and/or Social Media on Digital Out Of Home Systems. Not All messaging. Systems Are Created Equal. • PART II - Building an Interactive Digital Out of Home To be clear, the expectation for interactivity is Experience. Basic Considerations for Mobile & Social often unrealistic and will be highly dependant Interactivity on Digital Out of Home Networks. on location, audience, call to action and other • PART III - Overcoming Ghost Town. Leveraging the Network Effect to Enhance the Interactive Experience on factors such as user experience. As Digital Out-of-Home Networks. discussed in Part III - Overcoming Ghost • PART IV - Dealing With F**K and Other User Generated Town. Leveraging the Network Effect to Content Challenges for Digital Out-of-Home Networks. Enhance the Interactive Experience on Two earlier white papers also cover some general issues for Digital Out-of-Home Networks, the mobile and social applications on Digital Out-of-Home networks: experience and data for interactivity at a pop • Making The Most of Mobile Marketing: Leveraging Mobile concert will yield very different results than and Social Networks to Amplify Response Rates From the those seen on a digital billboard in Times “Connected Class.” Square. Part II - Building an Interactive Digital Out of Home Experience. 1 Basic Considerations for Mobile & Social Interactivity on Digital Out of Home Networks. Stephen Randall, August 2009
- 2. Really Real-Time location, and should be prioritized. People A user interacting with a DOOH system with richer content such as photos or profile needs to get real-time feedback, ideally on pictures, could also be prioritized. screen and on his mobile phone. Users need Ideally, the DOOH system could either confirmation that their interaction has had display a message on screen showing x some result. This immediacy delivers a number of messages waiting and/or send an payoff in the user experience, creating the acknowledgment to the userʼs phone. engagement metrics that brands desire. In situations where the interaction cannot be Examples could be the DOOH screen displayed on screen immediately (e.g. the displaying a message, incrementing a poll or DOOH loop might have ended, there might e advancing in a game. too many messages ahead of the user, the The latency of sending a text message to a userʼs message might have been blocked by screen should ideally be no greater than the moderator), the user should at least between 5-10 seconds. If moderation is receive a message back to their phone required, an effective moderation system acknowledging their interaction. should not add more than 30 seconds to that While some text-to-screen applications latency. respond in this way, most do not. DOOH operators, event planners and brands rarely specify their requirements at this level, but they should do so to ensure they understand at a detailed level, the implications of the supported user experience. The Social Web can be Unsocial in Locations DOOH network operators should also be Example of real-time DOOH mobile and social interactive messaging. LocaModa-enabled screens at Disney/AT&T mindful of using web-based social networks sponsored Demi Lovato US Tour Summer 2009. Messages for DOOH messaging. They were built with a tagged “@Demi” were displayed on specific location screens. different purpose in mind and do not support A digital memento was also provided for fans to be able to retrieve a movie clip of their messages at a specific concert. key features necessary for DOOH All content was filtered & moderated in real time. applications. Popular sites such as Facebook and Flickr require users to register online There may be several use cases where this before being able to message via mobile is not possible. If lots of users are messaging devices. Twitter has a simple mobile login to a specific screen, there could be delays process, but some of the richer features that imposed by the user interface (not the can benefit a location experience cannot be system), simply because messages should setup via phone if the user is not already a be displayed for around 5-7 seconds to be member. Even with so-called dedicated readable and the system has to queue up location-based mobile social networking messages. For instance, if a screen can websites such as Dodgeball, non-members display 10 readable messages (they should will be the majority of users in most locations be clearly readable from around 20 ft), then and are unable to message to the system there will be a delay of over a minute if there without first registering via the web. are more than 10 live messages waiting in (NOTE: Dodgeball was acquired by Google the message queue. The system can be in May 2005 and shut down in early 2009. more intelligent about prioritizing messages – The founders then launched Foursquare in for example, people messaging directly to March 2009, a service focused on turning the screen as opposed to via the web, are nightlife into a location-based game. ) more likely to be physically present in the Part II - Building an Interactive Digital Out of Home Experience. 2 Basic Considerations for Mobile & Social Interactivity on Digital Out of Home Networks. Stephen Randall, August 2009
- 3. Such web-based systems almost certainly end up with lots of similarly marked Anon require that users sign up as members posts, which is not a great user experience. before being able to engage with the system. A better option is to have no name, or have a This is not a practical solution for DOOH system that allocates pseudonyms and systems. awards users for optionally connecting social Further to the points above, it is a networking profile data to claim their real fundamental requirement for interactive names. DOOH applications to support the “fly-by To support pseudonyms, once a user has texter” i.e. a user wanting to interact without sent in a message, DOOH mobile interactive needing to sign up or login. Audiences in and social applications such as LocaModaʼs locations that want to engage with interactive Jumbli or Wiffiti, allocate a name such as a media, want to do so now. Supporting fly-by color/animal (e.g. GreyShark) and send a texters is essential. For example, if a DOOH message back to the user confirming their system is capable of displaying Twitter pseudonym. messages but does not support fly-by- texters, then users who are not on Twitter will be unable to participate. Furthermore, there are many basic text-to- screen products that do not support other social feeds, and will therefore be prone to the “Ghost Town” problem of having poor or inconsistent audience engagement. (See Part III - Overcoming Ghost Town. Leveraging the Network Effect to Enhance the Interactive Experience on Digital Out-of- Home Networks.) So letʼs assume that any user wishing to engage with place-based interactive media should be able to do so, subject to the Terms of Service (which is covered in Part V - LocaModaʼs word game Jumbli (seen above in Facebook), Dealing With F**K and Other User can be played via DOOH networks and from the web. Players Generated Content Challenges for Digital can participate under their Facebook name or a pseudonym. Out-of-Home Networks.) To do this, a user Some systems display the last few digits of must be able to send a message to the usersʼ phone numbers. While this helps system without requiring a membership or cumbersome login process. senders identify their messages on screen, it is an inelegant solution for all other viewers Once a user has engaged with a place- who cannot easily identify message owners based system, they might be motivated to and see what looks like random numbers visit a website and register, especially if it after every message. results in an obvious benefit to them, such as Advanced placed-based social media coupons, being entered for a prize draw, or personalization features such as profile systems can connect to available social pictures being displayed alongside their profiles on existing social networks such as messages in future. Twitter and Facebook, subject to permission from the user. For example, with LocaModaʼs Enabling/Displaying User Identities Wiffiti, messages from Facebook or Twitter Ideally, place-based messaging systems are displayed alongside their profile pictures. should not identify unknown users as If a user chooses, they can also associate “Anonymous” or “Anon,” as the screen will their mobile phone number with their social Part II - Building an Interactive Digital Out of Home Experience. 3 Basic Considerations for Mobile & Social Interactivity on Digital Out of Home Networks. Stephen Randall, August 2009
- 4. network profile info and then have their ranges from 1-5 again, depending on the Facebook or Twitter profile displayed when type of event and application (e.g. social they send a text message to the system at a messaging, poll, game). For an application location. that supports both text and photo messaging, the percentage of messages sent as photos Messaging Schemas for Different Loop can be as high as 25%. Requirements A capable social media DOOH system The Call to Action should have enough data about a location, Apart from leveraging the network effect to audience, time of day, context, etc to display other messages (thus prompting prioritize specific local messages. When this reaction and interaction) as described earlier, information is available to the DOOH system, the call to action is critical in getting user messages can be displayed in an optimized engagement and should clearly and manner. succinctly frame the invitation to interact. For example, letʼs assume Joeʼs Bar in Boston has an interactive DOOH system, capable of receiving text messages and photos via mobile phones and/or email and tagged messages from the web. Letʼs also assume that the system has been set up to subscribe to messages tagged “RedSox.” The system should prioritize the local messages first - i.e. those messages sent via mobile or web to @JoesBar. Then it should display the tagged messages in date order. The nature of the display algorithm is a key consideration for the public display of UGC. Should a message received on the system linger until the system receives a new message(s) or should it loop all messages received over a predetermined period in order to keep the audience interest up? Should the messages be displayed linearly like a chat board or randomly like graffiti? BarCast (an interactive DOOH bar network in Boston, Chicago For a large, engaged, passionate audience and Miami) uses very effective animated instructions and such as at a pop concert, the offer of enticing calls to action, explaining how to interact using text messaging or emailing photos. displaying a user photos and text messages is compelling and typically results in a high The texting demographic is accustomed to response rate. The data from over a concatenated or abbreviated instructions, so thousand LocaModa deployments/events, ironically, the call to action for mobile and shows that the number of unique messages social applications is less about the clarity of sent an event can be as high as 55% of the the language and more about clarity of the audience. The results are highly dependant key words (screen ID, short code, tags, etc) on the type of location and/or event (e.g. pop to send. concert, sports event, political rally, conference, bar, café, etc). The average The call to action can be helped by number of messages each respondent sends displaying specific mobile commands in a different color, e.g: Part II - Building an Interactive Digital Out of Home Experience. 4 Basic Considerations for Mobile & Social Interactivity on Digital Out of Home Networks. Stephen Randall, August 2009
- 5. txt @joesbar + message to 87884 User generated content is often best when framed around a topic, e.g: Whatʼs your best pickup line? txt @joesbar + message to 87884 Sometimes an “either or” question is good to encourage interaction, e.g: Star Trek or Star Wars? txt @joesbar + message to 87884 If a CTA is trying too hard to be “cool” but promotes a product that is anything but cool, donʼt be surprised if the results are poor. “Hey txt your favorite insurance company” is unlikely to get great results! Just because mobile and social technology is growing rampantly in popularity, does not mean it can be used effectively for all products or occasions. Conclusion Anyone approaching interactive social media for DOOH must be very mindful about the user experience and ensure the systems they are deploying support real-time interactivity, rich personalization features, flexible messaging and display configuration. In addition, their applications must have a clear, compelling call to action. Stephen Randall is CEO of LocaModa, a technology company extending interactive media to audiences beyond the web. CONTACT: SRANDALL@LOCAMODA.COM TWITTER.COM/STEPHENRANDALL CELL: +1 781 888 1417 Part II - Building an Interactive Digital Out of Home Experience. 5 Basic Considerations for Mobile & Social Interactivity on Digital Out of Home Networks. Stephen Randall, August 2009