Digital out-of-home (DOOH) media has the potential to revolutionize the out-of-home advertising industry if its true potential is harnessed, said Shripad Ashtekar, CEO and co-founder of Signpost India Pvt. Ltd., a DOOH company. “Any DOOH asset powered by artificial intelligence (AI) can become a virtual point of sale with custom hyper-local communications targeting a broad spectrum of customers for brands, and can scale instantly,” he said.
“These are the waters to be tested and we at Signpost truly believe that DOOH, aided by AI, will be the biggest disruption the industry has seen,” he said.
Recently, Signpost India and the publicly traded Pressman Advertising Ltd. proposed to merge to create a bigger and stronger entity.
“The merger will help pool the experience, expertise, resources and customer base of the two companies; offer a wider range of advertising and promotion services, with a focus on digital media and emerging technologies,” said Mr. Ashtekar.
“The proposed merger will streamline operations and cost efficiencies, and together with the combined customer base of both companies should result in accelerated business growth,” he added.
Mr Ashtekar said Pressman is a publicly traded company and the merger process involved many steps and could take six to eight months to complete all formalities and approvals, such as due diligence, and grants and regulatory approvals, including approval By a third party.
“During this period, however, we will begin to integrate the two companies and leverage each other’s skills and strengths to grow the business,” he said.
The merged entity would be a publicly traded company, he said, adding: “With the merger of Pressman Advertising’s operations in Signpost India, the company Signpost India Ltd. would be listed subject to legal, regulatory and other approvals.”
The former shareholders of Pressman Advertising would buy the shares of Signpost India Ltd. according to the exchange ratio to be determined by registered appraisers, he said.
He said Signpost was created after looking at the changing infrastructures of larger cities, and said the company saw the great opportunity to open up the void in these cities in terms of public facilities, information channels and amenities.
“We have taken up several PPP model projects that not only provide a delightful experience for citizens, but also generate revenue for the government, and have been successful in adding these new dimensions to the cities in recent times,” he said.
“The scope is really huge and we’ve just touched the tip of the iceberg. With our initial success in such projects, we are confident that there will be many such projects in the future,” he added.
The company has implemented large-scale public-facing projects, including street furniture, public transportation, public bicycle sharing and an internet traffic control system, with more than 32 government agencies across the country. It also serves more than 100 brands.
The projects include large format digital billboards and digital media format traffic measurement system at Mumbai International Airport and digital analytics project for traffic coverage in Bengaluru.
Its subsidiary EFlag Analytics Pvt. Ltd. has developed a computer vision-based Artificial Intelligence-Machine Learning (AI-ML) platform to measure any traffic exposure through image analysis, which has been validated by the IISC Sustainable Transportation Lab at the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru.
It has implemented digital analytics for Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagar Pallika (BBMP) and Bengaluru Police for the Government of Karnataka, covering the entire city of Bengaluru.
It has a strategic investment in MojoBoxx, a smart device-based wireless solution that enables the delivery of onboard services, including multimedia content and engagement services, he said. The company is building on other initiatives such as Livebytes (a vehicle that reaches rural areas and provides real-time interactivity) and Hinterland H2H, a learning and skills development program delivered via secure portable high-speed wireless media in the country’s most remote villages, he added. to.
“Media spend is now rapidly shifting from traditional advertising to new platforms in the digital space and therefore the combined entity with its innovative offerings will be well positioned to grow at a rapid pace,” said Mr. Ashtekar.