The Media Drop

Denver’s ABC 7 reports on a story by the Associated Press that details a move by Gannett to continue growing their advertising business to elevator video screens in the U.S. and Canada. Last April, the publishing company purchased Captivate Network, who claims 4,500 “wireless flat-panel television screens in the elevators of premier office towers across North America” where they can bring advertising, news, and business information.

Following the TINSTAAFL approach (there is no such thing as a free lunch), Captivate has been able to bring advertisers one more step closer to their target market in a manner that is probably a lot more innocuous than it sounds. Think it doesn’t have an impact? Well, their website states that their medium has “fundamentally expanded the advertiser’s ability to reach this desirable audience by an additional 8-10 hours per day.” They are also claiming to have 30 million impressions/month, which is a fantastic statistic. At first I was somewhat skeptical here, thinking that someone remembering a car company when they went to their desk in the morning wouldn’t be beneficial in the long term - but Captivate’s press releases confirm a 45% recall from a Nielsen Media Research study from 2002.