SeeSaw Creates Media Planning, Buying Tool for OOH Video Space

SeeSaw Networks is licensing its technology so that buyers and sellers can use it to manage their own inventory. The company says the service is a “major step forward” in establishing an industry wide media planning and buying marketplace.

CBS Outernet has signed on to use the “Powered by SeeSaw” system.

By opening the SeeSawAds.com platform through the service offering, agencies and networks can create their own customized online service, complete with unique inventory, pricing structures and personalized proposal templates.

Agencies use the new version of SeeSawAds.com to get access to SeeSaw’s network of place-based digital video affiliates; they can extend this footprint with networks they invite into their own system.

“Using SeeSaw’s technology, agencies generate faster, more accurate proposals, streamline reporting and integrate their own proprietary research and processes for planning, buying and measuring place-based digital media campaigns,” according to a release.

The move is a bid on the part of SeeSaw to become the industry standard for planning, buying and selling digital out-of-home, writes MediaPost. It’s a good time to be attempting such a goal, as the out-of-home video network space is rapidly expanding and filled with a variety of services and players.

“We have to make this business easier for people to use, and we have to give people the opportunity to customize what they are doing,” says Virginia Cargill, president of CBS Outernet. CBS Outernet is a provider of in-store media networks and advertising in grocery stores and in GameStop retail locations.

Media planners can create a media buy online to reach an exact audience, without having to call CBS Outernet to have them create the plan, Cargill explains.

SeeSaw Networks has nearly 30,000 venues and continues to grow.

The U.S. digital out-of-home marketplace is varied and disparate, and some, including PQ Media, expect that a shakeout is coming that will leave fewer players in the space. Following the shakeout, digital OOH will bounce back stronger than ever when the economy recovers, says Patrick Quinn of PQ Media, in his Digital Out-of-Home Media Forecast 2008-2012.

Digital out-of-home spending grew 24.5% in 2007 over 2006, and represented about 30% of all out-of-home revenue - double its 15% share in 2002. The U.S. digital out-of-home media industry was expected to grow 11.2% to $2.43 billion in 2008. PQ Media forecasts      digital OOH spending in the U.S. to grow at a compound annual rate of     12.9% from 2007 to 2012.