SeeSaw to launch online ad buy platform for digital signage

ADWEEK notes that SeeSaw Networks, a company that allows media buyers to purchase ad time on multiple disparate digital signage networks at once, is stepping up its efforts by launching seesawads.com, a web-based marketplace for digital sign media buys. By joining together any number of smaller networks into one quasi-cohesive ad "platform," SeeSaw is attempting to address one of the critical shortcomings of many digital signage networks today: unless they're big (and I mean really big), many advertisers are either unaware of these networks' benefits or uninterested in them because it can be hard to deal with the myriad of different business and technical rules to place an ad. Plus, with a merging of networks, SeeSaw gains access to a broad array of demographics and a large slice of the population. According to the ADWEEK article:

SeeSaw's six affiliates allow advertisers to aggregate digital sign inventory from more than 10,000 lifestyle venues across 205 markets. The company's current affiliate roster skews toward younger demos in health clubs, sports bars and universities, but SeeSaw also has substantial avails in grocery stores, retailers and travel centers. Plans call for expanding to target Hispanic and business demographics.

Tags: SeeSaw Networks, digital signage, out-of-home advertising, retail media

SeeSaw networks raises $10M

According to this press release on their website, digital signage advertising network company SeeSaw Networks has just closeda deal for $10M of Series A financing with Sutter Hill Ventures. The company has a pretty neat advertising system that allows digital signage network owners (or their technology providers, presumably), to band together so that many smaller networks in disparate locations have the clout and ad buying power of a much larger, more homogeneous network.

Similar to what I proposed Google ought to do for digital signage after their acquisition of YouTube, the firm's software lets network owners tag each screen/network with certain target demographic information. Then, advertisers and content producers upload and tag content similarly. Some magic in the background (whether manual or automated) then matches the content to the screens, deploys it, and records views, thus giving network owners a revenue stream and media buyers/planners a homogenous interface to what could otherwise be many smaller networks.

Tags: SeeSaw Networks, digital signage, digital signage advertising, out-of-home advertising