Client’s Challenging Situation:
One of the businesses we invested in was creating a new video advertising & messaging service to present “local advertising” to people visiting local restaurants [host sites]. When we made our investment, the video content was transferred manually, once a month.
Scope of the Problem:
In addition to the challenges of manual transfer of the advertising content, the advertising service had several operational problems:
- the restaurant owners could turn off the TV that ran the ads and that would not be discovered until an advertising client complained that their ad was not running,
- content playlists were a manual process, installation problems, and
- hardware incompatibility.
It took expertise to set up the advertising equipment at the host sites, the advertising equipment was too expensive, and it took expertise to create playlists.
Our Solution:
We created custom software – a content distribution system – to automate the delivery of playlists to the host sites. We provided equipment and installation recommendations that standardized setups at the host sites. We customized and systematized the creation of playlists, enabling customized messaging for each host site, onsite gaming/contests, weather information, confirmation of advertising metrics, and alerts to signal when the advertising TVs were not operating.
The Value Delivered:
The company we invested in grew a profitable business unit with its customized local advertising displayed in many Canadian cities. We exited this successful investment and Spirited Leaders and its affiliate NeuStyle software & Systems served this client for 10 years, providing safe private data centre services and adding software enhancements to the content distribution system. In addition, we provided advice that significantly reduced the costs of the advertising equipment and its installation.