BIG DIGITAL WANTS TO MAKE EVENT SIGNAGE ‘BEAUTIFUL’

1
BIG DIGITAL WANTS TO MAKE EVENT SIGNAGE
BEAUTIFUL

• By BIG DIGITAL

2
Serial entrepreneur Mike Girgis has returned to
digital out-of-home advertising with a new
startup media shop slash experiential agency,
formally launching this week under the name Big
Digital. Rather than wading into the already
crowded market for digital outdoor, Big Digital
plans to focus on portable, temporary and
small-scale activations for conferences, retail
pop-ups and seasonal displays. It wont just
provide screens, but will consult with clients to
design custom content for them.
3

• Girgis told Marketing he got the idea for a
  service-oriented OOH shop back in his days at
  OneStop Media, the OOH network he co-founded in
  2005. Retail and event-focused clients OneStop
  worked with couldnt always make big investments
  in high-tech, big-screen displays that they only
  planned to use a few times a year. But, there
  werent opportunities for renting that kind of
  equipment either all the digital signage
  companies OneStop looked into working with only
  had pricey permanent displays available.
• Another big pain point for clients that
  wanted digital displays for conferences was that
  they had to coordinate the effort between the AV
  team that owned the equipment, the creative
  agency that designed the content, and whoever
  showed up on site to set everything up, Girgis
  said. Most of the time, they were doing it
  without any way to measure its effectiveness.
• Big Digital claims it can do all three. If
  you could take an AV company and a creative
  agency and mash them up, thats probably Big
  Digital, Girgis said. Weve got digital
  strategists in-house, and weve been doing
  digital out-of-home for fourteen years, so we
  understand the tech.

4

• EMPHASIS ON PORTABILITY AND EASE
• If you still think of out-of-home as a
  traditional media format, you wont after seeing
  Big Digitals standup displays. The team has
  spent the past 18 months building and testing a
  range of modular sets that combine up to 12
  widescreen LCD screens, as well as LED
  backlighting, 3G network connectivity, and wifi
  access points for communicating with nearby
  devices.
• The standard format displays are all named
  after friendly famous elephants, to make them
  more memorable and less intimidating. But the
  modularity gives them a lot of flexibility as
  well, Girgis said. The aluminum frames can be
  quickly resized and the signs can be adjusted to
  create entranceways, digital shelving, or
  in-store endcaps. Big Digital took inspiration
  from IKEAs do-it-yourself philosophy theyre
  designed to be set up and taken down in under an
  hour, by anyone who can read the instruction
  booklet.
• Theyre also all brandable, with space for the
  client to physically white-label each sign with a
  logo and company name. We want it to look like
  the client has spent a lot of money, he said.

5

• ALL-IN-ONE CREATIVE AND ANALYTICS
• Rather than pitching itself on tech, Big
  claims its approach is consultative and
  content-first, more like an experience design
  agency. In-house strategists figure out what the
  clients goals are, whether its putting a
  product or brand on display in high-definition or
  getting conference attendees to approach and
  engage with a booth or sponsorship activation.
  Then, they customize the physical display and
  design the clients content around those goals.
• The last, crucial component to its service is
  analytics. According to VP and co-founder Jeff
  Wismer, Big Digital uses wifi hotspots to track
  when people (or more accurately their mobile
  phones) are dwelling near the display.
  Post-activation, Big Digital will report on how
  many people engaged with a clients displays,
  which activation performed best, and when each
  one saw the most traffic.

6

• Wismer said for a lot of event organizers,
  analytics usually extend to number of tickets
  sold and no-shows. For such a big investment,
  marketers and sponsors want to see measurable
  results. Foot traffic heatmapping the same kind
  that retailers are starting to do to figure out
  which of their displays and products are
  performing best can add a lot more
  measurability to events, he said. Big Digitals
  reports tell clients how many people showed up,
  but also what time they showed up, what
  presentations and showrooms they attended, and
  when they headed to the bar.
• Weve heard the numbers from some of our
  clients, who build these booths and have 50 shows
  a year, said Girgis. You think about the number
  theyre spending with no analytics!

7

• Contact Details
• Address
• 116 Geary Ave 202a,Toronto, ON M6H4H1, Canada
• Website
• https//www.bigdigital.ca/
• Email
• info_at_bigdigital.ca
• Mobile Number
•  888-512-5590