Digital out-of-home (DOOH) media has the potential to disrupt the out-of-home advertising industry if realized to its true potential, said Shripad Ashtekar, CEO and co-founder of Signpost India Pvt. Ltd., a DOOH company. “Any artificial intelligence (AI)-powered DOOH asset can become a virtual point of sale with hyper-local, customized communications that appeal to a wide range of customers for brands, and can scale instantly,” he said.
“These are the waters that need to be tested, and at Signpost we firmly believe that AI-powered DOOH will be the biggest disruption the industry has ever seen,” he said.
Recently, Signpost India and the publicly traded company Pressman Advertising Ltd. plans to merge to create a larger and stronger entity.
“The merger will help combine the experience, expertise, resources and customer base of the two companies; offer a wider range of advertising and promotional services with a focus on digital media and new technologies,” said Mr. Ashtekar.
“The proposed merger is expected to result in operational streamlining and cost efficiencies, coupled with the combined customer base of both companies, will result in accelerated business growth,” he added.
Mr Ashtekar said that since Pressman is a publicly traded company, the merger process involved many steps and could take anywhere from six to eight months to complete all formalities and approvals such as due diligence and stock exchange and regulatory approvals, including third party approvals.
“During this time, however, we will begin to integrate the two companies and leverage each other’s capabilities and strengths to grow the business,” he said.
The merged company would be a publicly traded company, he said, adding: “By merging Pressman Advertising’s business with Signpost India, the company Signpost India Ltd. be publicly traded subject to legal, regulatory and other approvals.”
Signpost India Ltd. shares would be sold to the former shareholders of Pressman Advertising. allocated according to the exchange ratio to be determined by registered appraisers, he said.
He explained that Signpost was conceived after looking at the changing infrastructures of larger cities and said the company saw a great opportunity to fill the gap that existed in these cities in terms of public facilities, information channels and amenities.
“We have taken up various PPP model projects that not only provide citizens with a pleasant experience but also generate revenue for the government, and recently we have been successful in adding these new dimensions to cities,” he said.
“The scope is really huge and we’ve only just touched the tip of the iceberg. With our initial success in such projects, we are confident that there will be many such projects in the future,” he added.
The company has implemented large-scale public-facing projects, including street furniture, public transportation, public bicycle sharing, and Internet traffic monitoring system, with more than 32 government agencies across the country. It also serves more than 100 brands.
His projects include large format digital billboards and traffic measurement systems for digital media formats at Mumbai International Airport, as well as a digital analytics project to report traffic in Bengaluru.
Its subsidiary EFlag Analytics Pvt. ltd has developed a computer vision-based Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning (AI-ML) platform to measure each traffic exposure through image analysis, validated by IISC Sustainable Transportation Lab of Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru.
It has implemented digital analytics for Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagar Pallika (BBMP) and Bengaluru Police for Karnataka Government, covering the entire city of Bengaluru.
It has a strategic investment in MojoBoxx, a smart device-based wireless solution that enables the delivery of in-flight services including multimedia content and interaction services, he said. The company builds on other initiatives such as Livebytes (a vehicle that reaches rural areas and provides real-time interactivity) and Hinterland H2H, a learning and skills development program conducted via secured high-speed portable wireless media in the country’s most remote villages. he added.
“Media spend is now rapidly shifting from traditional advertising to new platforms in the digital space and as such, the combined company is well positioned to grow rapidly with its innovative offerings,” Mr. Ashtekar said.
