Blue Bite

Bridging the Physical & Digital Worlds

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Thought Leadership Blog Announcement

Dear Readers, 

We have decided to migrate our blog from this Tumblr platform to Medium. Please note that all future posts, starting next Monday, will be posted to our new page, which can be found here: https://medium.com/@BlueBite.

Also please note that all archived blog posts have also been moved. 

Thanks for reading! We look forward to continuously bringing you new, insightful, and thought provoking pieces! 

Best, 

Team Blue Bite 

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Yesterday’s Fantasy, Tomorrow’s Reality: The Magic of IoT

Magic: to see something that makes you question everything.

I like to tell people that I’m a magician, or at least I’d like to think so. I’m actually a software engineer at Blue Bite; I work on our Android apps, and handle some of the research and development projects. My job is to build systems that interact with physical objects, and to provide great experiences for people.

A lot of our R&D revolves around RFID applications. To give you a snapshot: RFID, or Radio Frequency Identification, is the technology in our EZ Pass sets, the anti-fraud systems in retail products, and the ID cards we use to get into buildings. Blue Bite has been on a mission to enable retail products (think: sneakers, clothes, bags, etc.) to become “smart” by embedding RFID chips in them. And to make this an end-to-end product is an experience provided when interacting with these “smart objects.”

This is my brief for The Shoe Mirror.

Imagine: you bring a pair of shoes up to a mirror and the mirror animates, showing you information about those shoes. What sizes are in stock? What colors are available? Were they made by a Fair Trade manufacturer? Anything you need to know, and just like that, we’ve made magic. If done right, one product can raise a person’s expectations of everything around them.

It all sounds fantastic. But there remains a question: how do we make it happen?

I’ll tell you.

First, we need a one-way mirror, a display, some sort of computer, and a way to identify these RFID chips. The first two are easy to find, but we still have to figure out what computer would be right for this use case. Can we fit a computer behind a thin display and a mirror? Of course — it’s 2016! So, after much R&D, we chose a Raspberry Pi like computer board but with better graphical capabilities, as to not hinder visual experiences.

This tiny computer is about the size of a credit card. However, despite its size, it’s not something to underestimate. You can surf the web, write blog posts, and even run apps on it. So I wrote an app for it that would eventually be the early beginnings of The Shoe Mirror.

Next, we need to read RFID chips. How does one go about doing that? Well, first you need a RFID reader module that connects to a computer, whose function is to do the reading. But it’s not as simple as merely obtaining this piece and—bang!—it starts reading the chips. You see, in order to get that information, you need to do a little setup. Warning: this next paragraph is a mouthful.

First we hook up the tiny computer (debian based linux) to the RFID reader module using UART serial ports. Then we need to power and prepare the RFID module to begin constantly polling for RFID chips in its read range (4 inches). Once powered, the RFID module will send out radio waves at very specific frequencies toward an RFID chip. Surrounding the RFID chip are metal coils that catch these radio waves and induce an electrical current that provides enough energy to power the chip. During the momentary power surge, the chip reads its own memory and then relays that back to the original device using a similar process. And by the way, that memory looks like this:

5374616e64206261636b2e20495c276d20676f696e6720746f2074727920736369656e63652e

(If you’re wondering what that means, it says, “Stand back. I’m going to try science.”)

I’m sorry about all that, but as something that I had never done before, it was a huge technical hurdle for me that I am proud to have overcome. I spent weeks reading documentation, forum posts, and code trying to get this up and running. At last, all of my work came to fruition and we had a bare bones version of The Shoe Mirror. Immediately, everyone in the office started churning out application ideas. The energy was palpable; it was as if we were on the brink of discovery.

In layman’s terms, all you really need to know is that we can store whatever we’d like into the shoe, and The Shoe Mirror can read the information embedded in it. So despite my long, technical explanation, here is what happens:

1. Read shoe memory. 2. Render the experience for that shoe. 3. ??? 4. Profit.*

The Shoe Mirror is just a single example. In fact, I find it difficult to sleep at night thinking about all the possibilities. We’re coming closer and closer to living in a world that we’ve read about in futuristic novels, and to what we’ve seen in sci-fi films.

                                                                       • • •

I often recall the same memory of a magician that performed at one of my childhood birthday parties. He fanned out some cards, I picked one, and somehow he found my card, presented it to me, and said, “Is this your card?”

Life is an expert at informing us of our limitations. However, the moment that a magician pulls out your card, or a mirror knows about your shoes, for a split-second you believe that there might be no limit. It’s these moments that the people at Blue Bite strive for. We don’t just “Bridge the Physical & Digital Worlds” — we make magic.

Andres Santiago Android Engineer Blue Bite

*http://bit.ly/1gzwZmq

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The Future of Advertising: From the Eyes of a 3-Year-Old

As both Director of Innovation and Digital Strategy for Lamar Advertising Company, and a father of triplet three year olds, and an additional two year old, I’d say I’m partially an expert in the subject matter of this post. By day, I spend my time focusing on how the billboard industry will survive and thrive with the coming of flying cars (it’s going to happen!), and at night, I come home to my amazingly brilliant and crazy crew known as the #dallimore4. Everyday I continuously watch them grow not just in size and knowledge, but also in a new age of technology.

My kids no longer have the patience for commercials of any kind – I can literally hear Jacob screaming, “fast forward Dad!” as I type this. For my crew, like many others, it’s just the normal way of life. We have become accustomed to the use of tablets, smartphones, Smart TVs and the ability to get what we want, when we want it: everything is at our fingertips. So why would you ever watch a TV commercial? Today we stream everything and that’s how it’s always been from the eyes of a three year old. Navigating through an iPad is now just as much of a milestone as a child taking his or her first steps. Amelie was able to turn on, open her favorite app, and play games – at the age of one and a half. When we drive to dance class, Ellie (like clockwork) screams into the car voice command “Bluetooth Audio...play Taylor Swift Blank Space.” Wes, before going to bed every night, opens my phone and pulls up his favorite app, Nighty Night Circus. This app allows him to interact with circus animals and put them to bed, and if the experience of putting an animal to bed is too slow, he gets frustrated.

So what does this all mean? In my opinion, it means the evolution of advertising; not only in the type of ads and creative, but also in the way we interact with advertisements. Ads with little to no interaction or without relevant content will be useless. A screen will have to be touch responsive or offer something more. A sort of “transaction” will need to be made in all future successful advertising; consumers will give information for something that is favorable and useful to them. Another observation I’ve noticed in the #dallimore4 is how they multitask with ease and perfection. Voice commanded actions are only the beginning. The connected home, wearables, and driverless cars will soon become commonplace.  

Knowing and working for a company and industry that has been around for over 115 years, I have come to understand what evolution means for the advertising business. Billboards have moved from hand paint, to vinyl, to digital; now, to remain successful, the industry needs to move toward connecting mobile devices and wearables with OOH. Our partnerships with companies like Blue Bite allow us to continue to expand how we advertise and grow alongside technology. Everyday I come to work and think about how each hour of my day could be made easier at any given moment based on my specific needs and likes.

Making my observations from the #dallimore4, I realize that what is new to them today, will only be normal for them tomorrow. Understanding that, it is up to the industry to create those innovations, those ideas and concepts, that might be new to consumers today, but by tomorrow will leave them wondering: how did I ever live without it?

Ian Dallimore Director of Innovation & Digital Strategy Lamar Advertising Company  

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Secret Weapons

Secret weapons are a must-have for any self-respecting superhero or supervillain; but fictional characters are not the only custodians for such objects. Everyday people and institutions have secret weapons too. While our comic book favorites use them spectacularly, individuals use them in privacy, governments clandestinely, and private institutions flaunt them publicly. AdTech companies in particular boast and differentiate themselves along this very line. Claims about proprietary tools like a fourth dimensional analytics algorithm, locally sourced first party insights, or a data alchemy engine are commonplace, but what exactly are these top-secret weapons? Better yet, what is yours?

Hammers are the opposite of secret weapons. They are as old as time, as common as the cold, and as mundane as Mon-day. But what it lacks in mystique is recovered by its utility. The secret subtleness of hammers—like any good tool—is not divined through the tool itself but brought out by the skillset of the person using it. For a campaign manager or AdOps* coordinator the analog to this tool is a software program familiar to everyone: Microsoft Excel.**  Like a hammer it is as simple as it is ubiquitous and if used skillfully, Excel can triplicate the efficacy of an AdOps division.

Like twins, the technical innovations occurring in digital advertising grow hand-in-hand with advertisers’ appetites for improved performance and attribution. Without question, the most efficient way to address this need is to first organize a campaign in Excel before scheduling it in a DSP or RTB platform. For this reason, any self-respecting digital ad-buying platform will offer full Excel integration, both through importing workbooks and by publishing reports. Silicon Valley hopefuls may push back and assert the notion that the offspring of machine learning and programmatic ad-buying could render AdOps an anachronism but this cannot be true. The A to Z of campaign planning is rife with decision-making and has too many inputs, many of which are predefined by the advertiser. Whether it is the advertiser or the campaign manager, there will always be a human inputting parameters and the extent with which Excel facilitates that process cannot be understated. Particularly in the case of location based advertising, Excel efficiently maps an array of unique locations, ad sizes, ad copy, schedules, and audience lists based on a set of changing parameters with comparative ease – like a hammer driving in a nail with just two or three strokes. Of course there are limits, and as the proverb goes: “when you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail.” As such, we must be careful not to limit our thinking within one piece of software regardless of its utility.

The antidote for getting caught in a one-size fits all approach is cultivating a willingness to seek out new information and new software tools. Figuratively speaking, one must use another secret weapon: the library. To software engineers the value of good programming libraries is self-evident. Unfortunately, AdOps coordinators do not have this same luxury. In the very first sentence of The AdOps Podcast, Dan Layfield, founder of AdPipes, says, “[programmatic] can be a hard world to keep up with and research because so much of the detail about how things works are either not written down or hard to research.”*** All too often the resources that do exist are fractured and/or insufficiently documented. It is true that the IAB provides a wealth of information, so much so that certificates are awarded to those who study it. By in large, AdOps teams are happy to earn this certification but seldom have the time. In lieu of this, good campaign managers will seek out new tools or resources through a number of web based and person-to-person channels.

One example is to choose a DSP with a well-documented API and to integrate one’s processes with it. Having a working knowledge of HTML and JavaScript are also great tools for AdOps coordinators and ones that can be honed at brick and mortar libraries. Finding public mapping tools, third party analytic platforms, new software to build better advertisements, and staying current with the latest whitepapers are among other research skills that fall under this category. Lastly and perhaps most influential is to attend industry panels. Not every panel will enlighten, but meeting other AdOps coordinators and sharing information with them is the best way to circumvent the task of decoding scattered resources. Metaphorical libraries like the IAB, industry panels, and good old fashioned web search are not secret weapons per se, but are clearinghouses of them. The real secret is in understanding the maxim that most problems are not new problems, and that the solutions likely exist if one chooses to find them.****

When hammers are too blunt and the shelves of the Stockholm Public Library too numerous, one turns to a business’s most coveted tool: innovation. Seasoned AdOps teams know that some challenges do not follow the aforementioned maxim, that some tasks are beyond capabilities of Excel and are too unique to have pre-packaged solutions. The obvious examples are creating new classes of KPIs for a campaign or simply resolving technical issues pertaining to the digital advertising ecosystem. The early developers of view-through conversions and burn pixels are the type of innovators that AdOps teams should aspire to be. A class above this is the products that AdTech companies build as their primary product; however this is mainly outside the purview of AdOps.

Spurred on by team of software engineers, Blue Bite is constantly innovating. Whether it’s single lines of code for AdOps, esca (Blue Bite’s dual mode BLE beacons*****), or even our fully integrated mobile experience platform, we are innovating on every level. All of these physical and digital products are consequences of our ideology, which is to become experts at using tools like hammers and to be students of the industry around us.

Put in another way, it is not simply our skills, products, or innovations that give Blue Bite an edge but our ability to improve upon them that is our secret weapon.

Michael Elfassy Campaign Manager Blue Bite

*For those unfamiliar, agency side AdOps refers to the implementation, scheduling, and maintenance of ad campaigns in addition to the development of new digital ad capabilities, reporting, and analytics. Acronyms like CTR, CPM, DSP, and RTB are abound in the day to day of AdOps coordinators.

**The author recognizes that this hardly the most thrilling of secret weapons and that Excel could quite possible be least likely candidate of answers to an eponymous Family Feud category.

***"How to Hire, Train, and Develop AdOps Staff - A Talk with Ryan McConaghy." Interview by Dan Layfield. Audio blog post. http://adpipes.io/. n.p., 19 Nov. 2015. Web

****And Google probably offers it for free.  

*****Ask us about our 3D printed firmware flashing device.

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Mobile and Digital Out-of-Home: the Dynamic DOOH-o

If there is one thing that advertisers are becoming increasingly concerned about, it’s the rise in use of ad-blocking software. With 198 million active ad-block users around the world costing the industry at least $22 billion in the past year alone, these worries are well founded. 

It is increasingly obvious that what users want, they will get; what they do not want, they will block. And such insights are provoking advertisers to turn to unblockable media such as Digital Out-of-Home (DOOH). However, in a world where more people own a mobile phone than a toothbrush, mobile is a powerful marketing platform that should not be negatively affected by ad-blockers. Instead, we must (covertly) convince mobile users to engage with an ad. 

Enter the dynamic duo. Or as I like to call it, DOOH-o.  

Deployed alone, both DOOH and mobile have their own limitations. Without DOOH, mobile is an experience that is forced on the user, which may possibly be abused and blocked. Without mobile, DOOH does not achieve full user engagement and viewers are unable to continue their personal journey with the ad. However, when used together, DOOH and mobile complement each other’s strengths while compensating for the other’s weaknesses. 

In a DOOH and mobile deployment, the DOOH billboard is an effective CTA. Not only is it unblockable, it is visually appealing in ways that mobile can only dream of. However, as DOOH is stationary, it needs mobile to take over. 

When a DOOH billboard draws in a user that has chosen to engage, the interaction is transferred to their mobile phone. This can be achieved through the likes of NFC tags or beacons, and carried out on mobile screens in any form the advertiser wishes the user to take on-the-go. 

Simple enough, but achieving these results takes work. Targeting the desired audience with the appropriate DOOH display is of utmost importance – this is what attracts the target eyeballs in the first place. Additionally, the DOOH display must encourage interaction that is not forced but voluntary. The interaction needs to be accomplished through a channel suitable for the placement of the DOOH billboard as well as the user (an eye-level billboard at the mall can use a QR code because it is within reach for most people). Finally, the page the user is redirected to must be optimized for mobile and be intuitive enough for the user to continue the ad experience (like a mobile landing page).

Another strength of the mobile-DOOH duo is effective measurement and analysis. Although the number of interactions for the deployment may appear low compared to deploying mobile or DOOH alone, keep in mind it is quality over quantity. Every interaction was a choice on the user’s behalf and most likely resulted in higher brand awareness than simple impressions. 

Strategically implementing the above will likely result in a powerhouse of extreme ad appeal and high user engagement. 

And Ad-block?  

It won’t even be on your list of considerations.

Jody Smith Product Manager BroadSign

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IoT, Cogito Ergo Sum (I Think, Therefore I Am)

It’s quite unfair, really, that the only things communicating meaningfully on this planet are animate things. Sure, we’ve got a lot to say, but inanimate things around us too are vying for the right outlet to add to the global conversation. For example, when we discover a cool gadget, store, or hiking bag we have the ability to tell our friends and family about it. So far, only humans have that privilege, as well as some other complex animals. I believe objects and other inanimate things should have the ability to do the same and tap into this network of communication. After all, we can’t live without these objects; objects which know a great deal about us and our habits— almost as much as we know about them.  

Thus far, the conversation has been one-sided. The hiking bag that you depended on throughout your hike in Colorado should be able to show you off to its friends at an upstate NY hiking store.  If you like the bag enough, it may be worth outfitting it with accessories. In turn, the bag becomes better as a functional companion, and this can only occur when the bag is made smart, and allowed to join the larger conversation.

This relationship, or marriage, in which animate beings can communicate with inanimate objects, is dubbed the “Internet of Things” (IoT).  IoT is a place where a technologically produced object can meet up and hone special abilities to adapt, learn, interact, memorize and coordinate efforts with other objects to better serve the needs of their companions. Reaching the point where these types of relationships are commonplace, I believe, will be beneficially revolutionary. And while we have big technological obstacles before us, the greatest barrier may be a cultural one. For example, we may not like our belongings to be accessible via the Internet. We may not be comfortable with robot-like functionality interacting with us and making assumptions on our tastes and habits even though the potentialities are enormous. 

However, as with all things new, the negatives are always initially more apparent. But over time we will grow more accustomed and learn to enjoy the benefits much like we overcame our general fear of technology, the debit card, microwave, or even spicy food. I know this sounds like the sad ending to a sci-fi plot we anticipated from the first scene of the movie. However, IoT is not the same as the Artificial Intelligence (AI) we see in these fantasy films. Rather, IoT is the premise of smart objects that can do interesting things, without consciousness (it is this element that inhibits them from joining humans as equals). We, humanity, will take the role of the intelligent but quite lazy spouse and technology will be the not too bright but extremely active and thorough companion. It will only be able to follow the commands we set in place fervently and without fail. Simply, it is a match we are all looking for.  



It is, however, a good idea to question new technologies that are being developed so rapidly, that we can’t necessarily anticipate their long-term social and cultural impacts. The main concern surrounding IoT is actually a familiar one and very similar to any other piece of technology introduced into the world today. Who will adapt to whom: the conscious but lazy or the unconscious but active? Will we shape and adapt our lives around the technologies we produce, or do we produce technology that best suits our needs? In answering that, I think our relationship with technology, like any marriage, should be a two-way street to bring the best out of both parties. While we build technologies for us, we in turn will need to adapt as technology grows since “this is the only way the computer can do it.”

Expecting the human not to adapt, and thus creating technology that best suits our current state, will bring us easy and user-friendly technology; but the tech will also be basic and forever have a cap on its potential for advancement. Expecting people to fully adapt to the technology, and thus attempting to shape our lives around it, will bring the best out of technology but it will be user-unfriendly if at all comprehensible, thereby putting a cap on its potential by having only its immediate creators be able to use it.

There has to be an optimal compromise.    

Certainly, we are already doing that with all of our smart-gadgets and other computer products: we meet half way, and IoT will be no different. That hiking bag will not develop Descartes’  “Cogito ergo sum” complex at any point. It’s just an object that wants to belong with similar objects that it and its “friends” think you will enjoy. It has the potential to do what you are too lazy or too busy to do yourself. In the case of purchasing the hiking bag, you may, all of a sudden, find yourself introduced to the hiking culture without even trying. 

But whatever the case may be, IoT will be attentive and it shall serve you the right content while showing and bringing you just what you want to see.

Ali Abouzahr Full Stack Developer Blue Bite

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Ad-Opting: The Downfall of Ad-Blocking

American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan once said, “For the times they are a-changin’.”

While Dylan’s lyrics could apply to 101 different scenarios, coming from the ad-tech world, I see the biggest change to this space as an issue recently brought to broader light by tech-giant, Apple. In September, Apple quietly introduced a new feature with its release of iOS 9; a feature, with major implications for mobile advertisers. The feature, a form of support for ad-blocking in Apple’s main web browser Safari, represents a broader feeling that mobile web advertising is undesirable and that if a user had the chance to opt out, they would.

A 2014 report showed that there was a 70% increase in ad-blocking software downloads between 2013 to 2014. Making up the most of these downloads was the 18-29 year old demographic. This tells us two things:

1. Ad-blocking is quickly becoming the new norm 2. Millennials are getting used to web experiences without ads

Another important finding from the study was that users “expressed some willingness to receive less intrusive ad formats.” This highlights the fact that it is not so much the ads themselves that users find irritating. Rather it is the kind of ads and how they are being served that individuals find a nuisance. Clearly, digital advertising is doing something wrong and undoubtedly the ubiquitous banner ad is on its way out. So: what comes next?

Several publishers have come to the conclusion that we must counteract ad-blocking. Some methods to do so include paying off ad-blockers, and blocking content from people who are found to be using ad-blocking software. While such methods might be successful in forcing consumers to view ads, it is not necessarily addressing the root of the problem—that consumers are desperately trying to get rid of ads. Thus, we shouldn’t be putting our efforts into battling ad-blockers. Rather, we should be working to produce content that doesn’t drive consumers to install ad-blocking software in the first place.

Randall Rothenberg, CEO and President of the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), agrees with this idea of giving consumers the Internet they want, but also one in which advertisers can succeed. This Internet is one in which ads come to coalesce with content in the hopes of creating an all-encompassing enjoyable experience. In a September 2015 AdAge article, Rothenberg wrote, “disruption is not uncommon in this disruptive business. But we have to disrupt the disruptors— by identifying them as the profiteers they are, and by giving consumers the Internet they deserve.”  

We must combat the ad-blockers not by circumventing them and serving the kinds of ads the blockers were meant to block; that would only fortify users’ desire for the software. Rather, we should want to improve consumers’ experiences by enhancing the kinds of ads and content we serve. In that way, ad blockers will inherently become obsolete as consumers choose to opt-in to ads.

With the advent of the “Internet of Things” (IoT), mobile advertisers will now have a second chance to promote their content while giving consumers a quality experience they won’t want to ignore. As the use of IoT devices such as beacons become more prevalent, a new avenue to serve up content will emerge, and advertising will inevitably be a part of this content. This is a pivotal moment where advertising will have to be redefined.

The times are definitely “a-changin’.” Let’s make sure it changes for the better.

Michele Paolella VP of Marketing Blue Bite

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From DOOH to IOOH: The Path to Intelligent Out-of-Home

It’s been more than twenty years since the innovation bug bit me. Back in the mid 90’s I was working for Andersen Consulting (now Accenture) in Manhattan, and was intrigued one night watching a local access channel on Time Warner Cable.

I had stumbled onto an interactive cable television show created and produced by NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program, which is part of the Tisch School of the Arts. It was called “Yorb: An Interactive Neighborhood” and allowed callers to control navigation around a virtual world by using their phones.  It was connected to the ECHO Bulletin Board system. This was before the ascendency of the World Wide Web, and was run on a minimal budget and somewhat sketchy technology.

At the time I was working as a graphic designer for Andersen and uploaded surreal images of friends and family members surrounded by psychedelic fractal imagery to be featured in this virtual world. And I even visited the production studio on the NYU campus a couple of times, watching the skeletal staff rebooting computers when the entire system inevitably crashed at times.

Many of those involved with Yorb and the program at NYU moved on to important roles in the rapidly emerging tech space. For me, it cemented my love of new technology as it impacts our culture. And I moved on as well, working at EURO RSCG and Saatchi & Saatchi, developing interactive properties when it was “all new.”

Flashing forward to 2015, we live in a rewired civilization. Almost every aspect of our daily lives has changed with the many repercussions of the Internet and technological developments. Instead of hunkering down in front of bulky Cathode Ray Tubes (CRTs) and personal computer towers, we carry around slim and shiny smartphones that contain thousands of times the computing power that put men on the moon in the 60s.

To put it in perspective: Adele can tweet or post an Instagram and the bulk of the civilized world is notified in moments. Images we capture on far-flung adventures are on our Facebook feeds seconds later. The world has dramatically shrunk and sped up geometrically— all at the same time.

These changes bring disruption to our businesses and professional lives, but they cannot be denied. In my classes at the University of Toronto School of Continuing Studies, where I teach Digital/Multimedia Storytelling and Brand Journalism and Content Marketing Strategies, I urge my adult learners to embrace the speed of change: to view it as an unending series of opportunities.

But for traditional marketers, and the brands they work for, this rate of change and disruption can be daunting. At a meeting this summer, where the demographic target of a proposed media buy for a fashion retailer was a millennial woman, the planners dismissed our digital suggestions and retreated to newspaper inserts and flyers. For a moment I thought I was being pranked… but that was not the case.

The media landscape is fragmenting and changing so fast that the industry itself is having challenges keeping relevant. A close read of the legendary Mary Meeker’s annual Internet Trends report should be mandatory for anyone in marketing and communications, as over the years she has proven to accurately document and also successfully predict the tsunami of change that the Internet has brought to our personal and professional lives.

In the Out-of-Home (OOH) and Digital-Out-of-Home (DOOH) advertising space, some good news is apparent. While newspapers, magazines and cable television viewership is splintering or disappearing all together, we still navigate in the physical world. We still see billboards, and digital signage. We still go to malls, beauty salons, stadiums, concert halls, college campuses and more.

But many of the changes that have occurred in traditional media and marketing need to happen in the OOH space. It is time to build Intelligent-Out-of-Home (IOOH) media.

A large video wall in a mall running a loop of ads has little or no context. It isn’t compelling in 2015 and it shouldn’t be that appealing to brands and marketers. But a video wall in a packed University Student Union, that shows music videos with FM tune able audio, and that counts down to mobile-enabled trivia games every few hours where students can compete with other schools across the country… and be brought to you by Toyota for example, well that’s IOOH.

For the last six months I have been working with Blue Bite and a media company to produce a localized content channel for a few thousand locations. We worked hard to scour the Internet for the best in curated content for a specific type of location and audience. Tying the physical world to the teeming, rich and dynamic content that is Instagram, Medium, Twitter, Yelp, etc… that is IOOH.

Entering a modern supermarket, where over the takeout counter is featured a mango salad and a wild mushroom flatbread special, the retailer’s app allows a one-tap purchase after scanning a QR code, and the Internet of Things (IoT) enabled oven at home that fires up and moves the pizza stone into place before you have left the store, that is IOOH.

Heading to the airport for that dreaded early morning flight, ignoring the huge array of screens overhead, having your mobile phone guide you to the least busy coffee counter, the fastest security line, and the right gate, while pulling in your favorite news and entertainment content sources, with some of them sponsored and containing promotions, that is IOOH.

So, let’s get on with it. It’s time to stop kidding ourselves as marketers and brands. The mobile revolution is upon us. And as sensors fill our world with smart homes, appliances, cars and endless possibilities, we need to increase the intelligence of how we communicate brand messaging. The stacks of dead tree pulp with the pretty pictures in that beauty salon have only a short time left.

It’s time to start building Intelligent Out of Home.

Stephen Ghigliotty Instructor and Lead Certificate Developer University of Toronto School of Continuing Studies

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Interdependence; Defining the Future.

Balance is the Present Moment; Interdependence is the Future;

That’s the big “shower epiphany” I had when tasked with writing something that interested me.

I was struggling to put my thoughts together because I have so much to share! I am a very curious person. I’m the guy with 1,001 hobbies. The exact number doesn’t matter though, because everything is interdependent— especially in media.

After almost a decade in Out-of-Home (OOH), I decided to jump into what I thought was a completely different world at Blue Bite. It was a natural progression because I wanted to learn about how media channels are inter-connected, and I knew that mobile was a big, central part of this puzzle. Central yes, different, not-so-much. I’ll explain.

Fast-forward 3 years and I’m still the same guy tinkering with how to thread the mobile string into various parts contributing to the “machine” that is the Internet of Things (IoT). I quickly realized that it is not such a different world but instead, a complimentary cog. At Blue Bite, we have built an entire eco-system that fulfills this machine. We are a conduit that connects the physical to digital. We are participating in a global movement that is breaking down isolated systems to contribute toward better user experiences.

Today, I believe Blue Bite has achieved the basic building blocks. We’ve created a system that can deliver context at the right time and place, within a wide range of environments— but the job is nowhere near complete. This is what excites me! We continue to break down walls to involve what Google calls, the Physical Web. We collaborate with media owners in places like airports, malls, movie theaters, college campuses, check-cashing outlets, C-stores and retailers to connect their wares to our cloud. Together, it forms a massive mesh of inputs that, in due time, will be able to intelligently “talk” to one another to deliver instantaneous experiences appropriate for just that moment. As such, personalized content is achieved.

The next part is to go beyond personalization. The next part is where computing gets ambient. It’s where we sort the signal from the noise; where we can unleash real utility to create precisely timed value. This, to me, should automatically translate into great UX. This is the part where we actually start to understand the big picture through the media ripple effect of the consumer life cycle. Mikhail Damiani, my CEO, often paints the present day as a society filled with IoD (Internet of Devices), as opposed to one filled with IoT. I agree because we have yet to reach the Super Saiyan level of delivering great experiences. I believe we have the current tools and data to achieve it, but not many of us (myself included) are actually doing it. We need to practice interdependence more deeply. It’s great that we started to pay more attention to location, contextual timing and mining through historical data (search, location, purchase pattern, etc). Add on bits captured from digital signage, personal devices, peripherals like Chromecast and Apple TV, apps like Netflix and we are getting warmer. With even deeper connections, we can achieve so much more. 

This is where interdependence of wearables and true IoT can deliver beyond personalization. We need to use sentient signals like vibration, facial expression, heart rate, vocal tone, and position via beacons. These signals unlock a language that’s undetectable through current methodologies. Thus, predictive modeling through sentient signal analysis can really “get it right.” A majority of communication is simply body language; we need to start analyzing it like we analyze Facebook updates, purchase transactions and Tweet locations. 

Using our mTAG platform, Blue Bite wants to be able to sense that you want a certain product and help you make that ultimate purchasing decision. This is what Google terms, ZMOT. We don’t want to shove an ad for Nike because we understand that you’re interacting with a kiosk inside a mall and are likely to make an impulsive buy. We want to take it so much further than that. Rather, we want to share the right sneaker promotion at that mall kiosk at that moment in time because we know you really want that pair of Kobe’s. How?  By using logic based on all of the aforementioned signals. Last month: you watched Kobe highlights on YouTube; you searched “best basketball sneakers;” your Fitbit registered an average of two basketball activities per week; you voiced your sadness on Kobe’s retirement via social;  you tapped your NFC device for Laker sports scores every time you were at a bus stop; because our esca beacons noticed you checked out the new Kobe X’s for 5 minutes at a Footlocker downtown, and finally, because your heartrate went up when you read the latest Kobe article on Hypebeast. 

And all of this information?

Achieved through the power of interdependence (and without PII). 

Alex Kim VP, Mobile Partnerships Blue Bite

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Google Certified: Blue Bite esca beacon

Debuted in July 2015, Eddystone is Google's open beacon format for Bluetooth Low Energy. In response to this development, Blue Bite updated esca, our dual-mode beacon that is compatible with both Eddystone and iBeacon formats. This past month, Google certified our esca beacon as one of the beacons provisioned with the Eddystone protocol and named Blue Bite as a reputable beacon partner.

Want to learn more? Get more info here.

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Givvr Uses mTAG to Make Giving Possible for All

The passionate entrepreneurs at Givvr, an app that raises money for charities by simply watching and sharing videos, teamed up with Blue Bite to show how easy it is for everyone to support their favorite charities.

Consumers who engaged with mTAG (NFC & QR) at campuses and other major locations throughout the California area were given the chance to support a cause of their choice by downloading the app.

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Givvr Uses mTAG to Make Giving Possible for All

The passionate entrepreneurs at Givvr, an app that raises money for charities by simply watching and sharing videos, teamed up with Blue Bite to show how easy it is for everyone to support their favorite charities.

Consumers who engaged with mTAG (NFC & QR) at campuses and other major locations throughout the California area were given the chance to support a cause of their choice by downloading the app.

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CBN Campus Media Deploys esca Beacon to College Campuses

Following the wild success of the college campus mTAG magnet program, Blue Bite teamed up with CBN to expand the program to deploy esca beacons.

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Pinellas Trail grows older,smarter

The Fred Marquis Pinellas Trail is becoming a first-of-its-kind smart trail for its 25th birthday

The Fred Marquis Pinellas Trail, spanning 47 miles from St. Petersburg to Tarpon Springs, is celebrating its 25th birthday by becoming a unique, first-of-its-kind smart trail. The revamping of trail signs to include new mobile engagement technology is part of a new trail sponsorship program designed to maintain and enhance the trail for years to come.

The socially responsible partnership program allows companies and organizations to sponsor one or multiple new signs. The sponsorship program and smart signs are a component of the partnership between Pinellas County, Bikepath Country Florida LLC, Liquid Outdoor Media and Blue Bite. There are a total of 27 sign locations along the Pinellas Trail, with 54 sign faces, meaning up to 54 sponsorship signs can currently be placed.

Zephyrhills® Brand 100% Natural Spring Water is the first national company to commit to the sponsorship program for Pinellas County. Sponsorship funds go toward the maintenance of the signs, the smart technology components and the upkeep and beautification of the Pinellas Trail. The smart trail is comprised of mTAGs deployed on the signage frames. The mTAGs feature Near Field Communication (NFC) and Quick Response (QR) reader technology created by Blue Bite to add a new digital element to the Pinellas Trail.

Trail users can tap or scan the mTAGs with their mobile device to obtain relevant information such as weather updates, nearby restaurants and local activities related to their location along the trail. The mTAGs can also be used for fitness challenges, with users tapping or scanning in at the start of their exercise routine and doing so at each sign along the way. At the end of the workout, the user will be able to see how far they have traveled and how they’ve done compared to others.

“As the Pinellas Trail continues to expand, new smart technologies will make for a more informed and welcoming experience for residents and visitors alike,” said Paul Cozzie, director of Pinellas County Parks and Conservation Resources. “Becoming smarter is just another way the Pinellas Trail continues to set the standard for linear parks in America.”

The Pinellas County “Doing Things for You” app is available for residents to report issues and access useful resources. Pinellas County can also be found on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Instagram. More information is available on the county website, www.pinellascounty.org, which features LiveChat for assistance. Pinellas County complies with the Americans with Disabilities Act.

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Media Contact

Mary Burrell

Public Information Manager

[phone]

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Making It Better

“We got very good at telling people what we wanted them to know, and we forgot to consider what they wanted us to understand.”                                – Bernadette Jiwa in Meaningful: The Story Of Ideas That Fly

With the end of the year fast approaching, media sales people like myself are spending our days following up, circling back, and checking in with agency and brand partners, anxiously hoping for a shot to get that last deal through before Q4 comes to a close. The conversations are predictable:

"Is there anything coming up we can help you with?"

"Do you have any questions regarding the proposal I sent?"

"Wanted to send over some additional info I think you'll find compelling."

In a nutshell: we email, call, and pitch until we’re exasperated; we educate, pass along additional materials, and patiently await decisions. And despite all this work, we find ourselves hoping and wishing that our deals go through. One might wonder why after so much work and effort we would be left hoping; shouldn’t we be confident that our hard work would pay off? I have found that more than often, it does not. Seeing this reality repeat itself, I couldn’t help but think:

Are we truly listening? Are we really asking the right questions? Do we fully understand what our customers and partners are asking of us?

In order to do our jobs to the best of our ability, we must internalize that agency and brand partners have tasked us with creating and building useful solutions that help solve their biggest problems and answer their most daunting questions. In essence, they are depending on us. And so, we must consider: Are we fighting to close deals, or are we providing useful solutions? Are we hustling to meet a sales quota, or are we adding value by helping our partners communicate with their users in more meaningful ways?

I’ll let Bernadette Jiwa sum it up:

“The best way to get attention, then, is to give it unconditionally first. To really understand the worldview of your customers and colleagues. To anticipate what people need and want. To do things without considering what the payback might be down the line. To create without always calculating what the return on investment will be tomorrow. To stop expecting before caring and to reap what we sow. To start whispering ‘I see you’ instead of screeching ‘LOOK AT ME.’”

What Ms. Jiwa is saying here is that if we begin to put our clients’ goals before our own, if we truly make their concerns our concerns, we will see a level of commitment, openness, and effort on the part of our partner agencies that is surely absent when solely putting our own agendas forward. So: let’s all do a better job of considering what our partners need us to understand, take what we have, and get to work making it better.

I know I will be.

Michael Whittle Director of West Coast Partnerships Blue Bite

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The Future is Now

For several years now, technologists, thought leaders and experts in the out of home (OOH) space have been proclaiming each year as “the year of mobile.” It was said about 2012, 2013, 2014, and 2015… and at this point I can assume it will also be said for the year 2016.  And while mobile has already surpassed TV in terms of daily consumer attention, we have not seen the year of mobile in OOH. In order to see the paradigm shift, we need to move from a mobile-last to a mobile-first strategy.  While many in the OOH community still largely see mobile as an “add-on” or “nice-to-have,” with mobile content usually being an afterthought; the truth is – social media, in-store marketing, email and even YouTube have an overwhelmingly higher share of user activity coming from mobile.  As Jason Miller of LinkedIn said, “Today’s successful marketers integrate all the old and new marketing channels into one overall marketing strategy.”  

The thing is, we have all of the tools at our disposal to make this happen. There are close-range technologies like NFC and RFID; exciting new Bluetooth low-energy beacons; mobile geofencing and WiFi; and even old favorites like SMS and QR.  All of these are readily available, affordable and easy enough to deploy with an expert mobile solutions partner. We’ve seen great examples of use cases like Google, Samsung and Paramount Pictures delivering music and video content via NFC through traditional OOH media; PUMA and Levi’s driving to store through beacons; Under Armour and KIND Snacks engaging in social chatter and promoting new products with the help of geofencing; and H&R Block helping get billions back for tax-payers through the marriage of OOH media and SMS. However, successful examples like these are few and far between as a percentage of all OOH media campaigns that have been deployed over the past several years.    

To make progress, we need to rethink the definition of mobile and how it should work together with other media – owned, paid, social and in-store.  FunMobility’s 2015 Marketer’s Guide is spot on when it challenges us to change our perspective. “Mobile isn’t a channel. It isn’t a screen. It isn’t an app. Mobile is at the center of modern life. It’s the engine that powers how we shop, how we socialize, how we navigate the world around us.” Mobile shouldn’t be looked at as its own thing or simply as an “add-on.” It should be the common thread that ties together all forms of media, and enables brands to have contextually relevant conversations with consumers throughout their daily journey, rather than simply bombarding them with messages and ads. However, it’s impossible to effectively integrate mobile into a fully developed marketing campaign with a mobile-last strategy – where the content and creative is designed for OOH media and then repurposed for mobile after the fact; where mobile is simply a line item on the marketing plan; where the only KPIs are clicks, impressions or site visits.  Yet, we’re constantly seeing RFPs that are 29 days old with a panic note that reads, “We need the best, never-before done, panty-dropping mobile ideas by TOMORROW!”      

We need to move OOH to a mobile-first philosophy. Yes, the technology is there, but technology is not of interest to the end-users. To them, it’s simply a delivery mechanism. People don’t care about the machine that dispenses soft-serve ice cream or frozen yogurt into a cup, they care about the actual taste. Yes, you can dress the dispenser up with a bright screen, add flashing LED lights, infrared sensors and a built-in camera to take a picture of you as you enjoy the creamy goodness that has just been programmatically dispensed into your cup. You can probably get a whole bunch of people to interact with that machine, out of sheer curiosity. But if the creamy goodness in your cup tastes like month-old camel’s milk, it will probably be the first and last time you try out the never-before seen contraption. In the same way, the mobile user experience, which is far more important than the delivery technology, has to be a key consideration from the start of ideation and the content has to make sense for that user, during that time, in that specific place.

Mobile + OOH has the potential to revolutionize the medium and elevate the conversation brands are having with their consumers. OOH has the ability to generate mobile engagements in a physical environment, and allow consumers to receive something meaningful during a given moment in time. With the high saturation of OOH media and the increasing time people are spending outside of their homes, there is a huge opportunity for micro-moments: when a “consumer’s motivation to act intersects with their ability to act.” Above all, once you do get the user to stop and engage, will you provide something personalized, dynamic and relevant? Will you capture attribution and collect actionable data that you can use across the entire mobile ecosystem to improve future engagement? Will you continue the conversation with those who engage at future touchpoints in OOH, in retail, online and through social media? For the future of OOH, I hope the answer is yes.

Mikhail Damiani

CEO & Co-Founder

Blue Bite

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Why Anyone Should Give a Damn About OOH-Mobile Advertising

I started at Blue Bite a mere four months ago. Up until my employment, I knew relatively little about the mobile technology world. Sure, I knew about WiFi, SMS, NFC and QR, but what I didn’t know was the extent to which these technologies could be employed (nor did I know about other possible mobile tech options such as beacons and geofencing). However, as I became involved with these technologies on an everyday basis, I began to realize the full potential and capabilities of these devices and services.

At a glance, mobile Out-of-Home marketing may seem counterintuitive. Why would consumers tap or scan QR and NFC tags? Why would a consumer pay attention to a display banner or notification? After all, we are all too familiar with the notion of “x-ing” out banner ads and impatiently awaiting “skip ad” buttons. That said, why would consumers voluntarily engage with advertisements, as is the method behind mobile-OOH?  

I’ll tell you why.

Because the beauty of mobile-OOH advertising lies in what is offered to consumers. Mobile-OOH advertising is not a pesky advertisement for something that people do not want; rather it is something of value that every consumer would happily tap into—if only they knew the value they’d be receiving.

To be fair, I did not know the value of this type of advertising until I started working for Blue Bite. So to give a snapshot, here are three examples of the thousands of ways these techs can be implemented:

• mTAG (Blue Bite’s dual NFC and QR technology) can be programmed to give consumers access to exclusive brand content • Beacons deployed in-store can provide shoppers with a unique shopping experience like virtual shopping assistants and outfit ideas • Geofencing can target competitor brands and divert consumers to their own brand by sending offers and discounts to consumers’ smartphones

For these very reasons—for the fact that these various technologies can be creatively manipulated in any which way to reach consumers on mobile devices, where 53% of online shoppers now do their buying*, by the way— is why brands should give a damn about mobile-OOH marketing. Moreover, the uniqueness of the marriage between mobile and OOH is that brands can reach consumers where they spend most of their digital eyeball time (mobile), and where consumers spend most of their waking hours (OOH).  

If that is not convincing enough, let’s look at some of these stats: • Nearly $1 trillion – 28% – of all retail sales were influenced by shopping-related mobile searches**  • Click-through rate on beacon ads is about 10x what it is on standard mobile display ads***  • 65% of consumers receive push notifications and open them****  

Of course, with all of its benefits and impressive statistics, mobile-OOH does have its obstacles too. I would identify the biggest challenge to all of this—to brands favorably reaching their consumers, and consumers happily engaging with brands to receive valuable content and information—as education. Mobile advertisements have a bad rap; consumers have been conditioned to assume that advertisements served to them on their mobile devices are of the “annoying variety.” To consumers, mobile ads are seen as the obstacle keeping them from their content.

Luckily, this challenge is one that can be remedied. By presenting to consumers the possibilities of opting in to this type of advertising, by showing them its benefits and what they’re missing out on, we can convince consumers and brands of the good in mobile-OOH advertising. We need to show them that these mobile ads are not obstacles, but are actually gateways to their content.

But we can’t do it alone.

All aboard,

Rachel Furst Director of Communications Blue Bite 

*Ipsos MediaCT, Google Post holiday Shopping Intentions Study, January 2015, n=1,167, January 2014, n=1,077.

**Deloitte, “Navigating the New Digital Divide: Capitalizing on Digital Influence in Retail,” May 2015. 

***Bill Conn, “Beacon Technology: What Marketers Need to Know for 2015,” LinkedIn, December 3, 2014. 

****Apps-builder.com: http://bit.ly/1MQbhg3.