Media LightBridge's managed services are tailored and optimized for managing Digital Out–of–Home networks. These networks require specialized skill sets that are far more capable and sophisticated than what traditional managed services providers offer.

Asset/Content Management
Digital content arrives from a variety of sources, including vendors, advertisers, employee training contractors, and in–house development. All content must be verified for file integrity, converted to a standard file format, timed, cataloged and indexed, and verified against a set of instructions. In short, file integrity and format compatibility must be managed, metadata, storage and removal must be managed, and the integration with the scheduler must be managed. These are all essentially the same operations as TV broadcast operations management services, except applied to thousands of "channels" simultaneously. In addition, some digital content is assembled dynamically on screens from disparate elements, in much the same way that certain web pages are created dynamically. Dynamic content authoring is an important aspect of digital content management.

Traffic and Scheduling
Instructions for playback come from the same variety of sources as the content itself, and content playback management involves balancing a number of competing factors for each and every one of the screens. These factors include:

•  Directing content to appropriate screens and screen configurations
  
  
•  Establishing and enforcing playback priorities among competing campaigns to manage over–committed screens as well  as  under–committed screens
  
  
•  Maintaining spot rotations within campaigns
  
  
•  Balancing relative reach and frequency goals on several different levels, including screen–by–screen, store–by–store,  and  department–by–department, on a local, regional, and/or national basis
  
  
•  Managing guaranteed impression delivery when required

Sales Account Stewardship
Accountability to advertisers and vendors, as well as to management, is an important aspect of the managed services Media LightBridge provides. Much of the content displayed on Digital Out–of–Home networks is placed within the context of agreed–upon performance metrics. Regardless of how those metrics are defined for any given campaign, processes that monitor, log, and verify those metrics must be managed properly. This involves understanding both the metrics and the goals, as well as how each element within the network can affect those goals, in order to intelligently monitor performance and correct issues before they become problems. Media LightBridge provides logging, and proof–of–performance audits to secure the stewardship of all campaigns.

Client–Side Sales Management
When third–party ad sales is implemented in a Digital Out–of–Home environment, certain factors must be properly managed from the client's perspective in order for the client to maximize revenue. This is because the supply of screens and viewing–time–per–screen is essentially fixed, whereas the demand for content display constantly fluctuates. Advertising demand fluctuates with the seasons, holidays, day of the week, time of day, and the strength of the economy. It is important to sell as much of the available time as possible, which generally involves downward pressure on pricing, while simultaneously maximizing the average revenue per minute of screen time, which generally involves upward pressure on pricing. From both the network owner's point of view, and the ad salesman's point of view, the sweet spot, where both are optimized, is constantly moving. The challenge is that the sweet spot isn't necessarily the same for the network owner and the salesman. That's because, although salesmen are competing with other salesmen for the same inventory, they're also competing with other Digital Out–of–Home networks whose pricing they can't control.

Media Analysis
Ad sales generally requires audience measurement because advertisers traditionally pay based on a cost–per–thousand viewing impressions. Not only must some research be performed in advance to estimate audience size, analysis of the actual schedules, after they have run, must be done to verify that the expected audiences were delivered. Media LightBridge has extensive experience working with the advertising and research communities, and understands how to provide useful media analysis that will be effective in attracting and retaining high–value advertisers.

Network Management
Traditionally, managed service providers provide IT network management services. At one level, a Digital Out–of–Home network is simply an IT network. As such, it has the same needs and requirements for proper network management, and Media LightBridge is fully capable of providing traditional managed services. These services include, but are not necessarily limited to:

•  Technology services
  
  
•  Customer support
  
  
•  Trouble ticket tracking and management
  
  
•  Remote monitoring
  
  
•  Technical support
  
  
•  Troubleshooting
  
  
•  Scheduled equipment maintenance