raspberry pi as an advertisement service platform

[launchmedia]

Not sure if I am posting in the right thread or not, anyways I was playing around with one of the raspberry pi's seeing what I could do with it and I had an idea that I though I would share to get some feedback on.

I was thinking that I could create a web based dashboard that would be used to show advertisement banners and useful widgets on the clients flat panels.

If it was web based then the client could just open up a browser and add their new images and make changes.

If we hosted the main web server that had all the ad feeds then we could charge a client a fee per month to have access.

If we installed our custom web browser on the the pi it would be cheap to get the service out to clients.

I was thinking this could even be done with a customized wordpress install and with that being said we could charge extra for a custom theme.

There are a lot of places here in town that have flat panels and they just run a power point feed that looks far for professional.

What do you guys think?

 

[phaZed]

From a technological standpoint it should work well, but from a sales standpoint I think it may be a hard sell. It really depends on what you want to advertise and where.

Usually, advertising of this sort is set up as such that the advertisers pay the client to be able to display ads in their store/office, not the other way around. If I understand correctly you want to host ads for the "store" that it is in? Not going to get much external exposure that way. Maybe this could work to showcase a particular product or future important dates, eg. "Free Oil change on the 7th @ 7am"

Now, if you were to have an "advertising network" in which ads from different "places" appear across all of your clients that may work, but I imagine you will need a few clients on board to get started.. and then make sure your not advertising competitors against competitors (2 craft store for instance).

On top of that, if the customer had a flat-panel already hanging I assume they are already showing something on it (TV Channel? News? Custom Loop?). Will they be willing to give up what they had -- for advertising to customers that are already in the store making purchases?

 

[Cornerstone Technologies]

As an advertiser, I dont see this as a worthwhile expense. I notice these things in my area at various locations. Unsurprisingly, I have noticed that several places that once had these have since had them removed.

As a person who is constantly looking at ways to market, I see several disadvantages that I would like to share.

1. Typically, the cost for these seem abnormally high, though I have seen a trend where advertisers have been fairly regular to increase prices despite the fact that clients are not renewing and not seeing value. In this area, for me to be on these screens in 14 locations, including some that are on heavily trafficked streets is around $300 a month. The ones on the roads seem to be ineffective because the rotation through all the ads is just too long. If I am sitting at a light and see something that catches my eye, I wont know what it is because I will have moved with the rest of traffic when the light turns green.

2. As human beings go, in stores and inside locations, these things become part of the background and are ignored once the novelty of them wears off. I actually maintain one of these units at a nearby mall. It is always being switched off, or the speakers sabotaged because the audio tends to get on mall workers nerves. We had these at my grocery store before they were removed, and I eventually got used to them and ignored them up until they were removed.

3. In the event an advertiser gets a client from these, the demographic might not be what they are looking for. The grocery store I tend to frequent isn't exactly in the best neighborhood and are probably not the clients I would want.

Now, of all the units I have seen, most all of them are Zotacs or some other very small computer. They are expensive, when compared to a Raspberry Pi. Using the Raspberry might have many benefits because of its low up-front cost, but the horsepower for these units are lacking when compared to most anything else on the market. I think if you are really a developer looking to utilize this as your platform, with enough skill and efficient programming, you can really have a fantastic ability to make this kind of marketing tool affordable. However, I would expect something more than just another Wordpress template if you were to offer this for others use.

 

[16k_zx81]

Same thing could easily be achieved with one of those tv's that has a dvd player built in.

I have seen these in a number of businesses.

Not difficult to get whatever advertising material you want onto a dvd - flick between slideshow and animation. Whatever.

I think it would be a hard sell because the technology is already there.

I appreciate the Pi idea - but Im not sure the average end-user would appreciate any distinction between this and a dvd-playback system.

 

[andcorptech]

If you use the advertising platform Media Signage, they sell a prebuilt USB dongle which plugs into HDMI for about $80. Why waste time reinventing the wheel.