Columbus-based DoMedia was founded in 2007 to help bring some order to the "out-of-home" media marketplace. Since then, it's tripled its employee base and is ready to ride the booming digital media wave.
Out-of-home advertising is anything out of the home on which you can place a branded message, explains DoMedia CEO Andy Mansinne. Bus huts, aerial banners, pizza boxes -- just about anything can be used as an advertising medium.
However, "it's very fragmented and very opaque and there aren't very many ways to get your arms around what's out there, measure its efficacy and then systematically and efficiently secure and purchase those media assets," Mansinne says.
DoMedia provides an online marketplace for finding, planning, buying and selling alternative, traditional and digital out-of-home media. Media providers (like billboard companies) use DoMedia to create detailed online profiles, while advertisers and agencies can use DoMedia's database to plan and build their out-of-home campaigns.
While traditional out-of-home is alive and well, "digital out of home has come screaming to the forefront in the last year," Mansinne says. Think of those big screens you might view while waiting in line at the movies -- "anything that can be delivered from an extended video format or even like Captivate, which is static art in elevators."
Mansinne says 400 agencies are now registered DoMedia users as well as 1,200 media sellers worldwide. The company has benefitted from funding led by Columbus-based NCT Ventures as well as support from the Ohio Third Frontier's Innovation Ohio Loan Fund -- DoMedia received more than $1 million from the fund for 2010, Mansinne says.
DoMedia has 10 employees today compared to three two years ago, and expects continued growth behind new services and the rise of digital out-of-home media.
Source: Andy Mansinne, DoMedia
Writer: Gene Monteith