Please provide a brief overview of your background and professional journey within the technology industries leading up to your current role as Chief Sales Officer at OptConnect.
Previously, I was President and CEO of Solvport, LLC, an ATM and kiosk technical services company, for over eight years. Solvport provides break/fix, installations, and phone technical support in all 50 states throughout the US. I began my journey in IoT in 2015 with OptConnect as the head of business development. I wanted to use our products and services and launch into new verticals that could be relevant to us. We have grown the business from one vertical to over five verticals today and from 40,000 connected endpoints to over 1.1mm endpoints today.
Given the evolving landscape of Digital Out of Home (DOOH) advertising, how do you strategize and adapt to ensure success amidst rapid changes, such as the recent AT&T outage?
We run a 24/7 call center and NOC out of Salt Lake City, Utah, where we are able to respond quickly to regional and (inter)national outages, which allowed us to respond lightning fast to the AT&T outage. We spend a lot of time listening to our customers and trying to quickly adapt to their business needs. For example, some years ago, our customers made us aware that our single SIM/single carrier hardware put them at a disadvantage during a carrier outage. We then developed a dual-SIM router that would dynamically fail over during an outage to a secondary carrier. Because of this, we and our customers were not impacted.
The strategy is to design and build products, features, and processes that customers need. IoT companies often respond to what carriers are pushing them to sell or what IoT companies think the customers might need. Responding to practical feet on the street solutions based on customer needs has been a hallmark of our success.
What advice would you offer to individuals or businesses looking to navigate the complexities of IoT integration within DOOH advertising?
Thoroughly understand how video and advertising content, as well as remote management systems, will impact your data consumption. Choose an IoT provider who understands the DOOH market and higher bandwidth/higher data usage device needs. Many IoT companies excel at low data connectivity with little data usage variability. That is not the DOOH market.
Choose an IoT provider that can scale and has the infrastructure to grow with you. Choose an IoT provider that can provide a full end-to-end solution, from design and certification requirements to the right hardware and data plans and, if necessary, managing your device warranties. Go through the effort of capturing and documenting the total cost of ownership, including certifications, network configuration, truck rolls for outages, upgrading legacy hardware, hardware life-cycles, supply chain, and warranty policies before making a decision to go down the IoT journey yourself to save on cost or to outsource to a 3rd party IoT managed services provider. The old adage “good service isn’t cheap, and cheap service isn’t good” applies here.
How does OptConnect approach the integration of IoT technologies to enhance the effectiveness and reliability of DOOH advertising campaigns?
Eliminating downtime by monitoring the network 24/7.
Alerting customers to problem signage in the field so they can take corrective action e.g. run-away data consumption or constant intermittent outages. Choosing the right category router and gateway for what the customer is trying to do with their digital signage e.g. outdoor vs. indoor signage, sudden but infrequent high bandwidth needs when new content is being downloaded. Fully kitted solutions (hardware, data plans, antennas) for simple plug-and-play solutions while also providing the flexibility of OpEx pricing models so customers don’t have to deploy large amounts of capital for their connectivity solution.
In your opinion, what are the key benefits of utilising cellular networks for seamless communication between IoT devices and digital signage, especially in venues where third-party network access is restricted?
Faster to market by dramatically decreasing installation time requirements. No need to work through on-premise network requirements when you are using cellular connectivity.
Not being at the mercy of site network administrators to reconnect your digital sign when there are firewall issues or other network issues. The operator controls the connection outside of the network. Much higher levels of security since the operator controls the cellular network themselves and, therefore, are not subject to bad actors possibly infiltrating the on-premise network.
Can you elaborate on the significance of dual-carrier connectivity in ensuring the resilience of DOOH advertising systems, particularly in mitigating the impact of network outages like the recent AT&T incident?
Our devices will automatically fail over to a secondary carrier. This is important because many routers require either a remote manual switch or even a truck to move them from one carrier to another. Because our router auto-detected the AT&T SIMs going offline and then failed over to a Verizon or other designated third-party carrier, our customers were not impacted by the situation.
From your perspective, what are some of the most impactful innovations that IoT has brought to the advertising landscape, and how do they contribute to the overall effectiveness of DOOH campaigns?
The ability to be more flexible with your DOOH deployment e.g. location where the intended effect of having a sign proves wrong allows you to quickly move the site to another location at the same site or a different location.
What are your thoughts on the future of DOOH advertising, considering the ongoing advancements in IoT technology and its continued integration into the industry?
With the advent of 5G as well as much higher data plan allowances at lower costs, the future of DOOH will be cellular IOT connectivity, whether with embedded modules in the media player itself or an external router attached to the sign. Higher bandwidth and higher data plans will allow advertisers more flexibility in the types of content they provide up to and including streaming content.
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Wayne Vandekraak, Chief Sales Officer at OptConnect
Wayne is the Senior Vice President of Strategic Partnerships. Wayne holds a BA in History and an MBA from Portland State University. His previous positions include management roles at Wells Fargo Bank and E*TRADE Financial. Before OptConnect, Wayne was the Founder and President CEO of Solvport, an IT services company based out of Portland, Oregon. LinkedIn.