Hartford Business Journal

15 HARTFORDBUSINESS.COM | JANUARY 17, 2022 Care on Wheels A new wrinkle in growth of ambulatory care services: in-home visits By Robert Storace rstorace@hartfordbusiness.com A s healthcare providers continue to look for innovative ways to save money and offer more accessible care, they've been busy opening suburban urgent care centers, which are much more cost-effective than visiting the emergency room. Eastern Connecticut Health Network, parent to Manchester Memorial and Rockville General hospitals, has partnered with DispatchHealth to offer patients in-home medical care. PHOTO | CONTRIBUTED by well-known journalist Katie Couric and her Spiked Heart Pavé Necklace was worn by actress Sarah Jessica Parker in the new "Sex and the City" revival series.) Jonah Lazowski said his company has signed deals with the four largest parking companies in the country. He leases space at their facilities and then finds companies that want to advertise within them. Clients can choose static or digital advertising, or both. Static options, Lazowski said, include ads on gate arm wraps and tickets as well as wallscapes. Digital signage includes interactive and touch-screen options that can be placed in payment areas, valet waiting lounges and even elevator lobbies. The company also offers digital dynamic rate boards to parking-lot operators. "We have space for cameras to be embedded in our screens allowing us to do facial recognition and audience surveying in order to ensure that our audience demographics fit our customers' needs," Lazowski said. "We also integrate with parking- equipment companies to allow their rates to be displayed on our screens. This allows garages to do dynamic pricing, similar to the hotel and airline industries, for the first time. Before our screens were in garages, there was no way to do this with standard printed rate boards." Key industries he's targeting include automotive, insurance, tech, health care, retail, real estate, among others. One local client is Hartford HealthCare, which recently renewed a partnership deal with A Lot Media that will increase the healthcare provider's display ads to 30 garages statewide. Hartford HealthCare president and CEO Jeff Flaks said the partnership, which will continue through 2023, has helped in spreading his organization's message to a wider audience. "From their first campaign with us, A Lot Media has raised the visibility of our brand in every corner of the state, including markets we previously had trouble accessing," Flaks said. The future of advertising A Lot Media competes in the out- of-home advertising sector, which earned $6.1 billion in 2020, according to the Out of Home Advertising Association of America (OHAA). That number represented about 2.8% of the overall U.S. media spend. Lazowski said he views out- of-home advertising companies — like Outfront Media, Lamar and JCDecaux — as competitors because they are chasing similar ad dollars, but they are much larger and offer different services. There are few players in parking-lot advertising, he said, which can attract an audience for a longer period of time compared to other ad mediums. For example, the OHAA said the average highway billboard is visible for just eight seconds while those same ads in a garage are visible for more than five minutes by motorists as they enter, leave and walk through the facility. According to a third-party tracking company, A Lot Media ads placed in 50 select New York City parking garages have drawn 2 million impressions a week; 30 garages tracked in Connecticut, which were larger, garnered 2.2 million impressions a week, Lazowski said. Those numbers were derived from various sources, he added, including tracking the number of actual garage customers, as well as U.S. Census and Department of Transportation data. Meantime, rates for static and digital ads vary. As an example, the company charges $1,200 for four weeks of digital advertising in Manhattan's high-end garages, Lazowski said. A Lot Media is also vertically integrated. Through Lazowski's business partners — brothers Josh and Jesse Cooper — it manufactures its own digital equipment in China, prints large format static advertising, and has in-house software development, print and install teams that manage all logistics. "This is the future of advertising," Lazowski said. "We can do full motion video, you can play audio and you can have a camera embedded in screens." Out-of-home advertising is a $6.1 billion industry The out-of-home advertising industry, which A Lot Media competes in, earned $6.1 billion in revenue in 2020, according to the Out of Home Advertising Association of America. Here's how that compares to other forms of advertising spending. Digital $143.1B Broadcast TV $25B Magazines | $4.2B Newspaper | $4.8B Out-of-home advertising | $6.1B Radio $9.2B Cable TV $26.7B SOURCES: OAAA, MAGNA, BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS

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