Last fall, we were working on our research agenda, and we thought that out of home would be an emerging category for digital advertising. Part of this was clearly a result of having seen all the cool new things that can be done with public signage, especially on things like transport. But there was something far more subtle in our research agenda. We had recently moved into the Prudential Center in Boston’s Back Bay, and the management company was in the process of upgrading the elevators.

At the time — and we had plenty of time to think about it as we waited for the two operational elevators for our bank of floors — we could only imagine what would await us in the form of new elevators with a full out-of-home media experience.

A few weeks ago, I was explaining OOH to one of my colleagues, a longtime hand in the communications industry. I finally pulled him out a meeting room, pressed the button, and finished my explanation in plain view of the two screens in the elevator powered by Captivate Network.

This is a bonus feature of working in the media industry. Back in the days when I focused on telecommunications, the most I had to show for a SONET ring was a big piece of equipment with blinky lights in a data center somewhere. Now I can send people to the train station to look at the huge ads plastered on the floor.

Look! It’s advertising!

Of course, the downside is that most people consume so much media that we’re all experts in advertising. Just like everyone is now an expert in technology. And there are people who refer to “going online” in the early nineties as the “early days of the internet.” Sorry, Charlie, unless you worked at BBN in 1969, you’re not exactly going to claim that one. A chat room does not the internet make.

Come to think of it, when I was in college, we had to pretend to be liberal arts majors, because few things would deflect a date like the ability to print to the laser printer (as in the only one in the university) from each of three mainframes (IBM 390, Unix, and VAX). Aaaah the glories of LaTeX!

I bring up ancient history, because Captivate has been around for a while, and those screens didn’t just suddenly appear in the elevator. MediaPost has a nice Q&A with Mike DiFranza of Captivate. I really appreciate the fact that Joe Mandese has taken on this fascinating category with his blog Digital Outsider. The interesting angle on digital out of home (a.k.a. DOOH) is that it’s a media network that requires significant infrastructure deals and investments, much like other media platforms such as cable, IPTV, satellite, radio and mobile. And DOOH is an interesting counterpoint to these businesses, because its existence is almost exclusively ad-supported.

So when we start talking about all these new types of digital advertising, we can remember that somebody actually has to invest in LCD screens to go into newly-renovated elevators. Then they have to figure out how to update the content on those screens on a regular basis.  And from there, they need to identify their audience and start demonstrating ad performance to marketers.