What Hardware Should I Use?

What are the strategies OOH companies use to cope-up with upfront hardware cost  to reduce CapEx?

• As far as I understand it could be leasing hardware or doing some kind of partnership with hardware company.

• Answer:

  Leasing definitely is the most popular, and typically the hardware companies have leasing programs available so you don't even have to go to a 3rd party if you prefer not to. Of course, using a 3rd party leasing company will allow you to roll other items (like software and some services, which technically have no marginal cost) into the same agreement, yielding a single bill to pay each month or quarter. In the past, some companies -- particularly LCD screen manufacturers -- also had pretty aggressive "trial" programs that would allow you to install and use their screens for a fairly long period of time (the longest I heard was a year). I'm not sure if any of them still offer such long-term trials, but I know of several DOOH networks that bootstrapped their way to cashflow neutral by not paying for their screens until they absolutely had to. OEM advertising is an option somewhat related to this, though it too has become less common than it was a few years ago. In this scenario, one of the bigger OEMs in the digital signage space -- maybe Sony or Cisco, for example -- would agree to pay some or all of the hardware costs in exchange for advertising time on the screens. I've never been party to such a deal so I don't know much about the terms, but I'd have to believe they're fairly onerous given the failure rate in the DOOH industry. Venue/partner cost sharing is another option, and by far my favorite. Simply put, don't subscribe to the "build it and they will come" model -- it virtually never works. Instead, have your host venues share the capex costs (better, some of the opex costs too). This makes them a partner instead of a bystander, giving them a real, vested interest in your success. While I know many DOOH companies are loathe to ask their venues for money, from my perspective if your host venues aren't willing to pay anything, they've basically just told you that your value to them is $0.