Captivate, a large, location-based video
network, has been presenting TV fare like news, weather and sports to apartment and office building elevators for 25 years. But it was missing a big chunk of another adjacent market: the
doctors’ offices at the other end of many of those rides on the lift.
That changes now, as Captivate enters a strategic partnership with PatientPoint, which has been presenting medical
information videos to doctors and patients for 30 years.
Captivate won’t have anything to do with the medical content, but when doctors’ offices are open again, it will adding its
programming to patients in waiting rooms.
Captivate will be selling advertising for both waiting rooms and medical staff offices/treatment rooms, for the whole gamut of consumer products
from packaged goods to vacation spots and automobiles.
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Instead of those quick ads that are a necessary feature of their elevator fare, the ads in offices can take a little time to get their
points across.
“The thing that really drew us into this idea was being able to take two leading providers, both with similar services, and create a much bigger brand-safe, fraud-free
messaging platform,” said Lorenzo Papa, the chief revenue office for Captivate.
There are lots of companies already beaming video into doctors’ offices. Papa says by concentrating
on consumer brands, this partnership sets itself apart. Captivate isn’t trying to be a B-to-B service for health care providers.
It is, he says, a wide open opportunity for
consumer brands to reach customers, and since patients’ visits often lead to shopping and dining plans afterward, the doctors’ office systems reach consumers at “the last touch
point.”
Captivate also gets to interact with doctors, presumably “high net worth individuals,” which ought to be interesting to marketers of luxury products.
The partnership creates a new audience of about 9,000 waiting rooms with thousands of visitors, and 4,000 screens in doctors’ and nurses ‘offices. And by the end of this year PatientPoint says it
will be reaching 77,000 health care providers on its platforms.
Doctors and staff have a 10-digit code to access information from PatientPoint to get information via mobile devices. That also
allows advertisers to keep in touch with those doctors, nurses and staff.
Meanwhile, PatientPoint is testing Point of Care Anywhere, in which it’s presenting relevant medical
information to virtual patients waiting for their appointment to begin, or looking for more information afterward, as that company responds to the pandemic.
Captivate’s response to
the health crisis could seemingly create more headlines as its breaks out. It just introduced Captivate Scan, an all-in-one display and screen that features video content and a temperature scanner,
hand sanitizer dispenser and a face mask detector. The company thinks could be turnkey response to necessary safeguards that may become part of the new normal at office lobbies and sports
arenas, apartment properties, retail stores and, of course, medical offices.
“It’s an idea born out of the pandemic,” Papa says.
