I’ve not had any luck working contacts and verifying the rumored demise of SeeSaw Networks, but a website that no longer works was and is a pretty strong indicator. Now Linkedin has popped up with updates on contacts, including one from SeeSaw co-founder Rocky Gunderson, who now lists himself as a Principal with SierraRock – which I assume by the lack of website is Rocky’s own boutique consulting firm.
Last fall, I popped by the company’s San Francisco offices and thought it seemed awfully quiet around there, but was told it was always like that.
The effort to roll up and represent multiple networks and profiles in one meeting and one buy always seemed to make a bunch of sense, but SeeSaw and its rival Adcentricity (also very quiet of late) were having to deal with all kinds of network operators with little or no measurement, shaky reliability and sometimes dubious media propositions.
With consolidation and larger networks gobbling up the better smaller ones, media planners can get pretty good coverage investing in just the major Digital OOH networks. Research from firms like PQ Media is showing the top 10 networks control 70% of the revenue, and that most networks out there generate less than $1 million in annual ad revenues. So commissions on the aggregates of all that would not be all that high.
I’d love to hear from people related to SeeSaw to get the story on where things are at, as well as more learned opinions than my own on the prospects for companies that are built around selling and managing the media avails for Digital OOH networks.