FEPE Out of Home News 10th December 2015

FEPE Out of Home News 10th December 2015

 

EUROPE NEWS

UK: Black cabs given new digital boards to provide live London traffic updates

New digital advertising boards warning motorists of traffic delays are being mounted on top of London's iconic black cabs. From this week, Transport for London is running a trial of the innovative new boards, which will display traffic information live in a bid to encourage other motorists to avoid congested roads.

Initially, targeted messages will inform road users of traffic levels in 40 to 50 areas where there are known traffic delays.

But if the trial is successful the technology could be used in future to provide real-time updates on incidents across the whole of London's road network. Messages will be displayed on around 200 taxis, which have been fitted with the electronic boards using GPS technology to ensure that the information is accurate and up-to-date.

Garrett Emmerson, TfL's Chief Operating Officer for Surface Transport, said: "This trial is an innovative new way to reach road users in London and keep them informed of traffic conditions. Using the Capital's fleet of taxis to get real-time traffic information out will inform other drivers of any disruption on the network, helping them to avoid the most congested routes.

"It is one of many ways we are focusing our attention on keeping London moving, particularly during the current success-driven boom in construction seen across London."

Jamie Lindsay, Chief Executive of BrightMove Media, the company behind the boards, added: "Broadcasting congestion information to Londoners on iconic black taxis highlights the unique technological and programming capabilities our software possesses.

"This trial will keep Londoners up to date with live traffic conditions and events in the Capital - exactly the kind of information that they need. We are delighted to be partnering with TfL in delivering this scheme."

Source

UK: Primesight celebrates landmark digital network with national Christmas competition


Primesight is launching a festive competition to celebrate the expansion of its industry-leading network of digital roadside 48-sheets, which reaches 50 this week, making it the UK’s broadest-reaching digital out-of-home (DOOH) network for the best value of its kind.

The nationwide competition will use Primesight’s digital roadside 48-sheets in five of the UK’s biggest cities and invite the industry to spot Santa as he progresses on his annual rounds.

Every day from December 7-11, each of the five sites in Edinburgh, Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham and London will display a cryptic clue hinting at the whereabouts of Santa. Primesight will share the clues with its network of clients, allowing them to guess the location and enter a daily prize draw.

Naren Patel, CEO of Primesight, said: “Our Christmas campaign marks a milestone and highlights the national reach of our digital screens, while offering our clients a fun, interactive way to celebrate the festive season. “2015 has been an important year for Primesight and has seen real growth in our digital portfolio.

Our ambition is to reach 100 digital 48-sheets in 2016, offering exceptional coverage across the UK while providing high-quality advertising solutions and creative opportunities for clients.”

Primesight’s ambition is to help drive the market forward, offering a broader array of digital OOH solutions, flexibility and dynamism, while offsetting the concentration of digital billboards in London and allowing advertisers to maximise audience reach and improve targeting across the UK.

Source

UK: Outdoor buying platform Site Tour relocates to UK leading to shake up in local operation

Leading Australian outdoor advertising buying platform Site Tour is shifting its headquarters to London in a move that will see a major shake up in its local operations, Mumbrella can reveal. The move comes at a sensitive time in the outdoor programmatic space with the company one of around 20 throwing its hat into the ring for the Outdoor Media Association (OMA)’s tender for an automated transaction platform.

Should the OMA go with a different provider for its automation platform that product would be a major competitor to Site Tour, and would have cross-industry endorsement. Changes locally include chief commercial officer Vicki Lyon and senior software engineer Robin Green are departing, while others including head of research Greg von Nessi and chief technology officer Andrew Done currently in discussions with management about their roles.

The company currently employs between 10 and 15 people in Australia, but general manager of Australia/New Zealand Steve Geelan declined to specify how many positions would be lost here saying: “There is going to be a natural impact as we continue to shape our business to deliver the best product and best service to our customers, we will grow our business and teams in each market to do so.”

However he denied the relocation had been driven by fears the company might lose market share should it not win the OMA tender stating: “The relocation was planned before the OMA tender. It is more the interest from Europe and North America that has pulled us over there. “We just couldn’t operate over there from here.”

Site Tour founder and CEO Michael Scruby had already moved to the UK and touted a number of senior appointments including former Havas Arena Global CEO, Steve Booth who takes the role of executive director, Graham Golding who takes the role of CFO and Andrew Mitchell who will be head of product.

The company’s product is used by a number of major media agencies in Australia, including Omnicom and IPG Mediabrands agencies, and the company also has a major contract with Australia’s largest telco Telstra to automate and trade outdoor advertising on its phone box and other properties. Lyon is a former managing director of programmatic exchange Spotxchange.

Source

UK: Cennydd Roberts joins 8 Outdoor

Cennydd Roberts joins the new outdoor advertising business, 8 Outdoor as CEO.

Cennydd joins an existing team of ten, with plans to rapidly expand the team in early 2016. 8 Outdoor already has a network of ten large format digital screens live in London, Birmingham, Edinburgh, Leeds and Liverpool with further expansion planned to an additional twenty UK cities throughout 2016.Cennydd joined Wildstone in January 2012 as Business Development Director and was later promoted to Partner.

Cennydd departed from Wildstone in October 2015.

Before Wildstone, Cennydd Roberts was at Clear Channel UK from May 2007 as National Sales Controller and was promoted to the role of Head of Emerging Platforms in 2011. Prior to that he led Digital Trading at CBS Outdoor; previously he had worked at Van Wagner before it was acquired by Clear Channel in 2006.

Before joining the out-of-home industry, Cennydd was Head of Agency Sales at TalkSport and Group Head at the ITV Sales house, TSMS

Cennydd says:

“I am very excited about joining 8 Outdoor at this early stage and working with the very talented and energised team here. We have great ambitions for 8 Outdoor and I look forward to leading the company into a period of solid growth, developing innovative solutions for the evolving media landscape that I am so passionate about.”

John Story, Chairman of 8 Outdoor comments:

“I am absolutely delighted that Cennydd has agreed to come on-board to join 8 Outdoor. His reputation and experience across all areas of Outdoor make him the perfect choice to lead our expansion plans and the business.”

UK: Out-of-home: 2016 and beyond

By Alan Brydon Outsmart, the new marketing body for the OOH industry, launched three months ago with a mission to understand what can take the sector to the next level. Here, its chief executive, Alan Brydon, explains what happens now.

Since Outsmart launched on 24 September I have been around many OOH media owner, specialist, media agency and client companies - to present, to discuss with, and to listen to their views on the medium, and the industry.

There are a number of very consistent themes, and it is these that will drive what the Outsmart, its members, and our other partners within the OOH family industry focuses on into 2016 and beyond.

The first and probably most prevalent theme is one of positivity about the medium. More than any other it is the medium where technology, driving consumer behaviour, is bringing opportunities and growth in audiences, rather than challenges as with other media.

I'm not for a moment suggesting that these challenges make other media not valuable or not worthwhile. But they are challenges nevertheless: audience declines, inflation, ad avoidance, etc.

And the OOH medium can deliver in combination better than any other the four crucial things that every client and every agency wants from its marketing and media effort - Impact, Action, Relevance and Creativity. That's why every planner in town should be thinking about and recommending OOH more than ever before.

The OOH medium has bigger audiences, uninterrupted communication, without any fast-forward or adblocker technology...and it also has ever improving inventory, and ever more sophisticated planning, buying, creative and deployment opportunities.

Technology will mean that the digitisation of the medium will continue, at lower cost, more quickly, and to even better levels of quality; trading processes between media owners and specialists will become better and more efficient (indeed they are already with the introduction of SPACE); and real-time automated trading will develop apace, again allowing not only efficiencies but better and more effective deployment opportunities for advertisers.

And a really key element that makes OOH incredibly exciting for advertisers is how much and how often people are using their connected device whilst out and about. We at Outsmart are in the middle right now of a very major piece of research which will indicate just how much more people snap, search, share and shop on their devices whilst they are out and about, and how much more they do so for brands that are on posters than for those that are not. We'll have the results ready by the end of Q1 2016.

The other big theme that has come out of all my conversations has been 'effectiveness' in all its forms.

Demonstration of effectiveness is, quite rightly, a prerequisite for any medium. But the OOH medium has in the past been rather on the back foot in this area. It has allowed others to take the lead (particularly in the ROI area) at its expense, and it has been rather disjointed in the blowing of its own trumpet in all effectiveness regards. And yet, as I've already found in my first few months at Outsmart, there is a whole load of evidence that OOH works.

Full article here

Netherlands: Seeing double in the Netherlands

Dutch telecommunications company KPN delivered a double dose of OOH advertising in major locations throughout the Netherlands.

KPN visualized its motto of “twice as much data” by creating special builds featuring duplicate panels with identical ad creative.

The campaign’s clever play on the motto to advertise KPN Compleet was doubly effective in putting its services out there as an option for passersby!

Source

UK: Microsoft reveals most searched UK industry buzzwords of 2015

'Augmented Reality' was the most searched industry buzzword or phrase across the UK in 2015, says the head of sales for Bing Ads at Microsoft UK. 2015 saw the coming together of two worlds. Technology and advertising combined led to one word on marketers’ lips: data.

More importantly, marketers in 2015 were faced with the challenge of reaching the consumer at the right time with the right content on the right device. And moving into 2016, these challenges aren’t going away. Figuring out how consumers want to be engaged with in each of their different environments and understanding the consumer decision journey and path of intent is more important than ever before.

Our Bing End of Year trends research revealed that ‘Augmented Reality’ was the most searched industry buzzword across the UK in 2015. This was closely followed by ‘Real-time’ and ‘Personalisation’. As the value of consumer engagement increases, the expectation from brands continues to rise.

As a result, marketers are looking towards the proliferation of touch points for new opportunities to challenge themselves and the meaning of engagement for brands.

Top 5 industry buzzwords searched for in 2015

  1. Augmented Reality
  2. Real-time
  3. Personalisation
  4. Content marketing
  5. Social marketing

Looking back at what the UK marketing world has been searching for in 2015, alongside insights from conversations with our customers and partners, we’ve grouped together six predictions for 2016:

Full article here

AMERICAS NEWS

USA: Coming, a major overhaul of OOH ratings

TAB will test a new system utilizing data from smartphones

A long-anticipated overhaul of the out of home ratings system is finally underway.

On Friday, the board of directors for the Traffic Audit Bureau for Media Measurement approved a plan to upgrade the TAB OOH Ratings, which are used as currency for media buys.

The system will begin a testing phase soon.

It’s called Operation M.O.R.E., which stands for Measurement Optimization and Ratings Enhancement. And more is what media buyers and planners have been clamoring for from TAB—more demographic data, more detailed information on who sees which ads when, and more places to be measured.

TAB president Kym Frank, who has spent her first six months on the job readying this plan, says the new ratings will deliver much of that.

Over the past few years, great strides have been made in how to use data collected from smartphones and connected cars to pinpoint audience location.

TAB will employ this big data in its measurement system. The aim is to present a more fluid look at how OOH advertising is consumed, taking into account dayparts and seasons and deeper demographic information, instead of just saying how many people saw a particular billboard.

TAB’s new ratings will cover additional formats, too. Since the ratings first launched five years ago, digital and transit ads have been added to the measurement.

TAB says it will also offer pre- and post-campaign analysis to advertisers to measure how effective their campaigns are. The committee for Operation M.O.R.E. will narrow down the data providers and research partners who will participate in the test phase.

Source

USA: OOH Industry’s Major Victory in Congress: Five-year Highway Bill

Last week the President signed the first long-term Highway Bill in a decade; Congress completed action on Thursday.

The five-year bill retains the federal regulatory structure for billboards (Highway Beautification Act), which protects property rights by requiring that government pay just compensation for removal of billboards.

As Congress was considering this major legislation, the Outdoor Advertising Association of America (OAAA) led the fight to reject two amendments that would alter federal regulation, by:

• Allowing corporate logo advertising on the right of way. This amendment was defeated on the House floor November 4.

• Changing the 50-year definition of “customary use.” Leaders of the House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee blocked this amendment in committee.

“The industry remains strong on Capitol Hill because we are united and persistent,” said OAAA President and CEO Nancy Fletcher.

“We were tested, and we prevailed because of longtime relationships in both political parties, because key members of Congress heard from constituents from home, and because OAAA members nationwide make it their business to know their elected representatives.”

Source

Canada: BroadSign International, LLC Delivers Powerful Upgrade with New User Interface

Revamp brings faster workflows, improved visuals and a customizable experience for scaled networks.

For the first time since entering the market in 2004, BroadSign International, LLC has reimagined its BroadSign Administrator user interface to deliver a modern and intuitive user experience to global enterprise customers. The upgrade is available at no charge as part of BroadSign’s cloud-based model.

Named this year as the top-ranked digital signage software provider by Frost & Sullivan and DailyDOOH, BroadSign has revitalized its user interface to enhance the power of its automated approach to content management.

Schedulers are now provided with a more visually appealing and user-friendly experience via faster access to workflows, intuitive graphics and increased customization. Such improvements strengthen BroadSign’s key benefit of helping scaled DOOH media publishers attain operational efficiency.

Viewing enhancements include a map for easy location-based targeting and calendar for simple planning of complex schedules. A new loop share feature further eliminates micromanagement by providing networks the flexibility of automatically allowing different types of content to receive their necessary airtime based on rules set by the scheduler.

BroadSign’s integration with camera-based audience measurement company, Quividi, has also been deepened with the addition of more detailed audience analytics to proof of performance reports.

“We spent a significant amount of time analyzing how our customers were using our platform and determining what could be revised to bring them increased functionality and efficiency in a fresh and simple way,” said Bryan Mongeau, Vice President of Technology at BroadSign. “This upgrade elegantly accomplishes our goals.”

BroadSign customers can experience the new user interface immediately by upgrading to Version 11 of BroadSign Administrator. Those interested in obtaining a demo of the platform can arrange to meet with a BroadSign representative at the upcoming Integrated Systems Europe and Digital Signage Expo events.

USA: Outdoor Advertising Is The New Black

Big cities like San Francisco and New York are digital meccas, home to many of the world’s largest technology startups — and to hordes of smartphone-toting, app-using consumers. But when it comes to making a name for themselves, many of the companies hoping to influence these techie urbanites are going decidedly analog.

In these cities, and others, it’s hard to miss the resurgence of old-school, outdoor marketing on behalf of venture-backed technology companies.

And we’re not just talking about traditional highway billboards. These days, taxi tops, newspaper stands, bus stands and even the buses themselves — traditionally the turf of local advertisers like museums and the lottery — are blaring messages for the likes of Percolate, DraftKings, Rinse and Jet.com.

According to a recent report from Kantar Media, total outdoor advertising spending in the U.S. rose 2.2 percent in this year’s second quarter amid an overall 3.9 percent decline in total ad spend, including decreases for cable and spot TV advertising, online display, magazines, newspapers and network radio. And outdoor marketing spend is up for the first half of this year versus 2014, as well.

But is all this tech-company spending on outdoor ads a good idea? When done smartly, yes. Most outdoor-marketing campaigns need to be executed in conjunction with separate (or related) digital campaigns, which leverage incredible data and analytics to improve targeting. But when advertising outdoors — not a venue in which marketers can track clicks and engagement — companies today need to be more strategic and thoughtful in how they place and position these old-school ads.

Remember, new technologies like smartphones have fundamentally changed how people interact with advertising they consume in the physical world. Sure, simply having a presence outdoors can help get the word out about a movie or product or new app. And the real-world presence adds legitimacy to tech companies that would otherwise only be encountered in the ether. But I believe outdoor advertisers can increase their odds of success if they evaluate their buys against four key elements: time, place, “state of mind” and creative relevance. All of these increase the likelihood of provoking action, as well as getting eyeballs. Call it the “quadruple-threat” of outdoor marketing.

Source

USA: NanoLumens Helps the Miami International Airport Welcome Travelers to the Wonders of Miami and South Florida

With more than 40 million international passengers traveling through it each year, the Miami International Airport is the nation’s second busiest airport for international travelers. And, until recently, the first introduction to the beauty of Miami and the South Florida region experienced by these travelers was a windowless International Arrivals terminal!

It’s no wonder then that, when the Miami-Dade Aviation Department (MDAD) undertook the task of updating and improving the International Arrivals Terminal, they wanted to include a graphically compelling way to welcome visitors to the airport and city, immediately lifting their spirits after a long day (or more) of travel. “You never get a second chance to make a first impression. We wanted our International Arrivals Terminal to provide a sense of place and put a big smile on the faces of our visitors from the minute they arrived in the area,” explained Miami-Dade Aviation Department’s Chief of Aviation Signage Richard Garcia. “We literally wanted to create a moving, visual experience for travelers that brought the natural beauty and wonders of the region right inside the arrivals area — and we accomplished that, thanks to NanoLumens.”

MDAD selected NanoLumens to design a massive, 200-foot-long, double-sided NanoCurve™ LED display to showcase stunning images and video of Miami and the South Florida region.

“When we began researching LED displays and other platform options, we found a few other companies that offered curved displays,” Garcia continued. “However, to make them double-sided, two displays would have to be installed back-to-back, making the end result extremely thick and heavy. NanoLumens was the only company that offered a truly double-sided, bezel- and line-free display that could curve in the exact shape needed for the new International Arrivals area.”

Just over 4-inches thick, the NanoCurve illuminates almost every area of the International Arrivals terminal with beautiful, sunny imagery. With glass walls enclosing portions of the terminal, MDAD needed the display to be double-sided so patrons could enjoy the images and videos no matter which side of the wall they were on. Displaying an array of beaches, cruise ships, palm trees and other iconic imagery of South Florida, the NanoCurve solution is eye-catching, captivating travelers’ attention as they arrive into the region.

To show these images, MDAD specified a Clickeffects Blaze control system that can present one large image across the full-length of the NanoCurve surface. The easy-to-use system allows content management operators to alter complex content to perfectly fit the display, creating the beautiful imagery international travelers in the Miami International Airport view each day.

“Living up to our clients’ imagination is what drives our design and engineering teams every day,” explained Karen Robinson. “Airports have become a very important channel for the company. Our new solution at the Miami International Airport joins a growing portfolio that also includes installations at London’s Stansted Airport and Australia’s Darwin International Airport.”

AUSTRALIA NEWS

Australia: November double-digit growth underscores migration of adspend to Out-of-Home

The Out-of-Home industry today reported its eleventh consecutive month of YoY growth this year, with net revenue of $74.3 million for the month of November, an increase of 12.8% from the same month last year, which posted a net revenue of $65.9 million.*

Year-to-date revenue has increased by 16.6%, tracking at $606.8 million, up from $520.7 million* for the same time last year. Digital Out-of-Home (DOOH) year-to-date makes up 27.3% of total revenue, up from 16.9% of total revenue for the same period last year. All formats saw YoY growth, demonstrating the strength of the sector as it nears the end of another record year.

Category figures November 2015:

• Roadside Billboards (over and under 25 square metres) $26.7 million

• Roadside Other (street furniture, taxis, bus/tram externals, small format) $21.9 million

• Transport (including airports) $14.4 million

• Retail, Lifestyle and Other^ $11.3 million

* The figures have been adjusted for 2014 revenue to reflect changes within categories, allowing direct comparisons in revenue year-on-year.

^This rapidly growing category reports shopping centre panels as well as all place-based digital inventory including office media – covering inventory in lifts and office buildings, café panels and the inventory of the OMA’s newest member Media Health Tonic which includes digital screens in doctors surgeries and medical centres.

Australia: Outdoor advertising reach to be taken by EMMA

The measurement of audience for the strong-performing, outdoor advertising sector will be integrated into Enhanced Media Metrics Australia in early 2016.

The out-of-home advertising sector has had a bumper year in 2015 with many of the listed companies in the sector, such as APN Outdoor and oOh! Media, upgrading earnings for the 2016 financial year.

Share prices have also surged north in the last year with both APN Outdoor and oOh! Media jumping more than 100 per cent in the last 12 months.

Ipsos, which compiles the monthly EMMA figures for print and online publishing, beat out three other researchers for the MOVE [measurement of outdoor visibility and exposure] tender.

"Out-of-home currently finds itself in a very enviable position as other traditional media channel audiences fragment," Outdoor Media Association chief executive Charmaine Moldrich said.

"By comparing EMMA's detailed data on consumer attitudes, media behaviour and product and brand usage, alongside the out-of-home advertising faces MOVE measures, media agencies will now have a richer and more accurate understanding of out-of-home and the ability to directly compare out-of-home's superior reach against other media channels."

Advertising reach

MOVE general manager Grant Guesdon said the merger of its data with EMMA will be important in showing the reach of outdoor advertising.

"In the current media climate, out-of-home has the power to reach the people other media find hard to get. A cross-media analysis in EMMA, with MOVE, will help agencies and clients identify the value of this to their campaign and, more importantly, help advertisers better plan their investment decisions," Mr Guesdon said.

"In the five years since its launch, MOVE is well established in the agency environment. As an industry, we now want to supercharge outdoor's recent growth and EMMA provides the perfect vehicle for that purpose along with Ipsos' expertise in media data fusion, really establishing outdoor audience data in the media channel planning space."

Source

AFRICA NEWS

South Africa: Dial it back: The importance of OOH basics in reaching the connected consumer

The future of OOH media, in South Africa and for our neighbours to the north, is digital and mobile. While some parts of the world are already living in this hyper connected media future, we’re now witnessing the transition of OOH from a passive to a connected medium. The appeal of OOH has always been contextual; the mobile phone has dramatically increased the opportunity for quality of location and relevant consumer engagement, but as the adage goes: crawl, walk, run. A continued appreciation for getting the fundamentals of OOH communication right will take your message far, even in the future.

The connected consumer and the OOH opportunity

In 2005 The Economist featured a special report entitled ‘Power at Last: How the internet means the consumer really is king (and queen)’. The cover art features a replicated image of a raised fist clutching a computer mouse, in a show of digitally connected solidarity and support for the no longer marginalised consumer. Ten years later the image already feels a little quaint. Today the consumer is more connected than ever before, due in no small part to the mass adoption of the mobile phone.

Our world is being transformed by technology, changing the way we behave, especially when we’re out of our homes. People don’t leave their digital connections or their phones at home. Instead they’re consuming and producing content, making and considering purchases, and sharing and connecting with social groups in new ways and places with increased immediacy. As a result of this, the key impact for marketers to consider is that the point of engagement is getting closer to the point of consumption. It can be in-store but not at the till, in the shopping centre but not in-store, at the beach, in a stadium or on the bus. Anywhere the consumer and their mobile phone is.

The connected consumer has more autonomy over their spending habits than ever before. They’re able to influence and decide how to pay, how much to pay, when to pay and where to pay. Rather than fight this, brands have the opportunity to reward and to learn from them. By investing in relevant consumer research; insight and advice from specialists in fields like mobile, social, and OOH; and the implementation of proactive CRM strategies – brands can derive value, by meeting connected consumers’ real time expectations and rewarding their loyalty.

We’re seeing the increased use and dominance of relatively new devices, like smartphones and tablets; new inter-device connections like ubiquitous Wi-Fi and mobile broadband, new ways of using familiar devices like TV viewership on demand and smartphone cameras. As a result of this, shared media has joined bought, owned and earned media in the connected consumer journey. The challenge for media owners, agencies and brands is how to integrate with established and traditional media, while maintaining their relevance. A new media ecosystem and a transformed consumer journey have emerged that reflect today’s hyper connectivity and demand for immediacy.

Connecting through OOH

To reach the connected consumer, OOH is effective as a gateway through which to drive deeper engagement with a call to action. The mobile phone is the default tool with which to answer this call. No matter how straightforward or sophisticated, literal or implied the call to action, it is important to make sure that it is well supported i.e. a phone number that is free to call and answered, an address or directions that are accurate, a website that is optimised for mobile and is visible when searched for.

The chosen call to action should be strategically relevant to the brand and campaign, contextually relevant to the media, and ultimately relevant to the target audience. Simple as it sounds, getting this wrong will severely limit the chances of engaging with the target audience; feature phone users will struggle with mobile search or social media, millennials are unlikely to call a phone number when they can use social media, and the main market are reluctant to use valuable airtime and data.

Full article here