EUROPE NEWS

FEPE: Brendon Cook announced as new FEPE International Vice President

FEPE President Antonio Vincenti is delighted to announce that Brendon Cook, CEO of oOh! Media has agreed to join the Board of FEPE International.

His appointment as Vice President will be ratified at the annual General assembly to be held in Budapest in June.

Brendon has enjoyed 36 years in the OOH industry in Australia and as CEO of oOh! Media he has overseen a period of aggressive growth for the company. Brendon's appointment brings a truly International connection to FEPE.

FEPE has grown over the recent years to become the OOH sector's Global Trade Association. The current Board comprises:-

President

Antonio Vincenti, CEO Pikasso (Beirut)

Vice Presidents

Matthew Dearden, CEO Clear Channel (London)

Tom Goddard, Non-Executive Chairman Ocean Outdoor (London)

Shaun Gregory, CEO Exterion (London)

Karl Javurek, CEO Gewista/JCDecaux (Vienna)

Stefano Gennari Litta, CEO SGL (Milan)

Eric Marotel, CEO Cemusa (Madrid)

Christian Schmalzl, CEO Stroer (Cologne)

Brendon Cook said

"I am proud to be a part of the Board and to be the first Vice-President from Australia and New Zealand in the 50 year history of FEPE International.

This is a true indication that the ANZ outdoor advertising industry is on an international level playing field with fellow outdoor advertising companies globally that are synonymous with embracing cutting edge technology and enabling brands to maximise engagement with Out Of Home's growing audiences."

Budapest: 56th Annual FEPE Congress in Budapest: Places filling up fast!

We now have over 200 registrations from 24 countries for the FEPE Budapest Congress.

We still have plenty of space at the moment, but we will be possibly be capping the Gala Dinner numbers at 300 so if you intend registering, you should not leave it too late.

Speakers announced so far are Dave Trott, Nancy Fletcher, Annie Rickard, Rupert Day, Margit Kittridge and Michael Bayler.

One or two exhibition spaces are still available.

We already have three new exhibitors signed up as well as a few regular supporters, so if you are a supplier who wishes to get your product in front of an audience of global OOH decision makers please email us very soon so we can work out a package for you. The cost for exhibition spaces is lower this year to offer best value to our industry suppliers, and each exhibition space comes with 2 free delegate passes. Also included this year is the use of a meeting room exclusively for exhibitors so they can hold client meetings and presentations while in Budapest.

The 56th FEPE congress, titled "Your Audience is Waiting", will be held between Wednesday June 10th and Friday June 12th at the Intercontinental Hotel, Budapest. There will be 2 days of presentations and high calibre speakers from across the world, all of whom will be bringing their unique viewpoints on Out of Home and wider media and advertising industry insights.

The Thursday night Gala Dinner, in keeping with the FEPE tradition of finding special locations, will be at the Buda Castle, one of Budapest's most iconic buildings, and the Friday night social evening will be at a dinner cruise down the river Danube, taking in all the sights of Budapest for 3 hours.

As usual we have negotiated a special delegate rate for the hotel rooms and delegates are able to pay by credit card or bank transfer, which we hope will make bookings easier for some overseas delegates.

Delegate fees are unchanged from last year (and several years before) at €1500 for members and €1600 for non members. You can register by following the link on the FEPE homepage and FEPE members all receive an additional €500 discount so if you are considering attending with colleagues and are not a member, please get in touch so we can organise the most cost effective package for you.

UK: Ocean Group acquires MediaCo Outdoor

Ocean Group CEO Tim Bleakley, announced yesterday evening the acquisition of MediaCo Outdoor, Manchester's leader in OOH digital and backlight premium large formats, through its highly successful partnership with Manchester City Council.

The deal, for an undisclosed cash sum, significantly strengthens Ocean Group's national footprint and leading position as the premium large format provider in London, Birmingham and Manchester, ranked the UK's top 3 cities for total advertising spend.

This accelerates Ocean Group's dual strategy of developing iconic digital and premium formats, and mirrors its acquisition of Signature Outdoor in Birmingham last year, which was warmly welcomed by both agencies and brands.

Commenting on the move, Tim Bleakley said:

"MediaCo Outdoor and Manchester City Council have worked collaboratively and tirelessly together to build a truly state of the art portfolio across the city, to the mutual benefit of taxpayers and the business community alike.

"The entire Ocean Group team is committed to furthering this great work and using our unique offering across the UK's top three cities to drive growth in the medium and offer advertisers a compelling network."

MediaCo Outdoor managing director Mark Wardle said: "This is a very exciting development for Manchester and I look forward to seeing how the portfolio evolves in the coming years."

Commercial director of MediaCo Outdoor Richard Blackburn said: "We have built up some unique products and innovative trading models and I'm delighted we are passing on the baton to the Ocean Group, who share our ethos and, we believe, are an ambitious partner who will take the business to the next stage."

UK: World-first: Smart screens at Heathrow compare live airport transfer options

In a media first, smart screens have been installed at Heathrow Terminal 2’s baggage reclaim zones showing passengers live price and journey time comparisons between taxis and the airport’s train service to central London.

Heathrow Express, digital out-of-home media agency DOOH.com and JCDecaux Airport UK have worked in partnership to create a world-first proposition - the ‘journey comparison generator,’ which combines real-time traffic, weather and train service information to help customers make the best choice for their onward travel.

It uses a moderation engine produced by DOOH.com, formerly known as Enigma, to pull together five different layers of real-time feeds from TomTom, Heathrow Express, Google, the Highways Agency and the Met Office.

The screens present passengers with the estimated time and costs at the exact moment they would use the rail link to reach central London versus getting a black taxi. Along with displaying the time of the next Heathrow Express train, the campaign also employs GPS-focused technology to highlight real-time traffic on a map that displays the journey between the terminal and Paddington.

In another media first, the campaign will turn multilingual from mid-April, as the screens on each baggage reclaim carousel will be translated to the main language of people on the arriving flight. The campaign will also be installed across Heathrow’s Terminals 3 and 5 later in the year.

The journey comparison generator shows that by using Heathrow Express rather than black cab taxis, travellers can save money and time. Currently, more than 100,000 passengers arrive at Heathrow Airport every day.

Fraser Brown, Heathrow Express director, said: “The aim of the ‘journey comparison generator’ is to enable Heathrow passengers to get into London as speedily, easily and as cheaply as possible. By harnessing many different sources of real-time data into one we are helping to make this happen. Research shows Heathrow Express trains are three times faster than taxis and a quarter of the price. These screens show how that comparison varies minute to minute depending on traffic, weather and time of day.”

Andrew Newman, co-founder of DOOH.com, said: “Consumers through their smart phones are incredibly enabled with right information at their choosing. When it’s served up to them via advertising and by a brand, we have to do more to gain their confidence. By linking scheduling information, Google maps, a GPS feed, live clock times and road traffic accident alerts, this multi-layered approach gains the trust of the public, delivering relevant information that enhances their decision making.”

Alan Sullivan, Managing Director at JCDecaux Airport, said: “This state-of-the-art real-time campaign marks a further step towards providing advertisers with content and context driven dynamic Digital Out-of-Home campaigns with JCDecaux Airport. We are delighted to be such an integral part of this world-first proposition that has the ability to transform how brands communicate to passengers as well as enhance traveller’s airport experiences.”

Netherlands: Eric Kip appointed Managing Director for Exterion Media Netherlands

Eric Kip has been appointed as Managing Director for Exterion Media Netherlands. Eric is currently CEO at Blyk and will join Exterion Media on May 1st 2015.

Over the last 25 years Eric has held a number of senior marketing positions on both the client and agency side. As Marketing Director of Coca Cola, Eric contributed to the strong growth of the company’s brand portfolio.

Moreover on the agency side, he improved the operational performance of Initiative and MediaCom, and was responsible for a range of clients across the Netherlands and EMEA. Eric is currently CEO of Blyk, an international mobile marketing company, where he has contributed to the growth and success of business’ new global strategy.

In response to his appointment Eric commented: “What a great challenge to lead Exterion Media Netherlands! In recent years the team has achieved a great performance that has been widely recognized and acknowledged. I look forward building on the team’s current success, and driving Exterion forward to play a leading role in the transformation of the industry."

Shaun Gregory, CEO at Exterion Media stated: “I’m thrilled that we’ve attracted someone with Eric’s credentials. His background spans both the buy and sell side of the advertising industry and he has worked with a range of major blue chip advertisers, both in the Netherlands and globally. His experience across multiple platforms, and more recently mobile, will provide us with some invaluable experience as we continue to transform the company into a consumer engagement business.

Our industry is going through huge change, and the transformation journey we’re on requires a new type of leadership. Eric has consistently demonstrated that he has what it takes, can adapt in complex situations and understands how to truly scale a business.

Exterion Media Netherlands is cementing its position as market leader, significantly strengthened by the Hague tender, and we need to continue to drive this. Eric’s agency experience, coupled with his knowledge of the market, will help provide the foundations we need to take business to the next level.”

UK: Easter sun shines light on hot outdoor sector

Out-of-home interactions increase during big sporting events and holidays. Brands can utilise this, Nick Mawditt writes.

The Easter bank holiday weekend would most likely have had you spending time with family, a bit of DIY and perhaps even getting the barbecue out for the first time. It’s what we do this time of year as our leisure time becomes more valuable. The roads are busy and the trains traditionally crowded. A new data initiative between Talon and Amscreen tells us that we are 20 per cent more active and mobile on bank holiday getaway days.

Proprietary data is becoming more crucial in complementing existing media measurement outputs and this is increasingly playing out in our out-of-home planning. The measurement system Route, smartphone data and wider access to media owner information are all providing more dynamic inputs linking contacts, behaviour and even sales.

Applying measurable and attributable contact data to planning can improve our insights and sit alongside the likes of Route, TGI, TouchPoints, Office for National Statistics and other proprietary data to help quantify the value we can get from reaching on-the-move audiences at the right times.

In 2014, Amscreen launched its Audience Assured Advertising approach using its in-built OptimEyes camera technology. Talon has partnered with Amscreen to unlock thousands of data points to quantify people’s behaviours around key events.

We have analysed horse-racing, football, rugby and cricket events; UK festivals; and longer events including the Tour de France, the Commonwealth Games and the Wimbledon tournament.

The data reflects an audience that is very much out and about. It tells us that audiences grow towards the end of the week as we spend and do more. Audiences also peak between 11am and 1pm for in-store engagements – an interesting counter to the perception that OOH is all about commuter volumes. There is clearly an active and mobile audience presence in the middle of the day.

Eighty-three per cent of all screens showed an uplift in interactions during any bank holiday.

Audiences were up 10 per cent across the Easter weekend but as much as 24 per cent on the Thursday preceding it – a nation doing the groundwork for a proper weekend off. This is a reminder of the value of these periods, where behaviour shifts reflect a more positive mood. We mobilise as a nation and getaway-day numbers are significant and consistent.

Full article here

UK: Election 2015: The death of the campaign poster

The parties keep launching election posters but when was the last time you actually saw one in the street? Are we witnessing the death of political advertising? It all started with a group of young Conservatives in a car park in North London.

There had been memorable general election posters before 1978's "Labour isn't working" but it was that image of a queue of unemployed people - actually the teenage children of Hendon Tory Party members - with a simple, but clever, tagline, plastered across a giant billboard, that changed the whole game.

Suddenly, campaign ads, which had previously been modestly-proportioned fly-poster style efforts became 48 sheet billboards displayed in prominent High Street locations, where they could compete for eyeballs with major consumer brands. Parties began to be marketed like baked beans or soap powder.

Or, more specifically, cigarettes. Sinister conspiracy Saatchi and Saatchi, which created Labour Isn't Working, also had tobacco company Gallaher's Silk Cut account.

They quickly realised that political parties faced the same advertising challenge as the tobacco giant. "They thought this is another brand that cannot be advertised legally on television," says Graham Stuart Deakin, a lecturer in design at Plymouth University. "So why not advertise it in the same way, on large poster sites? Gallaher had large poster holdings, which they retained.

Full article here

AMERICAS NEWS

Canada: Dynamic Outdoor partners with Ayuda Media Systems to Manage All Digital Billboards across Canada

Dynamic Outdoor, a leading provider of large format digital billboards in Canada, has officially announced its strategic and long-term partnership with Ayuda Media Systems. Dynamic’s digital billboards are strategically positioned throughout Canada’s three largest markets: Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver. The Ayuda Platform software will handle all sales, operations, and ad serving capabilities.

According to Brandon Newman, President of Dynamic Outdoor, “we have committed ourselves to being the leader in digital billboards in Canada, and Ayuda was a key element in reaching that achievement. Thanks to Ayuda, we will be introducing opportunities to markets that will challenge the conventional methods of message delivery in the digital out of home sector.”

As Canada’s only national supplier focused solely on Outdoor Digital products, Dynamic will be implementing Ayuda’s entire platform, enabling unprecedented flexibility and dynamic delivery of client campaigns across Dynamic Outdoor’s national network.

Daniel Fleischer, Ayuda’s Vice President of Global Business Development commented, “Ayuda is excited about what Dynamic Outdoor is already bringing to the Canadian digital OOH landscape, not to mention what’s on the horizon. Dynamic has already lit up several dozen large format digital bulletins in Canada’s major markets, and Ayuda is very proud to be providing a robust end-to-end solution consisting of mobile sales tools, inventory management, digital scheduling and players, ad serving, and back office finance tools.

What is really exciting is that Dynamic shares our vision of delivering modern, data driven, real-time audience based messaging to deliver the right ad to the right audience, at the right time. Definitely keep watching this space.”

“The software solution provided by Ayuda gives Dynamic the necessary technology infrastructure to deliver campaigns in ways never before sold and executed,” according to Newman.

Canada: Creative Industry Leaders Select Shortlist for CPG OOH Award

A jury comprised of industry leaders including Martin Beauvais from Open, Anthony Chelvanathan from Leo Burnett, Dave Douglass from Anomaly, Dan Strasser from Bensimon Byrne and Rob Sturch from DDB selected the shortlist of contenders for the 2014 CPG OOH Awards.

This award celebrates the best OOH ads in consumer package goods and the finalists are:

Labatt – Corona Extra

Labatt – Shock Top Belgian White

Wrigley’s – Excel

Novartis – Buckley’s

Merck – Drixoral

P&G – Duracell Quantum Battery

“The finalists will next be tested with BrandSpark’s Canadian Shopper Panel who will gauge the ad’s ability to communicate the intended message. The OOH ads will be scored based on brand recognition, main message, ad likability and relevance to determine the top 3 winners. The winners will be recognized at the Best New Products Awards (“BNPA”) on May 21st in Toronto”, said Rosanne Caron, President, OMAC

AFRICA NEWS

South Africa: Mauro Black joins Provantage Media Group

Sales and marketing doyen Mauro Black has joined leading out of home company Provantage Media Group as General Sales Manager: Media.

Prior to joining Provantage Media Group, Black worked at Times Media where he built his career and accumulated a wealth of experience.

“Mauro is a high-calibre individual who has been part of the advertising and marketing industry for many years. There is no doubt that he will add value to many spheres of the Provantage Media Group business, especially with his background in television, radio, digital and print,” says Skhumbuzo Nkosi, Media Director: Provantage Out of Home Media.

With an innate talent for sales, Black has built up a thriving reputation as one of the industry’s best.

The Provantage out of Home Media division of Provantage Media Group is a major area of growth and innovation for the company.

With the inclusion of Black on the already formidable team, not only will objectives be met and exceeded, clients will continue to receive excellent service.

AUSTRALIA NEWS

Australia: Vero Insurance ‘kicks a goal’ with Brisbane Lions Sponsorship campaign

goa is excited to announce a partnership with Vero Insurance, supporting their sponsorship of the Brisbane Lions.

The campaign, which runs during home game weeks from April to September, will see the brand utilise the goa connect platform to its full potential. goa, Vero and their media agency Starcom Brisbane, have worked together to create ‘Live Scoreboards’, bringing the Lions’ games to the street in real time.

The campaign will also see Vero utilising dynamic copy and image updates depending on game outcomes in coming months. Effectively the brand has complete creative control of their message at any time with creative built by GPY&R Brisbane.

goa’s Joint Managing Director, Chris Tyquin, has said, “This has been a great opportunity for us to bring something truly engaging to the streets of Brisbane. Being able to deliver live score updates to commuters is a true value add to the brand, in line with their sponsorship”.

“It’s been a truly collaborative process and we’re thrilled with the outcome.”

Starcom Brisbane’s, Nathan Fraser has said “It’s great to be able to combine data and automation into an outdoor format to be able to deliver an engaging addition to the campaign mix”.

Vero began its partnership with the Brisbane Lions in 2012 as sponsors of the Coaching Group. In 2013, they became a Co-Major Partner of the club and still continue to work with them to bring better experiences to both fans and customers.

Australia: First quarter of outdoor spend exceeding print, as Nine retains lead over Seven

Spend on outdoor advertising has for the first time eclipsed revenues going to newspapers from media agencies in the first quarter of 2015, new data has revealed.

According to Standard Media Index (SMI), which measures main media agency ad spend, outdoor revenues for the first three months of the year of the year were $178.5m, up 16.1 per cent year on year, compared with $149.8m for newspapers.

Twelve months ago newspapers had $173.m in revenues from agencies, compared with outdoor’s $153.7m. The results came in the same month that SMI showed Nine Network has retained its revenue advantage over rival Seven Network on the back of the Cricket World Cup and start of the NRL season, with Seven hit by the delayed start to the AFL season.

It is the second month in a row Nine had a revenue share above 40 per cent, with the TV Network reporting a 41 per cent revenue share for March, up on the 37.3 per cent it recorded for March 2014.

Full article here

ASIA NEWS

India: Now, specialist outdoor advertising agencies also part of IOAA

In their recent board meeting, the Indian Outdoor Advertising Association (IOAA) decided to accept specialist OOH media agencies as their members, on par with OOH media companies.

Specialist agencies will now elect their representatives on the Board of Governors of IOAA, which will give equal weightage to both media and agency businesses. In order to be truly representative of the entire industry, IOAA is now also keen to induct at least two representatives from amongst advertisers in the medium to their Board.

When this is completed, the industry body will truly reflect interests of all stakeholders – media, agency and clients. This has special significance in the industry’s attempts to implement a ‘Standard Operating Process’ (SOP) that defines uniform practices across the country.

The SOP provides for 10 days as minimum display period for all OOH displays, barring specific event and exhibition promotions and film launches. It also provides for a strict credit period of 80 days and issue of purchase orders before any campaign is displayed.

There are other norms too for ensuring due performance by both media and agencies and maximum benefits to clients.

Full article here