EUROPE NEWS

UK: Gatwick and Airport Media announce new media partnership

• Airport Media Ltd to launch with Gatwick Airport in 2016

• New venture to create opportunities in digital out-of-home marketplace

Gatwick Airport and Airport Media Ltd have today announced they will join forces in a new venture in digital out-of-home advertising. The new partnership will launch in the first quarter of 2016 when Airport Media take over from the incumbent Eye Airports.

Airport Media Ltd has been set up by Tom Goddard, Chairman of Ocean Outdoor and DigiCom OOH, as a new sales and management operation. Airport Media aims to disrupt the current airport media model through a fresh and innovative approach, offering a digital-centric premium media service, for major airports in the UK.

Tom Goddard will become Chairman of Airport Media and will appoint and announce his senior management team upon completion of the regulatory TUPE process.

Gatwick Chief Commercial Officer Guy Stephenson said:

“Gatwick Airport is delighted to join forces with Airport Media as we look to expand our media estate with a partner that is at the forefront of digital development. We want to build stronger links with the London and International media community.

“Tom Goddard’s experience and vision for Airport Media are totally aligned with our own ambitions and, together, Airport Media and Gatwick will be focused on delivering a strategic and unique out-of-home media experience in a dynamic and growing airport environment. Gatwick would like to thank the team at Eye Airports for all their hard work over the last five years. ”

Tom Goddard said:

“The growth and quality of airport audiences has not been mirrored by the level of competition in the airport media market place. With a definite gap for a pure play, digital-centric premium media offering, I created Airport Media to fill this void.

“Partnering with Gatwick Airport, one of the world’s most prestigious international airports, is a big first step towards achieving that goal and a huge endorsement of the Airport Media vision.”

Switzerland: Advertising impact study: out-of-home plus mobile advertising equals massive sales boost

Out-of-home advertising and mobile advertising offer the best of all media pairings for combining reach with consumer activation. This was the conclusion of a new sales impact study.

The poster offers a quick way to achieve reach and raise your profile because it guarantees great accessibility of target groups and a round-the-clock presence. Of all the classic media, the poster has the greatest leverage effect for boosting sales, so it scores the highest ROI as a primary medium. As the only remaining mass medium, out-of-home advertising also acts as a “door-opener” for online campaigns and mobile advertising, its greatest strength being in an interactive role.

In June 2015, the impact on sales of a yoghurt drink campaign by Hirz was tested. The POS campaign covered 365 poster sites in 176 selected branches of Coop; the posting period was two weeks. The campaign was reinforced by location-based mobile advertising, for which the geo-positioning data of the poster sites was linked to mobile advertising and targeting opportunities by Adello.

Oliver Schönfeld, Marketing Director Clear Channel Switzerland, explains:

“For some months now, we have been offering our customers exclusive access to cross-media products which strengthen, intensify and extend out-of-home campaigns by coupling them with mobile marketing. Mobile marketing is an ideal partner for out-of-home advertising, acting as a powerful driver for immediate responses and interaction. This study enables us to document the marked effectiveness of this combination, which is very gratifying. While the campaign was running, Hirz recorded a 36% increase in sales of its yoghurt drink, compared with the same period a year ago. Another notable finding was an increase in household penetration of 78%, compared with the period prior to the campaign.”

Etienne Schumpf, HIRZ Brand Manager at Lactalis Nestlé, adds:

“We are extremely happy with the boost to sales; the cross-media POS campaign had a positive influence on our results. In addition to the increase in sales and household penetration, we also upped our market share by 2.45 percentage points. Given these great results, we can only recommend this combination of out-of-home advertising and mobile marketing.”

UK: Rubicon Project’s Automation Technology to Power Out-of-Home Advertising

Partnership with UK’s BITPOSTER Launches Rubicon Project’s Expansion into Fast Growing Out-of-Home Market

Rubicon Project, a global technology company powering the only independent advertising solution to automate the entire digital advertising ecosystem, and BITPOSTER, the United Kingdom’s largest audience-driven outdoor media trading platform, today announced the formation of a strategic partnership under which Rubicon Project will power the automation technology behind BITPOSTER’s out-of-home advertising marketplace.

The UK outdoor media market garners over 40 billion impressions monthly and is expected to surpass $1.6 billion in advertising in 2015. PriceWaterhouseCoopers forecasts out-of-home advertising will eclipse $45 billion worldwide by 2019.

With access to over 300,000 digital and static out-of-home billboards including roadside, transport and retail, BITPOSTER works with prominent media owners to reach a nationwide audience. Rubicon Project’s industry leading Orders technology platform -- the first and only platform of its kind in the market today -- will enable the automation of both the traditional paper as well as digital out-of-home advertising trading process, minimizing cost and time inefficiencies while ensuring maximum revenue and consumer reach for both buyers and sellers. The partnership makes premium out-of-home inventory, reaching 98% of the UK market, available to advertisers within Rubicon Project’s industry leading Orders platform this month.

Aidan Neill, CEO and co-founder of BITPOSTER, commented:

“It’s no secret that a majority of the benefits of technology in advertising are associated with process automation, freeing up creative people to reach their customers with timely, powerful and relevant messages in any channel. This is precisely why Rubicon Project, the leading provider in the automation of advertising, is an ideal partner for us as we look to further enhance our offering. At BITPOSTER, we are focused on the technology infrastructure for outdoor media, which is a natural extension point for Rubicon Project’s demand. We’re really excited about the opportunity to work together.”

Jay Stevens, International GM for Rubicon Project, commented:

“Even as the outdoor media segment of the market continues to grow, the buying and selling process is still largely built on traditional, manual trading processes. Rubicon Project’s mission has long been to automate the buying and selling of advertising across all media types and today’s announcement marks a significant milestone as we expand into the growing multi-billion dollar out-of-home advertising market. Through the strategic partnership, Rubicon Project’s technology will enable advertisers to reach audiences in out-of-home environments with the same efficiency and effectiveness they have been able to achieve online.”

Source

UK: Antonio Vincenti Featured in DOOH INSIGHTS Volume 4

FEPE International President and Pikasso CEO Antonio Vincenti is just one of a handful of prominent industry executives who have been chosen to give their thoughts on the state of out of home and digital out of home in the industry bible DOOH INSIGHTS.

The book is put together by the Ministry of Mew Media, the company behind The DailyDOOH Media Summit and The DailyDOOH Gala Awards in conjunction with online news portal DailyDOOH.com.

Now in its fourth year, DOOH INSIGHTS volume 4 has, in this day of digital, digital and more digital, a very impressive global distribution - with something like 10,000 copies being printed and sold to various events around the world between October this year and June next.

In his interview, Antonio talks about his personal background, explains Pikasso, the countries it operates in, discusses its organisation, where he and his team look for guidance and inspiration, takes a look at their technology and network, what excites them with regard OOH and DOOH and where they see the company by the end of 2016.

Other FEPE CEOs featured in the book include Exterion Media's Shaun Gregory.

DOOH INSIGHTS Volume 4 is published October 8, 2015 in London and will first be available free of charge at Ocean Outdoor's Digital Creative Competition.

You will find the book available at all the best industry events throughout the following few months.

UK: Crowdfunder and JCDecaux launch a search for Britain’s 100 hottest tech start-ups to accelerate their growth curve

The UK’s No1 crowdfunding platform Crowdfunder and JCDecaux, the UK’s leading Outdoor Advertising company, have partnered to help rapidly scale up 100 start-ups across Britain.

Nurture, JCDecaux’s new division, is working with Crowdfunder to find start-up businesses who want to grow, to help them market their brand or product with an exclusive support package – and the chance to win a specially designed advertising campaign for their needs.

For start-up businesses who fund their media budgets on Crowdfunder, Nurture will provide a marketing and design mentoring service and match funding enabling them to potentially double the value of their campaign.

They will also give tech start up businesses, which launch crowdfunding campaigns to fund their media spend by 30 November, the opportunity to win their own bespoke outdoor poster campaign. The winning start-up will be the project with the most amount of backers for their crowdfund.

The “Grow” campaign which targets start-up and SMEs – kicks off with an outdoor advertising campaign which rolls out this week, designed to encourage UK start-ups and SMEs to register their interest at www.crowdfunder.co.uk/grow, as well as highlight the power of outdoor advertising campaigns to the start-up market.

The series of posters will run over the coming months and will feature the line ‘Your time is now’ as well as an integrated online campaign on Crowdfunder.

Maria Clarke said: “JCDecaux was founded on entrepreneurialism – it’s in our DNA. Nuture, our new division, is passionate about helping scale start-ups by putting brands in front of potential consumers whilst they are out of home and most alert. This partnership with Crowdfunder is truly pioneering and we believe it will help give hundreds of future-facing start-ups the help they need to become successful brands.”

Rob Love, Crowdfunder chairman, said: “As the UK’s No1 crowdfunding platform Crowdfunder has turned thousands of ideas into reality, helping businesses, social enterprises and charities across Britain validate their ideas – and unlock millions – through fund raising, match funding and additional support. Working in this way, with a world leading media company like JCDecaux to help start ups and SMEs, is ground-breaking and we are excited about the potential of what this partnership could achieve for businesses across the UK.”

Source

Germany: viscom – International trade fair for visual communication 4th – 6th November 2015 in Düsseldorf

Six worlds, two halls, one trade fair. The new structure with six theme worlds in the halls 8a & 8b at the Exhibition Centre düsseldorf serves to comprehensively cover all visual communications sectors. In the “Technology and Materials” segment, viscom will aim at equipment and materials buyers, advertising technicians, print service providers, and furniture and equipment suppliers, while the “Application and Marketing” segment will target brand manufacturers and distributors, manufacturing and retail marketing decision-makers, agencies, creative talent and designers.

That’s what viscom stands for: Inspiring your business

What’s possible – how is it done – who can do it? In short: Inspiring your business. At viscom, visitors get an opportunity to broaden their horizons while at the same time being able to find all their primary interests bundled in one place. Synergies between various exhibition segments can be perfectly leveraged. “Anyone visiting viscom will bring ideas and inspiration back to their business and to the business they do with their customers,” says Petra Lassahn. “Our event’s lifeblood is discovering and combining new forms of customer communication.” By now, viscom has emerged as the industry’s gathering spot for anyone working in advertising-related communication and design. At the same time, viscom remains strong in its core areas advertising and printing technology. For instance, it’s the only trade fair in Europe that offers a 360° look at visual communication.

The core – the world of inspiration

With 350 exhibitors, a great seminar programme and lots of special areas an exceptional atmosphere is created. The world of inspiration builds the center. On the 650 square meters big area the nominees of the Digital Signage Awards will be presented, lectures will be told and Best Practice examples will be shown.

Some more main aspects, which you can experience in Düsseldorf:

Exhibitors out of these fields:

• object design 
• printing and finishing services 
• shopfitting

• designmaker: competition, which shows, which design-ideas you can put on very different exhibits

At all fair days there are seminar programmes, lunch & learns and workshops with the topics: “The world goes visual - visual communication moves the worlds”. In the middle stand topics like Digital Signage, marketing at the POS and signmaking.

Digital Signage Best Practice Award 2014

Beside other Awards like the Superstar or the designmaker the Digital-Signage-Best- Practice Award will be awarded, because nowhere in Europe you can find so much Digital Signage products like at viscom düsseldorf 2015. Marvel the finalist at the special show. You also can be a part of this breathtaking show. Reviewed by a high class jury you can present you and your product on a special Award area. The price-giving takes place on the new networking evening the Digital Signage Award Night. For more information click here http://www.digital-signage-best-practice-award.de/ .

About viscom düsseldorf 2015

From classic advertising technology to digital printing through to digital advertising and POS media – with its six theme worlds, viscom presents the innovations in visual communication. In addition to the inspiring synergies created by the six themes – large format printing – signmaking – object design – covering the “Technologies and Materials” segment and – digital signage – POS display – POS packaging – covering the “Applications and Marketing” segment, the event is clearly structured and thus leaves plenty of room for the development of each sector’s identity. A key factor for the success of viscom exhibitors and visitors alike, the event blends a classic trade fair with application-focussed special shows, European-level awards and an extensive supporting programme. This diversity is reflected in the trade fair’s visitor target groups, as well: viscom is aimed at brand manufacturers and distributors, manufacturing and retail marketing decision-makers, object designers, equipment and materials buyers, craftsmen, agencies, and creative talent.

Alternating locations between Frankfurt and Düsseldorf, viscom 2015 will take place from Wednesday, 4 November, to Friday,6 November. Some 350 exhibitors and 13,000 trade visitors are expected to attend. Free invitation to viscom düsseldorf 2015 - exclusive for you: We invite you as a member and partner of the association IVCA to viscom düsseldorf 2015 with no ticket charge.

Please redeem your voucher with the e-Code, which we will send to you (expected in the beginning/middle Mai) at our ticketshop at our website www.viscom-messe.de and get a free day ticket for the International trade show for visual communication.

Further information about all topics you can find here www.viscom-messe.de.

UK: UniLED Appointed By Land Securities To Manage Flagship Piccadilly Lights, W1

UniLED Solutions has been appointed by Land Securities to manage the world famous, iconic, Piccadilly Lights, at Piccadilly Circus, W1.

Encompassing six, large-format digital LED screens, and situated in the heart of London’s West End, the instantly recognisable landmark is home to the most innovative and engaging advertising from major global brands, including Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, Samsung and Hyundai.

The appointment expands on UniLED’s existing commitment to manage content for Storm Digital on the One Piccadilly screen, which it has have overseen since the screen’s inception.

This deal with Land Securities now secures UniLED Solutions’ position as the UK’s leading digital signage service and maintenance provider. And, with more than 3,000m2 of LED display under management, UniLED has firmly established itself as the go-to, turnkey service solution, for some of the world’s largest media owners and landlords.

Commenting on UniLED’s agreement with Land Securities, Managing Director Ben Zloof said: “When you think of Out-of-Home advertising, Piccadilly Lights is the ‘Holy Grail’.

“To now be responsible for one of the world’s most famous advertising spaces is a huge achievement for the company and beyond my wildest dreams when I first established UniLED. “We’re very excited to be involved in the future development of such an iconic site, which holds a significant place in the hearts of so many people.”

A Land Securities spokesperson said: “We’re pleased to be working with UniLED at Piccadilly Lights, and look forward to serving some of the world’s largest brands together.”

Ireland: OOH Advertising Continues to Power Ahead

Recent figures released by OMA/Nielsen, which for the first time includes ‘targeted media' spend, have once again shown a positive increase in the first half of 2015 with spend increasing by 4% when compared to the same period last year.

Overall expenditure for Out of Home (OOH) was €50.4 million across large format billboards, 6 sheets, transport, targeted media and digital OOH formats. This has resulted in large format billboards seeing a 5% increase in spend from H1 2014, now accounting for 31% of all OOH spend at €15.7 million.

The launch of new digital OOH formats and new networks has attracted new advertisers. Digital now accounts for approximately 10% of OOH spend as advertisers start to take advantage of its flexibility.

Drink, encompassing alcoholic beverages, soft drinks and also hot drinks, is now the largest category in OOH accounting for €8.6m and 17% of total spend. Diageo was the top advertiser with spend of €2.8m. Heineken and Coca Cola were the 7th and 11th overall biggest advertisers, spending €1.2m and €970k respectively. The most recalled campaign unprompted from January to June 2015 was Coca Cola's ‘Kiss' campaign at 73%, according to Kinetic's post campaign researcher service, Researcher. Heineken launched its first cider product, Orchard Thieves, in April/May of this year with an innovative tease & reveal campaign.

In second place stands Household Services accounting for a total spend of €8.4m. Broadband providers continue to battle it out with both Sky and UPC investing heavily in OOH across the first half of 2015. Sky pipped UPC to the post as the 3rd biggest advertiser with spend of €1.8m versus UPC's €1.7m.

Food was the third top spending category, accounting for €6.4m of the total OOH activity for H1 2015. Mondelez and Unilever were the top advertisers within the category.

Finance, was the fourth biggest category at €6.3m. Spend was driven by sub-category insurance with a number of providers advertising their health services in advance of the levy being applied to over 34's taking insurance out for the first time. Vhi Healthcare was the 6th largest advertiser with spend of €1.3m.

Retail accounted for €6m of the total spend, driven particularly by activity in the Fast Food and Supermarket subcategories.

Simon Durham, Director of Kinetic said: "2015 has started on a positive note with continuous growth in the OOH market. We continue to see an improvement in the quality of formats as well as an increased use of innovation within the sector. The media owners have invested heavily, particularly in digital OOH and as a result we are seeing increased expenditure. Advertisers are now taking advantage of the flexibility that Digital OOH offers. However, 6 sheets still remain very popular specifically on the Path to Purchase."

Speaking about the future of OOH, Durham continued: "Kinetic estimates overall growth of approximately 5-7% for the full year, helped by the additional lightbox locations anticipated in Q4 2015. We expect further Digital OOH growth helped by the launch of new AerPods at Dublin Airport, JCDecaux expanding their iVision digital formats to Jervis and Whitewater and Exterion bringing dPods to Tallaght Shopping Centre."

Source

AMERICAS NEWS

USA: Wrangling Brainier (And Brawnier?) Digital Signage

As intelligent visual communications, or what has been called “digital signage” become even smarter, developers are having to manage a wider assortment of heterogeneous components.

EECatalog asked Mark Boidman, a managing director at Peter J. Solomon Company (PJSC), a private M&A and restructuring advisory and investment banking firm, Ben Freeberg, an Analyst in PJSC’s Media, Entertainment, Communications and Technology Advisory Group, Ken Goldberg, the CEO of Real Digital Media and 2015 chairman of the Digital Signage Federation, and Kathleen Maher, vice president, Jon Peddie Research, a technically oriented multimedia and graphics research and consulting firm, to share their insights.

They responded by predicting what developments will be disruptive, describing the role of cloud architectures, explaining why SoCs are gaining traction and more.

EECatalog: Where and how are you seeing the impact that such developments as Heterogeneous System Architecture (HSA) and OpenCL are making on Digital Signage?

Ken Goldberg, Digital Signage Federation: Efforts like HSA and OpenCL are less visible to the end user and more visible to the developers of media players and digital signage software. As processing is increasingly offloaded from CPU to GPU with goals to curb power usage, decrease component costs and increase efficiency, it has resulted in a wider variety of heterogeneous components for developers to deal with. End users want great performance at a low price. Developers want to “write once, run everywhere,” which has always been elusive. If HSA and OpenCL can deliver on their promises, both end users and developers will get what they want sooner.

Kathleen Maher, Jon Peddie Research: Digital signage is entering the Age of Things just like everything else and thus the opportunity for smart and smarter displays is just coming on line and growing. The term digital signage is becoming a misnomer. We should be talking about digital signage systems as technology evolves to support a wealth of semiconductor platforms. Technologies like HSA and OpenCL are just two tools in the growing universe of architectures, programming languages and operating systems that can be used to create and maintain smart display systems. HSA is a system architecture developed for optimizing the parallelism of GPUs with CPUs. OpenCL is a programming language enabling efficient use of GPUs and CPUs. Both are representative modern approaches that have evolved to work within increasingly heterogeneous systems incorporating different processor architectures.

Mark Boidman, Peter J. Solomon Company (PSJC): Everybody is looking for software to do more and for less money, and technologies such as HSA and OpenCL make it easier to design low-power devices and improve performance for the designer, the [designer’s OEM] customer and the user. Writing programs across platform solutions that allow people to connect seamlessly with digital signage is the future. Coders are having an easier time translating and communicating, and that is what is going to make digital signage more powerful. We actually use the term intelligent visual communications rather than digital signage because we think of digital signage as the billboard on the highway that you just drive by.

However, whether you are in-store or standing at a bus stop, it’s intelligent visual communications that are allowing you to engage with the “signage” at the pedestrian level.

An observation I’d like to add is that people have been interacting with signs and taking advantage of things like discounts, but not [as much] as we thought they would. There has been too much friction with understanding how to use your phone and connect—whether it is QR code or [near field communication] NFC.

[However], Google’s Eddystone open beacon format technology is a game changer. You walk up to an area that is within 50 to 75 meters of the sign, and you can connect with that sign. The retailer can push you a notification, or you can interact with the sign without any friction. It all happens automatically—whether or not you have a supporting app installed on your device, which is perhaps the most significant thing about it.

And this is now happening in out of home media as well as retail. For example, when you walk up to the bus stop, you might receive a push notification telling you the bus is 15 minutes away, and asking if you want to walk into the store across the street and grab one of the store’s new spiced lattes. Something like that is pretty powerful, and people will want that information.

Full article here

USA: New York Ad Agency to Apple: Find Another Name for the iPhone 6s

One advertising agency has taken to the streets of New York to demand Apple rename the next version of its iPhone.

According to Apple’s naming conventions, the next iPhone, expected to be announced on Wednesday, is likely to be called the iPhone 6s — just like the ad agency 6S Marketing.

The agency bought space on a Times Square billboard and a mobile billboard parked in front of Apple’s Fifth Avenue store in New York City to ask Apple to “Please call it the iPhone 7.” President Chris Breikss acknowledged that’s not likely to happen days before the scheduled Sept. 9 unveiling in San Francisco.

Nor are consumers likely to confuse the digital agency with one of the world’s biggest companies. This just presented an opportunity to bring attention to 6S’s marketing chops. “That’s why we put up the gaudy billboard in Times Square,” Breikss said.

“The whole idea was to be a little bit campy and over the top. And it was an opportunity to showcase what a guerrilla campaign would look like — and not offend anyone too much.”

We’ll let you know if Apple has anything to say about this.

Source

USA: HTML and the Future of Digital Signage

In many ways, signs have changed very little over the past few thousand years. But we are now at the brink of a massive global shift as digital signs become one of the easiest ways to communicate with large numbers of urban residents, commuters and travelers. The language of the web, HTML (specifically its newest version HTML5) opens the door to entirely new possibilities and brings the promise of universal, completely flexible signage within reach.

HTML is a universal, device-neutral language, meaning it can run on commercial, off-the-shelf TVs and digital projectors as well as consumer devices like phones and tablets, and increasingly even wearables like watches.

For users, the advantage of HTML is that the same information can be experienced consistently across multiple display platforms — from TVs to personally owned phones. For example, in the local transportation context, transit information can be made available for passengers to use on their mobile devices, whether by wi-fi portals, or using location based tools like Bluetooth or NFC. Given the ubiquity of web-enabled devices, this massively increases the reach and usefulness of signage information. It is also a game-changer for the disabled, because accessibility is a native feature of the HTML standard. A standard iPhone can read upcoming train arrival times to a blind person waiting in a cafe around the corner or via an inexpensive Bluetooth beacon attached to the digital sign.

For signage providers, HTML can dramatically reduce the cost of implementation and maintenance, because the same information can be distributed via multiple platforms. The web design industry effectively leverages the ability for HTML content to conform to multiple devices and screen sizes. In the “Responsive” web design (RWD) movement, web designers have embraced the inherently elastic properties of HTML so that the exact same website renders correctly on a large desktop screen, a small smartphone, and any device in between. RWD replaced the previous strategy of creating individual sites tailored for each device or screen size, which was unable to cope with the proliferation of devices with widely-ranging screen sizes, resolutions and aspect ratios.

The digital signage community would do well to learn from this example, because proprietary platforms pose the same problem by limiting content to a specific platform and screen format, while a single “responsive” website will render correctly on any device. This flexibility is accomplished using native characteristics of HTML such as fluid text that wraps to fill any column width. The result is a high-quality experience for any user on any device at a fraction of the cost of developing and maintaining multiple sites tailored for just a handful of devices.

Another underappreciated advantage is that the native speed of HTML signage development is fast. Web design operates at a faster, more innovative pace than traditional digital signage because web development has the advantage of a diverse ecosystem of talent and tools. It’s normal for web updates to be fully tested and deployed, in a week or less. This nimble development process allows for faster iterations, which is a key factor in keeping content current and making improvements faster. A simple glitch on a website can easily be fixed and deployed the same day it’s discovered. Similarly, timely content, such as a holiday greeting or a subway service disruption are trivial to execute on a website, leading to more dynamic and engaging user experience.

Full article here

AFRICA NEWS

South Africa: Bringing music to Jo’burg traffic

The living billboard is part of Standard Bank’s broader creative campaign, “The Closer You Are, The More You Feel”, which drives the idea that art in general, and music in particular, has a much greater impact when experienced live.

Standard Bank group sponsorship head Hazel Chimhandamba says the bank is constantly looking for ways to be innovative with its campaigns.

For the Standard Bank Joy of Jazz, the brand dug a little deeper, emphasising the live element of performance and taking live music to unexpected places. “The Live Billboard is an interpretation of that idea, demonstrating, literally, how music is best experienced live and the positive impact it has on people,” she explains.

Johannesburg traffic can be stressful, she adds, so the aim was also to provide some temporary relief and entertainment. The campaign is the perfect example of an integrated communications campaign on many levels.

“Our partner agencies played a critical role in the development and implementation of the concept, led by TBWA, our creative agency. Other agencies include OMD, DAN, Native, Total Exposure and Octagon, without whom this activation would not have been a success.”

The event was filmed and then coded into a live Internet stream to various platforms including www.standardbankarts.co.za and www.702.co.za and a live audio stream to the 702 app. A specially freed-up frequency, 100.0 MHz, was also created so that drivers within a radius of 100 metres of the billboard were able to tune in to the performance.

Full story here

South Africa: Behavioural targeting: A global OOH trend

The media has changed to the extent that we are now targeting consumers by their behaviour, writes Michele Munro.

People are on the move – more so than ever before. Much more time is spent out of home, commuting and travelling from place to place. In the fast-paced world in which we live, people want to be engaged while doing everyday (otherwise boring) things such as travelling. Herein lies a fantastic opportunity for the out of home (OOH) media industry.

To capitalise on this need, we must understand human behaviour, and how it has changed and continues to do so. To comprehend this properly, consumers’ movements can be ‘mapped’ from when they leave home in the morning, following their every step, in order to establish different behavioural (and buying) patterns.

Behavioural targeting is one of the current buzzwords in OOH internationally, as was clear from the recent 55th annual FEPE (Fédération Publicité Extérieur, the international OOH industry body) Congress. It enables advertisers to target consumers ‘in the moment’ – while they are doing other activities, thereby becoming more relevant to their lives.

Digital OOH (DOOH) platforms are ideal for behavioural targeting, as the content can be changed to reflect a relevant advertising message depending on the time of day. Wimpy can, for example, advertise breakfast in the morning, coffee mid-morning, burger specials around lunchtime and ice-cream in the afternoon on summer days – all on one billboard!

Results from FEPE's international study, ‘Always On Out of Home Lives 2014’, conducted by a leading global consumer trends and forecasting consultancy, Future Foundation, were presented at the congress in Vienna earlier this year. The research states that 59% of urban consumers in the six markets surveyed* would be interested in digital OOH advertising that showed information relevant to the time of day/their location.

In our modern world of ‘always on’ technology, urban consumers are increasingly connected via smartphone or tablet while out of home. According to the research, the overwhelming majority own smartphones, half own tablets and 71% of those who own tablets use them out of home. These behavioural changes create a perfect situation for OOH.

A consumer can act immediately and buy a product seen advertised OOH online or source further information in the form of customer reviews before making an informed decision to purchase. Almost four in 10 consumers in the study admitted to looking up information online immediately as a result of OOH media.

Recently, The South African National Taxi Council (Santaco) announced a three-year plan to roll out a free wifi programme for commuters around taxi ranks and in taxis themselves. The Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (Prasa) has already launched free wifi at Cape Town train station, according to News24.

These enterprises indicate that the number of people who are making use of smartphones to access information and transact online is escalating. This could act as an impetus for behavioural change among taxi commuters.

In spite of a possible concern that consumers are so absorbed in screen-based activities while out of home that they are engaging less with OOH advertising, the ‘Always On Out of Home Lives 2014’ study indicates this is not so. Recent additional research in the UK (Outdoor Media Centre, COG Research with Dr Amanda Ellison) shows consumers are 33% more alert when out of home!

A 33-year-old female respondent in the Always On study, who lives in London elaborates, “If I’m waiting for a train or tube or stuck in traffic, my eye is drawn to posters and billboards. I can be listening to music and still looking at and reading an advertisement.”

OOH advertising can be used effectively to drive spontaneous purchases and actions in a specific place at a specific time.

A 29-year-old male respondent in Hamburg explains, “I bought some beer after seeing a poster on a house wall on my way to the park. It was a sunny day and I was in a good mood, so I wanted a refreshing drink after seeing (German actor) Matthias Schweighöfer drinking it.”

A thorough analysis of consumers’ preferences during their journeys – whatever their chosen mode of transport – categorises profiles of behaviour which assists in behavioural targeting.

The Always On study identifies specific urban consumer profiles of behaviour as:

Hyper individuals: A regular journey to work or study is an extremely busy time for these young and ultra-sociable individuals, 20% of whom are students.

Communicators: A slightly older profile than hypers, this group is also outgoing, but not to the same extent.

Nearly nothing: Daily travel is much less stressed and comparatively less eventful for these mostly male, over 45 year olds, who work 30 hours+ a week.

Musical observers: This group enjoys their travels the most, taking in their surroundings, while listening to audio. They aren’t big on shopping though.

Readers: Generally older (over 45) females who are less accepting of mobile living, readers enjoy shopping, but are less engaged with their surroundings – focusing on reading.

Understanding their behaviour helps advertisers target how to reach them effectively using OOH media.

Full article here

ASIA NEWS

India: Posterscope launches measurement tool for ambient media, Ambit Analyser

In a bid to attract well-thought-through investments into the growing out-of-home category of ambient media, Ambient OOH has designed and launched a new path breaking research tool to drive away the advertisers’ woes. Ambient OOH, the ambient media agency under Dentsu Aegis Network’s Posterscope umbrella, has invested a substantial amount toward the crafting and development of this new research matrix.

Ambient media is all about capturing captive audiences who spend considerable amount of their leisure time at various active locations such as gyms, coffee shops, multiplexes, clubs, salons and shopping malls. Therefore, in a bid to develop the new tool, Ambient OOH took the help of Dentsu Aegis Network’s proprietary research study – the Outdoor Consumer Survey (OCS) that aided in analysing the target audience touch-points.

Ambit Analyser, the new tool, is India’s only fool proof ambient media planning mechanism that helps craft a rationalized multi touch-point plan across more than 24 dwell time locations that house captive audiences. Also, given Ambit Analyser’s system design, the plans can be fashioned within much lesser time and with more accuracy.

As part of the development process of Ambit Analyser, Ambient OOH graded each property across the various touch points on multiple factors including footfalls, trade density, ticket pricing and thus, arrived at a visibility index. It is important to note here that the tool has been linked to the OCS, which has a sample size of 12,000+ respondents. It has also incorporated the data for 24 touch-points across metros, mini metros and tier 2 cities.

Ashish Bhasin, ‎Chairman & CEO South Asia Dentsu Aegis Network, Chairman Posterscope and psLive - Asia Pacific, says,

“Posterscope’s Ambient OOH has done pioneering work in developing Ambient Analyser. Ambient media is becoming extremely important and has very little research and tools available. So, in keeping with Dentsu Aegis Network’s leadership status in OOH, we felt that the time was right to make this large investment in a proprietary tool, the only one of its kind in India.”

Haresh Nayak, ‎Regional Director, Posterscope Asia Pacific & Managing Director, Posterscope Group India, says,

“Ambient OOH is the future and, with the growth of digital and technology in this space, it will lead to accountable and engaging communication with the consumer in a relaxed mind frame. Ambit Analyser is one such initiative to give our clients a first of its kind, accountable and impactful campaign, leading to physical and digital engagement.”

Deepak Kumar, Vice President, Ambient OOH, says,

“Currently, ambient media in India is extremely fragmented and diverse in nature. And with no comparative data to fall back on, each media owner claims to be the best. Simultaneously, advertisers are constantly pressing on media effectiveness and efficient ROI. Hence, there was a need for transparency and accountability for advertisers to have trust on the ambient media touch-points.”

Source

Thailand: Kinetic plans to focus on in-store media to boost its brand reputation at retail stores

As it completes the jigsaw puzzle of total media solutions for out-of-home media services, Kinetic will focus on in-store media on top of its outdoor and transit media business to help its clients attract more customers at retail stores.

Surachet Bumrongsuk, Kinetic's country manager, said last week that people usually spend at least 10 hours outside and this offered a huge opportunity for brands |and marketers to create brand awareness and encourage customers to purchase products.

In addition, out-of-home media such as outdoor, transit and in-store media anticipate a healthy expansion both in Bangkok and upcountry locations. In Bangkok, transit media is a key driver due to the extensions of the BTS and MRT lines, while an expansion of major upcountry retailers, particularly in second and third-tier cities, opens more doors for brands on the shelves to attract consumers.

Surachet added that out-of-home media in upcountry areas gradually became more important in terms of marketing communication.

In the last decade, advertising spending via out-of-home media outside Bangkok represented only about five per cent of Thailand's total out-of-home media investment. But this proportion has expanded to 30 per cent and it continues to grow.

"We have received many requests from clients who want to use out-of-home media with location-based strategies to reach specific customers in the provinces, where their gross domestic product is seeing strong growth," Surachet said.

"Communication and engagement via in-store media are also important in this regard. We also want to be a specialist in this area," he said.

Full article here