EUROPE NEWS

UK: Blow for 8 Outdoor as landlord moves digital screens to Global

8 Outdoor has suffered a major blow as it has lost the licence to manage about 70 digital advertising screens, with bigger rival Global picking up the contract. Insite, the landlord that owns the out-of-home sites, said it decided to "terminate" the licence with its tenant, 8 Outdoor, because the company had fallen behind on payments.

Alan Brydon, chairman of 8 Outdoor, admitted the loss of the Insite contract was "a big setback".He said 8 Outdoor has lost about 70 screens, or around two-thirds of its portfolio.

The company, which specialises in large-format, roadside digital out-of-home screens, is "looking at options" as it considers its future.

By shifting to an always-on digital out-of-home (OOH) strategy and a focus on mass personalisation, McDonald's has been able to increase footfall to key restaurants.

The fast-food giant began implementing the strategy after making the call to drop its spot on the iconic Piccadilly Circus lights, as it found the "expensive" location was no longer delivering the impact it required.

Because while it was great at building brand fame, which McDonald's UK marketing director Ben Fox says is still "very important", the brand was keen to start using digital OOH to engage people on-the-go and get them into restaurants.

The audit covers Clear Channel’s delivery and reporting of selected UK digital campaigns, meeting advertisers’ requirement for transparency in digital media.

Measured over three months, ending on the 31 March 2019, the audit covered reporting of digital campaigns across Clear Channel’s digital Adshel Live, Sainsbury’s Live, Asda Live and Wrap networks.

The compliance audit is part of Clear Channel’s ongoing commitment to ensuring full transparency and accountability for its digital outdoor campaigns, as well as a contribution to further industry commitment towards brand transparency and benefit to advertisers.

Joint Managing Director, Richard Bon, said “As Clear Channel’s digital network continues to grow, and with Adshel Live being the largest digital Out of Home network in the UK, we’re excited about the increased flexibility and creativity we can offer to brands.

UK: The Resurgence of OOH Advertising

Sam Tidmarsh investigates Co-op’s new OOH advertising campaign ahead of Chief Customer Officer Ali Jones’ presentation at ad:tech London 2019

Out-of-home advertising, also known as outdoor media, is tailored to consumers “on the go” as they travel and move through public spaces.

Historically OOH has been difficult to measure, with planners and brands lacking sufficient data to build effective insights on audience.

In recent years, however, OOH has seen a resurgence, thanks to newfound granularity and flexibility generated by data and digital. Mobile has been at the forefront of this revival, enabling advertisers to understand movement and behaviour of audiences in real time.

UK: Looking to the future to create a better advertising experience in travel

On a recent visit to Future Travel Experience (FTE) EMEA in Istanbul, I was inspired and encouraged by some of the dynamics driving the future of the connected consumer, as outlined by futurist Rohit Talwar from Fast Future. His glimpse of our 2024 destination journey presented an interesting set of challenges and opportunities for advertisers. The trends he presented, led me to consider what the real opportunities are for advertisers and in particular, the ways in which they can capitalise on connectivity and how AI-led advances will affect the travel space.

Overall, they paint a picture that ambitious, forward-thinking advertisers would do well to capitalise on quickly, and would allow them to sponsor, fund or co-fund huge chunks of travel that they can only dream about today

USA: Considerations, Approaches to Programmatic OOH

Last week the OAAA Innovations Committee met for its annual Summer Camp in Washington, DC. The forward-looking group meets each July for two days in our nation’s capital to discuss the future of OOH and how tech can advnace industry initiatives.

One of the pressing topics of discussion was programmatic OOH. It was a “hot topic” at the last OOH Media Conference + Expo in Las Vegas and will continue to evolve as an important enabler for growing the OOH business in coming years. The committee recently presented a series of webinars on the topic of programmatic buying and selling. Listen to them here.

As the OOH industry continues to explore how programmatic will become more integral to daily business transactions, it is important to understand how automation will impact campaign planning and omni-channel evaluation.

USA: Out of Home a Bargain

Out of home is cheaper than other media. Look at this chart which PJ Solomon calculates ad CPM’s (cost per thousand ad impressions) for different media. Only mobile display or online display are cheaper than out of home. TV, Newspapers, Magazines, Podcasts, Video are more expensive. Radio costs about as much as out of home.

Out of home bulletins have an average CPM of $2-7. Digital Placed Based and Airport screens have a much higher CPM of $9-32. Insider surmises this is due to better targeting (place based advertising in a shopping mall is a great way to target consumers prior to purchase) and to demographics (airport users are wealthier than average consumers).

USA: Firefly hires former Google, Clear Channel execs to grow OOH analytics

FireFly, a smart media platform provider, has hired Taylan Yildiz to serve as chief analytics officer and Michael Steinberg to serve as VP of media and analytics. The company aims to improve its OOH analytics platform through these two hires, according to a press release.

Prior to joining Firefly, Yildiz served for 10 years at Google building measurement methodologies. Steinberg previously headed sales at OOH analytics startup Mira and Clear Channel Spectacolor, the Times Square Division of Clear Channel Outdoor.

Firefly's OOH platform measures a variety of data points such as footfall traffic, app downloads, brand impact and other metrics.

AUSTRALASIA NEWS

Australia: James Warburton returns to OOH with Shopper Media Group

Former APN Outdoor boss James Warburton has made his return to out of home, investing in and becoming a non-executive director of retail OOH business Shopper Media Group.

The ex-outdoor boss exited APN Outdoor late last year after only 10 months in the role, following the company's acquisition by French rival JCDecaux for $1.2 billion.

An outspoken member of the OOH industry during his time with APN, Warburton says he is "thrilled" to become part of the Shopper Media business, admitting he had tried to buy the business twice in the past.

Australia and New Zealand: OIO Approves Strategic Merger Of QMS NZ With Mediaworks

QMS Media Limited is pleased to confirm that it has received consent from the Overseas Investment Office NZ to undertake the strategic merger of its New Zealand out-of-home, digital media and production business (QMS NZ) with MediaWorks NZ (MediaWorks).

The merger, which was announced to market in December 2018, will establish the largest multi-media advertising group in New Zealand.

QMS and MediaWorks will now work towards achieving completion of the merger, which is expected to occur in the next 4-6 week period. Upon completion, QMS expects to receive a capital return of approximately A$35 million and have a 40% shareholding in the merged entity.

ASIA NEWS

India: '10K-cr valuation for OOH industry is close reality': Alok Jalan

During the day 1 of Outdoor Advertising Convention 2019 held in Mumbai, Alok Jalan, MD of Laqshya Media Group and Sai Nagesh, Chief Strategy Officer, Laqshya Media Group shed light on How far is the OOH industry from a 10 thousand crore valuation in their session ‘Disrupt OOH to conquer Mount 10K-Cr.

Sinking deep into the statistics-based study of the ecosystem of OOH in India, the duo talked about how the industry will become more important in this age of media consumption.

Drawing connections between the average age of Indian population and the proportion of rural against urban, Sai suggested that the data driven digital media on the outdoor front will magnify the larger stature of the OOH medium.

India: OTT and government's infrastructure spending will boost OOH industry, says Rachana Lokhande of Kinetic India

The Co-CEO of Kinetic India says OOH will increase its share to 10% in the overall marketing pie this fiscal. She talks about the growth potential of digital OOH and how aggressive outdoor advertising by Netflix, Prime Video and other OTT players is pushing the growth of India's OOH industry
BestMediaInfo Bureau Shradha Mishra

The OOH industry, which at present has an allocation of 5-8% in the total marketing mix of marketers, will increase to 9-10% this fiscal, said Rachana Lokhande, Co-CEO, Kinetic India, a WPP entity and a global leading player in out-of-home (OOH) media.

The growth will be driven by three major developments — data and technology-driven DOOH, collective work within the industry and infrastructure boost by the government, Lokhande told BestMediaInfo.com in an interview.

Day 2 of the 15th edition of Outdoor Advertising Convention 2019, began with the presentation by Matthew Dearden, Independent Global OOH Consultant, UK on ‘Global OOH Trends- key takeaways for India held in Mumbai.

Matthew stated that the OOH advertising is the fastest growing offline medium and with data, the media owners can sell efficiently allocated billboards, at a higher price by adding the desired impact to the campaign. Further talking about Digital OOH, Matthew emphasised on culture and location that makes a significant impact on the selling of digital outdoor sites.

His talk focused on the programmatic advertising model, suggesting that the technology has become the heart of innovation and already stated to function.

India: Rapport Outdoor Advertising wins 'Campaign of the Year' award in OAA 2019 Contest

The Outdoor Advertising Awards Contest (OAA) 2019 saw Rapport Outdoor Advertising emerging with the maximum wins (10 medals), followed by Street Talk – A Signpost India company – winning 9 and Madison OOH with 8.

Street Talk topped the Gold wins (with 4 Gold medals).

The awards were given away at the OAA 2019 awards function held at the Renaissance Mumbai Convention Centre Hotel, Powai, Mumbai on July 27 in the presence of global OOH CEOs and senior professionals, brand marketers, heads of Indian OOH media owning firms and specialist agencies, government officials, and a large number of young OOH professionals.

India: Singapore-based Moving Walls launches suite of tools to digitise OOH in India

Singapore-based Moving Walls has launched a suite of data powered planning and inventory management tools in India under an initiative titled Freedom. The aim is to help the out of home industry in India, among the fastest growing in the world.

The initiative is expected to spread to Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines over the next few months

The announcement:

Moving Walls launched “Freedom”, a campaign to empower Indian media owners with audience data and automation tools to digitise their selling processes. The initiative was announced at the Outdoor Advertising Convention (OAC) held at the Renaissance Mumbai Convention Centre, Powai, Mumbai.

Hong Kong: Landlords make a killing as the 'billboard jungle' takes root

Hong Kong landlords are famous for squeezing revenue out of every last square inch of their buildings. For some, that means renting not just the horizontal surfaces, but the vertical ones as well.
The rights to hang neon signs and billboards from Hong Kong's high-rises increasingly equates to big money for landlords.
'Some buildings are generating higher income from advertising than the rental from their office or retail space,' Mak Siu-tong, chairman of Convey Advertising Company, said.

An 11-storey building at the junction of Canton Road and Peking Road near Harbour City in Tsim Sha Tsui is one example.

JCDecaux Singapore, the number one out-of-home media company in Singapore and a subsidiary of the JCDecaux Group, unveiled the first Augmented Reality (AR) out- of-home campaign on its digital advertising network on 24 July 2019. Fictional scenes overlaid on the surroundings will be displayed at a bus stop during the week-long brand activation along the prime stretch of Orchard Road. The AR campaign was conceptualised to capture the imagination of consumers and garner awareness for the launch of VIVIFI, a new mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) in Singapore. With the addition of AR to the innovative solutions under its belt, JCDecaux offers more modes of engagement for brands seeking to capture the attention of consumers in the urban environment.

From 24 to 30 July, commuters can interact with four imaginary AR scenes displayed on a digital advertising panel outside The Heeren, within a bus stop in JCDecaux’s bus shelter advertising network.

Indonesia: Pixel Media Selects Moving Walls Platform to Introduce Programmatic OOH in Indonesia

The announcement was made at a press launch held on July 30 at the Groove Suite Hotel in Jakarta, Indonesia.

The partnership is aimed at bringing transparency and automation to an industry where planning and buying processes have remained largely static. Moving Walls will equip Pixel Media Inovasi with cloud-based inventory management and dynamic ad-serving capabilities along with audience data measurement for all their billboard sites.

According to PWC's Global Media and Entertainment Outlook, Indonesian OOH revenue is forecast to grow at a 10.0% CAGR to US$388 million in 2020. As consumers become increasingly connected and mobile, billboards, unlike most traditional media channels, have remained a reliable way to reach mass audiences.

A growing trend in Indonesia and globally is the growing popularity of billboards among digital-first brands. Go-Jek, Traveloka, and Grab among others are among the largest spenders.

World OOH News 1st August 2019