Atlas, Talon’s DSP, proves programmatic OOH delivers stronger payback on purchase intent compared to digital channels.

Talon’s Atlas DSP Boosts OOH Effectiveness According to Latest Research

Traditionally, out of home (OOH) has been considered a valuable channel for driving metrics such as impact and awareness. But now Talon’s latest research into the effectiveness of its programmatic demand side platform (DSP), Atlas, has shown that OOH can also payback on a variety of performance-based metrics more successfully than digital channels.

Atlas is the only DSP which leverages specialist data via Ada, Talon’s proprietary data management platform (DMP), created to combine years of OOH planning expertise with real and recent audience behaviours. Atlas puts audiences at the core of the platform, with Atlas campaigns proven to deliver a stronger payback by identifying and targeting consumers who are more likely to be in the market for certain brands and products.

Atlas campaigns are nearly four times more likely to drive brand consideration and twice as likely to shift purchase intent because they deliver relevant, viewed impacts within a brand-safe environment. Analysis from the independent research agency, On Device Research, shows an almost perfect correlation, of 0.988, between claimed intention and actual – underpinning the impact Atlas has on maximising brands ROI by shifting real-world behaviour.

Since launching in 2020, Atlas has delivered countless intelligent, data-driven campaigns for clients. and demonstrated how including data, automation and attribution to OOH is delivering stronger results on core KPIs traditionally associated with performance channels. Providing confidence in programmatic OOH’s ability to provide a direct response and act as an extension of client’s online strategies.

Emily Alcorn, Head of Insight, comments: “At Talon, we pride ourselves on our ability to lead and champion effectiveness within OOH, and the ambition was no different when we launched Atlas. We’re incredibly proud of the outstanding results which are a testament to our dedication in providing products and solutions that focus on delivering effectiveness for our clients.”

Josko Grljevic, Chief Transformation Officer, comments: “We built Atlas to redefine the OOH programmatic market with a data-centric platform that enables advertisers to capitalise on the wealth of OOH planning expertise. These results demonstrate how Atlas has transformed the OOH market to target and nudge consumers further along in their purchasing journey.”

Benchmarks were conducted from data analysis of Atlas campaign effectiveness studies with a sample of over n=2,400, which were then compared against On Device Research online and social benchmarks for brand uplift.

Mastering Movie Launches: OOH’s Blockbuster Success Stories

With cinemas now open and a pent-up thirst for new movies to cater for, it should come as no surprise that the UK and Ireland’s box offices are booming. Cinemas took in 18.7 million last week, 10.9 million of which was taken in just over the weekend, showing that cinema-goers are back!

So, with a huge backlog of films to be released, as well as movie debuts on VOD platforms such as Netflix and Amazon Prime, how do you stand out? With a vast amount of Out of Home campaigns for films under his belt, Grand Visual’s Creative Director, Ric Albert, knows a thing or two about nailing a movie launch.

In recent months, Ric and his team have been behind some fantastic OOH launches, including collaborations with Warner Bros and Amazon Prime. Pre-pandemic, the team also collaborated on movie launches with the likes of Sony Pictures and Disney. So, grab a refreshment and get comfy because we’re about to dive in.

Post-Pandemic OOH Advertising for Movies

Warner Bros – Wonder Woman 1984

Set to be released in June 2020, the release of Wonder Woman 1984 was delayed due to the pandemic. This led Warner Bros to rethink its launch strategy and draw attention from cinema audiences with an epic OOH stunt.

Choosing the largest digital OOH canvas in the world, standing at 828 meters high – the Burj Khalifa would definitely garner interest. A video of the stunt was shared widely online, receiving over 3 million views in 24 hours on Gal Gadot’s Instagram account.

So, Ric. What do you think?

“I don’t think there is a more exciting Digital OOH canvas to display your work than the tallest building in the world. Genuinely a bucket list job. Even for A-list Hollywood stars, it seems!

Look out for more of these giant-scale activations in the future – studios love the idea of epic proportions advertising their latest blockbusters.”

Amazon Prime – The Tomorrow War

Originally set for theatrical release in December 2020, The Tomorrow War was postponed and instead released on Amazon Prime. Although it wasn’t released in cinemas, the movie still needed a stellar launch to entice audiences to watch it... and the OOH campaign did just that! 

Bringing the war to cities including Stockholm, Madrid and Manchester, the campaign featured an incredible augmented reality stunt that turned these locations into scenes of The Tomorrow War. The movie went on to be a success, scoring 1.23 billion minutes of watch time, the best opening for an Amazon original movie. 

“Creating an Augmented Reality campaign across 5 countries and 6 sites was no small feat,” says Ric. “…But we’ve always been pushing the capabilities of this medium and wanted something different from a one-off stunt. Movie releases are global events, so it was fitting that the activation took place across multiple markets.” 

Pre-Pandemic Advertising for Movies  

A time before the pandemic feels like a distant memory, but we couldn’t not include these epic movie launch stunts. Now that restrictions have been lifted, here’s some great examples of OOH advertising for movies that’ll really draw attention.

Sony Pictures – Spiderman: Into the Spider-Verse

For the launch of Spiderman: Into the Spider-Verse, Sony Pictures wanted to steal the stage at one of the grandest OOH sites of them all – Times Square. We created an augmented reality experience that transported over 215,000 people passersby into the Spider-verse. The campaign went on to win 2 OBIE awards as well as the movie winning the Oscar for Best Animated Feature.

Over to you Ric.

“This has to be one of my favourites: prime location – tick, mass audience participation – tick, turning crowds into cartoons – tick, using facial tracking to add speech bubbles above their heads – tick. This activation had it all, and the result aligned perfectly with the film to create a unique and memorable stunt.”

Disney Marvel Studios: Doctor Strange

As a master of the mystic arts, Doctor Strange deserved more than just a static 6-sheet. Using augmented reality, we created an OOH installation across 10 markets that gave audiences the chance to harness the mystical powers of the doctor. The film went on to open in the #1 position in the US box office, eventually grossing $677 million worldwide.

“This was the perfect marriage of creative and technology – when the stars align to create something truly special… and incredibly fitting for the movie,” adds Ric. “With some gesture recognition and live video portals, we connected people in London and LA and gave everyone the chance to become Sorcerer Supreme.”

“At the end of the day, that is what all of these activations are about. Bringing some of the movie magic into the real world. Giving the public the chance to interact with their favourite characters and creating an emotional engagement with the next big movie release.”

Online display advertising has sometimes been inextricably linked with a performance marketing positioning, but this link is eroding as marketers are forced to rethink their over-simplistic approach, as OOH sheds its image purely as an awareness-driving medium.

Performance and measurement have become synonymous with digital OOH now that data gives us the platform optimise planning and demonstrate outcomes.

Technology and data have been systematically transforming the digital out-of-home (DOOH) marketplace for some time now, and as we emerge from the cloud of the pandemic, DOOH has emerged as a unique and powerful channel for performance marketers to leverage.

Data-driven OOH

When the pandemic hit the UK in March 2020, people were forced to spend more time indoors. For OOH, this became a significant challenge. OOH agencies had to pivot tools primarily built for optimisation and campaign measurement to develop a better understanding of channel exposure.

With the acceleration of digital transformation within the channel, there has been an evolution in technology which manages and activates billions of device-level audience data points to create new insights about how people behave and how to reach and engage them while on-the-go. This enables data-driven, audience targeting and campaign measurement that hasn’t previously been possible.

The best of breed tools use mobile location data obtained with direct consent from users when a mobile app is downloaded on their mobile device, and combine proprietary data science models to understand the behaviours of OOH audiences.

Over the course of the last year, many brands have embraced data application in OOH, with uses ranging from audience optimisation and creative allocation to new outcome-based measurement techniques. For some brands, mobility data was used to monitor and calculate regional weights and to ensure these complemented and offset TV volumes. Additionally, data was used to negotiate value where footfall had significantly changed due to Covid-19, such as train stations and shopping centres.

Using a scalable data management platform (DMP) can help to effectively process this data at speed. This aggregated data can then be used to identify changes in audience movements and predict how different situations can prompt different patterns of behaviour – whether that is around lockdown restrictions or something like the recent Euro 2020 tournament.

OOH and performance measurement

Evaluation and measurement have always been must haves for marketers. At Talon, for example, we have developed our own DMP, known as Ada, to make precise and accurate performance measurement possible even in an offline broadcast medium like DOOH. The platform has been built to provide outcome-based measurement by harnessing mobile location data to report on campaign exposure and footfall to store during and after a campaign.

When it comes to using this data to produce targeted advertising activations, Ada fuels Talon’s automated trading (PROOH) platform Atlas. Through direct DOOH integrations, Atlas creates an optimised OOH schedule for brands.

In a recent campaign for Fineco, activated via this platform, we saw an increase in purchase intent of seven p.p. which is significantly higher than the measured benchmark for OOH. As this case study indicates, by activating OOH campaigns against the right audience group, outcomes are produced at the lower end of the brand funnel. This approach allows advertisers to understand whether consumers have taken physical action after being exposed to an ad and how to shift campaign strategies to increase the likelihood of this action.

Understanding audiences, activating against them, and measuring results will always be key elements of marketing. In recent years, marketers have relied on unfettered access to third-party cookies to do much of the heavy lifting.

In today’s fast-changing environment, systems that harness consensual and anonymised location data should be considered as readily available alternatives and the new role for OOH ads in driving performance outcomes should be recognised and embraced.

By Josko Grljevic, Chief Transformation Officer.

This first appeared in Performance In.

Creative Excellence in OOH: Cannes Highlights & Impact

There were a few clear themes present at the virtual Cannes advertising festival this year reflecting not just digital transformation but also the immense strides Out of Home (OOH) has made in a most difficult but ultimately rewarding year.

These campaigns fully integrated creativity alongside brand transparency and transformation at the heart of media’s digital revolution. More than ever, it is important for a brand’s values to truly resonate with consumers and stand out to make a point that embraces simplicity, and – more important than ever – relevance to the year’s events.

At Talon we worked with some big, but hugely progressive brands not afraid to put creativity and bravery at the heart of what they do; not afraid to use OOH to reach people in a bold way.

HSBC & Shelter: As well as winning the UK Outdoor Media Awards’ Grand Prix, HSBC and Shelter’s Fixing the “No-Fixed Address” Policy made a real impact at Cannes, as it did on the streets, winning two Gold Lions.

Simple but extremely powerful, the OOH campaign took over a selection of bus shelters which are often used by homeless people as shelter in moments of desperation. These shelter vinyl wraps featured a visual of a homeless person sleeping on the bench with details of HSBC’s No Fixed Address service and a QR code that passers-by could scan with their phones and donate money to Shelter.

The campaign was a huge success with HSBC’s No Fixed Address service growing +52% and QR code donations generating enough funds to support over 100 individuals facing homelessness. 1 in 5 QR donors even signed up to become regular donors to Shelter, leaving a long-term funding legacy for the campaign.

Volkswagen UK: VW’s Eating Pollution picked up one Gold and one Bronze Lion. The brand has worked hard on sustainability and environmental messaging, reflected in its vehicles and its advertising, particularly in OOH.

To launch Volkswagen’s ID.3 electric vehicle, we delivered an OOH campaign that was as clean as the car. Using air-purifying murals and carbon-neutral digital OOH sites – in an incredibly creative execution – the ID.3 became the UK’s best-selling electric car in just its second month.

McDonald’s: A long-established media partner, McDonald’s won a Gold and Silver Lion at this year’s Cannes, even though none of its products actually featured in its OOH campaign. Using just the brand’s iconic golden arches and a clever play on words, the campaign is a fantastic example of the possibilities of OOH branding, delivering visual brilliance and rewarding brand fame in abundance.

As OOH adapts and progresses into cutting edge use of data, location, targeting and technology, Cannes reminds us that truly effective campaigns embrace all these things. Award wins came to those brands who successfully integrated these elements fully with creativity and outcomes – still very much the cornerstone of the best advertising globally. No longer is OOH a poor relation among media channels. Some of these examples allow Talon and our partners to take real leadership in implementing brand success.

This article first appeared in More About Advertising.

As a society, we’ve grown up with Out of Home advertising. Whether it was the humble 6–sheet with no digital capabilities or the now–digital landscape that we’ve become accustomed to, OOH has always been a part of our lives.

Across various generations, we’ve seen brands such as Coca Cola build their empires through heavily investing in OOH. From paper and paste to the pixels and screens, OOH truly is a proven fame maker.

Whilst some may argue that the traditional OOH medium isn’t as effective at building fame as online channels; at Talon, our Creative Director, Ric Albert and Head of Creative Solutions, Jay Young, think differently. With an incredible portfolio of some of the best in OOH campaigns under their belts, such as BBC’s Dracula, Pepsi MAX and a range of work with Warner Bros, there’s no better people to ask…

Why is OOH so highly regarded in terms of fame making? 

Ric: “OOH has the ability to connect with the public in ways that other channels simply cannot. Firstly, you have a broad audience to tap into. OOH can take advantage of its environment and therefore its audience’s mindsets, to deliver the right message to the right people at the right time.

Beyond that, the sheer scale of the billboard or screen creates a canvas unlike any other. In a world where most content appears on small screens in front of our faces, being able to put your message out at this size really helps OOH to be a unique proposition for fame making.”

An amazing example of this was when Warner Bros took over the world’s tallest building, The Burj Khalifa, to promote its latest movie Wonder Woman 1984. The campaign showcased the movie on the largest digital OOH canvas in the world, at 828 metres high! The video received over 3 million views in 24 hours on Gal Gadot’s Instagram account.

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Jay: “OOH is the perfect stage for brands to perform on. It’s big, it’s un-skippable and it exists in the real world. You can close a newspaper, turn off your phone or fast forward TV, but OOH stands tall regardless and with that comes an overwhelming sense of power and impact.

You can see a cultural moment blow up on Twitter at 9am. You’ll get a reactive ad on DOOH across the country by the time you log off for the day. I still love the Specsavers campaign we ran in reaction to the Moonlight Oscars blunder. We could never have achieved the same impact with static OOH going live days later.

Combine this with the fact that we can reach 98% of UK adults every week. It’s a fame machine.”

So, we know why OOH is a “fame machine,” but what does it take to create an impactful campaign that lives beyond the billboard? 

Taking this campaign, featuring K-Pop singer Wooyoung for his birthday on a screen in Times Square as an example; living anywhere else in the world, you wouldn’t have seen it. However, because a fan connected with and shared the campaign on social media, it has now been viewed over 110k times – amplifying the campaign and building fame.

Jay: “As humans, we are ruled by emotions, we don’t just buy products and services, we buy feelings. The most impactful ads make us really feel something! Do something unexpected to get noticed. Use context to optimise your message and use emotion to make the audience feel something. Emotion makes it memorable.”

Ric: “Can the billboard start a conversation? Can it get people talking or thinking so that the message lives on after the billboard? Creating a campaign that can emotionally engage with the public is key and isn’t always down to the location of the billboard.

There are some locations such as Times Square that are just iconic and there are some locations that you have to think outside of the box and make it iconic; so that even if the advert is 10m tall or 500 other people are also looking at it, does it speak directly to you. This can be done with messaging, imagery or even just the sentiment behind it.”

What campaign stands out to you as a fame maker for OOH? 

Jay: There are so many campaigns I love for different reasons. The sheer simplicity of the BBC Dracula shadow billboard, the innovation behind Pepsi’s Unbelievable Bus Shelter and the always on and always awesome ads from McDonald’s. As advertisers, they have all reaped huge rewards from constantly challenging themselves and not settling for cookie-cutter planning.

For reference, Dracula and Pepsi MAX’s Unbelievable Bus Shelter have received over 15 million views combined and remain two of our most popular OOH campaigns of all time…

Ric: One that comes to mind is Nike’s Dream Crazy campaign with Colin Kaepernick. It won the Cannes Lions Grand Prix and for good reason. Using such a large canvas, and public space to broadcast a bold, daring and important message… It used OOH’s unique abilities to provoke conversation, publicity and make the public think, and feel. It wasn’t putting the product front and centre, but something more important for us all.

Another example of fame building and amplification online, is when a celebrity themselves, shares their billboard with their followers. Molly Mae Hague, a popular UK based influencer, shared her billboard to her fanbase of over 340k Twitter followers and 5.3m Instagram followers.

Although we’re not inside the head of the celebrity, it’s interesting to understand why they specifically share their billboards rather than various online ads they feature in. So, from your experience, why do you think celebrities share their billboards on social media? 

Ric: “We’ve grown up with billboards around us. Long before phone screens, iconic sites like Times Square and Piccadilly Circus captured our imaginations and felt like the biggest screens in the world. So today, with so many screens in our lives, having our face (or work) on DOOH screens – whether small format like D6s or large format city centre ones – still triggers an emotional excitement within us.

It’s different and it’s not easily doable. You can’t just tweet something and it goes up there. So, fame is still exclusive. It’s just not an arena everyone can participate in!”

Jay: “When brands, or people for that matter, appear on billboards they enter a relatively exclusive club. You, unlike most, have achieved a status that allows you to fill this very public canvas. It’s the “I’ve officially made it” moment. Instagram and other platforms thrive on our societal need to play status games. An image of yourself on a big iconic DOOH screen gives you bonus points for sure!”

OOH is a medium that delivers scale and unrivalled creative potential, making it the ultimate ‘fame maker.‘ The perfect recipe is a combination of audience understanding, contextual relevance, creativity that packs a punch; get these right and OOH can extend beyond the billboard and provide stand out fame making moments.

This article first appeared in Little Black Book.

If nothing else, 2020 was a masterclass in showcasing the need for adaptability and rapid innovation. Agility, technology and data have become essential guiding lights for navigating constantly shifting landscapes, for status quo is now synonymous with change. What is the likely impact on the OOH industry, as it strives to ramp up Digital Transformation now that long-established ways of working have been disrupted?

Top 5 Trends for the OOH Industry in 2021

1. Programmatic, and any form of automated trading for that matter will continue to gain momentum. OOH’s progressive shift from an off-line to an on-line medium is being driven by advertisers wanting to activate campaigns in near-real time and in response to environmental triggers. With media owners actively looking to monetise their inventory through as many channels as possible, SSP’s, DSP and 3rd party buying platforms provide an attractive pipeline of demand. All of which will continue to drive the cycle of continued investment, capability and scale of DOOH inventory in this space.

2. Data and insights will become foundations for strategic decision making. Long established and proven OOH patterns have been turned on their head over the past 12 months. With advertisers demanding more accountability and ever greater returns on their investments, access to good data and ability to harvest meaningful insights, is rapidly becoming a must-have business capability in today’s evidence-based economy.

3. Privacy and data compliance will take centre stage throughout 2021. Imminent changes in data collection, processing and privacy regulations will place even more emphasis on compliance, measurement and transparency. The ICO’s continued scrutiny of RTB, Apple’s IDFA policy, and the sunsetting of 3rd party cookies will create a bow wave of disruption throughout the industry. All of which will require new and innovative approaches for collecting, storing, managing and transacting PII data. As is the case with all change, this will no doubt create opportunities for organisations that can come up with compliant solutions for behavioural audience targeting and activation.

4. The industry will remain in a state of flux throughout 2021. Implementing and fast-tracking digital transformations will be key to staying relevant and competitive in a rapidly changing tech-centric economy. Organisations with access to investment and leadership necessary to execute their transformation strategies will have an edge over those that don’t. Providing them with a competitive advantage when the market starts to recover.

5. M&A activity will gather pace on the back of two key drivers. Firstly, companies with mature data, insights, activation and technology capabilities have become likely acquisition targets for those looking to bolster their OOH capability. The progressive shift from paper to digital billboards is expanding the addressable inventory universe, making DOOH an attractive medium for digital advertisers. Secondly, reduced access to capital investment in 2020/21 will drive the consolidation of smaller tech companies and media owners. There are benefits in integrating complementary services into new and existing solutions, without the need for significant Capex overhead.

Josko Grljevic, Chief Transformation Officer

Sophie Pemberton, Talon’s Group Strategy Director, explains why waiting for the online industry to get programmatic OOH right is no longer an option and why Talon decided to rewrite the rule book for a simpler automation process, one that is designed specifically for OOH.

A New Dawn for Out-of-Home Advertising: Innovations and Insights

2020 was full of promise for OOH. The industry was continuing to grow, inventory digitisation was set to expand across the UK and investment in technology meant more intelligent solutions for our clients. Despite the recent crisis temporarily slowing growth, it hasn’t dampened our appetite and ambition to keep focussing on future facing solutions which will inevitably provide greater opportunities once we are back to normal. Whatever that looks like.

As a medium that is over 100 years old, OOH has a heritage that makes it a medium consumers can trust and one that advertisers continue to find value in. But at Talon we are committed to going further. To drive client value through planning and buying excellence, and our agile and entrepreneurial approach enables us to deliver outstanding OOH campaigns for our clients. It is also the driving force behind our technology stack at Talon. We have invested heavily in our technology as we know that this is what will set us apart and deliver client value long term.

With digital OOH spend in the UK last year surpassing 50% of all OOH, we are at a critical juncture as an industry as interest in digital OOH and the benefits it brings continues to grow. This is due a multitude of factors, but flexibility, scale and creative potential are some of the pertinent reasons that more advertisers are investing in digital OOH. So, it comes as no surprise that players with strong credentials in the online mediums (and are being squeezed out of this space by walled gardens), are seeing Programmatic OOH as their next big growth opportunity. Traditional digital and AdTech businesses have heard – and are trying to answer – this call for a PrOOH solution and there has been some success from these players pivoting their technology into the OOH space.

However, when it comes to the digitisation of one the world’s oldest advertising channels, it is fair to say that transforming a complex planning process and infrastructure requires a unique approach, not one transferred from another industry. Features and capabilities are falling short when it comes to providing effective solutions for brands as the technology has not been adapted to accommodate the differences in the two channels. Namely, with online advertising it is one to one, there’s standardised inventory and buys can be based on live behaviour with infinite impressions available. However, OOH is still a broadcast medium with a huge variance in inventory and targeting is based on predicted behaviour with a finite number of impressions available.

Early on at Talon, we made the move to accelerate and invest in our technology strategy and in just 2 years have launched 3 proprietary technology platforms to deliver smarter OOH campaigns, the most recent of which is Atlas. Going from concept to revenue generation in just 7 months (for anyone in software development, you know just how impressive that is) with Atlas we have translated what has made Talon so successful since we opened in 2013 – our creativity, approach to data and of course our technology – and combined it all into the one platform. Atlas is our intelligent automated digital OOH buying platform designed to solve a problem for advertisers rather than the online AdTech industry and combines our specialist knowledge with technology expertise to provide a solution unlike anything else in the market.

Like our other platforms Plato and Ada, we built Atlas from the ground up rather than looking to replicate existing industry products. Unlike other AdTech systems, Atlas connects directly to Media Owners, so the intermediaries that are commonplace in a traditional programmatic supply chain do not exist so that value can be delivered straight back to our clients.

Through Atlas, we are heralding a new dawn for OOH where we can produce granular insights based on real audience data, trade more efficiently and understand campaign efficacy through campaign reporting and attribution. With an expert team providing a managed service, Atlas follows a simple process making it easier for digital first advertisers and online planners to extend campaign strategies into OOH.

So, whilst 2020 didn’t quite go to plan, we have seized the opportunity to rewrite the rulebook for programmatic OOH and are excited to already have executed our first Atlas campaigns and look forward to working with all our partners in the very near future.

Sophie Pemberton, Talon Group Strategy Director

This first appeared in MediaTel on 4th September 2020.

Reacting to the news that Google is passing the digital services tax on to advertisers, Barry Cupples, CEO of Talon, argues the time has come for the media industry to reset its priorities

Resetting the Advertising Landscape: Navigating Digital Tax Impacts

Google has announced it will be passing the new 2% digital services tax directly over to advertisers from November, as will Amazon, and other digital giants are likely to follow suit (although since the time of writing, Facebook has announced that it will be shouldering the costs of the tax itself).

The news is not too far removed from the ongoing advertiser boycott of Facebook over hate speech, or admissions it has been slow to remove unsuitable content. Many clients are now paying over the odds for their brand messages, with little control over environment.

Alongside the multiple challenges we face as business leaders getting our industry back on its feet and fit for purpose after months of Covid-driven lockdown, this story is no longer just another footnote in the multi-billion pound digital saga around the changing media landscape.

Phil Smith, the director general of ISBA, said Google’s move to tax clients was “disappointing but inevitable”. But some agencies are furious and rightly so. Those previously mentioned challenges in particular mean that by passing this tax on to advertisers, we’ve reached a breaking point where the only solution is to reset.

And here’s how we should do it.

Brands have the opportunity now to re-engage with consumers looking for trust and reassurance. Well-received evidence, as outlined by effectiveness expert Peter Field here, has shown that the importance of branding and broadcast messaging has never been greater.

For me, this means making broadcast your number one priority, then contextual, integrated media messages to a smart target audience. All whilst maintaining a close control on fees and costs of intermediaries. Now, more than ever, this is paramount for your media planning.

Out of home (OOH) can provide real leadership in this new narrative. We have never been more prepared to deliver broadcast audiences, amplify social stories and above all, prove the worth of communication spend through actionable evidence. Brands can capitalise on flexible and high quality digital inventory which delivers the reach, location and context to talk to audiences in a compelling way.

Media practitioners can help deliver growth by reaching audiences contextually, in the moment and across all their activities.

This means more integrated client media solutions rather than those merely gravitating towards false economy activation. Reliance on social media and search platforms alone means aligning with untrustworthy environments alongside potentially unsuitable and sometimes unforeseeable experiences, where multiple parties are all taking an unqualified share. It is not an effective solution for all clients, and many will vote with their feet.

Our research into the value of the ‘4th space’ – the integrated screen solutions across mobile and digital OOH – shows how combining channels works to fill the growing gap in brand advertising to young audiences. Facebook’s own research has identified the sales value of an integrated approach, fundamentally because OOH can deliver a broadcast base.

At Talon, our technology enables us to fully identify planned target audiences through device data, and then seamlessly buy that inventory through an automated service, Atlas. Some may call it programmatic, but in OOH we have redefined that term to eliminate unnecessary layers of process and cost. We can still apply the knowledge and smart thinking we’ve committed to OOH planning for many years, through automation.

Technology is an important part of the solution, but many will lead you to believe it is the only answer. Flexible, automated technology that serves clients using OOH and intelligent, data-led, measured campaigns is our new narrative and the new normal.

Back in March we were an industry in rude health. With roadside audiences back to above normal levels nationwide and many shopping destinations back to normal levels, now is the time for brands and agencies to be strong, to showcase brand strengths and remove the media inefficiencies that take up so much of the creative energy in the advertising process.

Our industry should be about delivering trust and value for advertisers, not generating more hidden costs.

Barry Cupples is CEO at Talon

European financial services company Fineco, have worked with Hearts and Science to activate ‘Trade Without Compromise’, its first UK OOH campaign encouraging trade investors to return to the UK market post Covid. The campaign was the first to run on Talon’s new proprietary platform Atlas and was aimed at a trading and investor audience with an intelligently optimised and fully automated digital 6 sheet campaign.

Reaching High-Value Audiences

Atlas, the first automated buying platform of its kind in Out of Home, allowed Fineco the flexibility to respond to market conditions and go live on DOOH quickly because it automates many processes all in one place and connects buyers directly with Media Owner partners. Planning, buying, creative upload and reporting were all handled within the platform to make the transaction efficient and completely transparent.

Be Funky Collage 5

Through a proprietary intelligent targeting solution built exclusively for out of home, Atlas was able to identify an audience for Fineco based on real and recent behaviours that would be of most value. Because the platform has been designed as an audience first solution, the campaign was activated on panels across a multitude of different environments on times and days that would best reach a ‘high net worth’ audience in London and the South East in order to maximum exposure.

To further amplify the campaign, information about the panel locations are being shared with the Hearts & Science digital team to retarget those exposed on mobile. By extending online strategies into digital OOH, Fineco will benefit from the multiplier effects of these two channels working in unison widen their audience reach beyond desktop, tablet and mobile screens alone.

Garrett O’Reilly, Managing Director, Hearts & Science comments:

“This is a fantastic campaign to be a part of. At Hearts, we pride ourselves on being leaders in embracing the very latest data analytics and technology to deliver for our clients. Working with Talon to be the first agency to use Atlas is no exception and it has allowed us to be more granular in our approach and focus in on the Out of Home activity that will deliver positive outcomes for Fineco.”

Kloe Wells, Senior Sales Manager at Talon Outdoor adds:  

“It’s great to see brands new to digital OOH using the medium in tandem with their online campaigns. Atlas has enabled Fineco to combine a data driven approach to reaching their target audience in the right place and at the right time with an automated process for greater agility and efficiency. We look forward to working with them and other advertisers in the future to grow the medium and deliver valuable digital OOH solutions through Atlas.”

With much of the uncertainty surrounding the OOH industry in 2020, it was very refreshing to listen to some of the industry’s key players brought together for last week’s MediaTel conference – The Future of OOH. Although we weren’t able to network as we would normally, the event was key to understanding how our industry as a whole will move forward post COVID-19.

From the Talon Group, we contributed with three of our own key players, Emily Hyne, Dan Dawson and Sophie Pemberton, focusing on the channel’s renaissance around the future of data, automation and creativity. Whilst there is more on the event here, our contributions highlighted the potential for change and transformation in the industry and a real opportunity for leadership in the media landscape.

The role of specialists in a brave new world 

Here, Talon’s Group Strategy Director, Sophie Pemberton, was joined by Gill Huber from Posterscope and Kinetic’s Nicole Lonsdale. The session addressed the role and contribution of specialist OOH agencies, with the panellists stressing the complexity of planning OOH campaigns, particularly around the use of audience data. Sophie Pemberton highlighted the importance of understanding consumer mindsets and the range of activities they may be doing when they see OOH. Whilst Nicole Lonsdale pointed out that with audiences more connected than ever, OOH is a key driver of online behaviour. The specialist resource can bring the level of expertise and resource – including data – to offer the best planning solution to fit the brief.

With more heavily invested advancements in technology, audiences and inventory than ever before, Pemberton added that specialists like Talon were keeping ahead of the market to maintain quality control. “We need to make sure that we’re not just using any data, but the right data; not all data is created equal.” 

Programmatic OOH was a theme of the day, with the panel stressing any advances are very much in its infancy, although the current climate means we’re likely to accelerate much faster towards automation in OOH. Lonsdale referenced three core benefits, around efficient audience targeting, allowing DOOH to become part of the wider digital ecosystem and a more agile deployment, while Pemberton focused on the role of data and the relevance of the specialist to implement change.

More important, said Pemberton, is that when the right data is applied to OOH, campaign benchmarks can exceed themselves significantly. “Through Ada, we’ve seen benchmarks surpassed by over 50% for consideration and purchase intent. The value of automation and the data advancements is there, but we need to be sure we’re using the right data and interrogating it properly.” Gill Huber echoed the panel that programmatic isn’t necessarily a clear route for OOH, which has all of the tools vital for brand safety.

In terms of the what the next year looks like, Pemberton referenced Ada and other data showing audiences returning to OOH. “We’ve seen extreme ends of the spectrum in 2020, from total lockdown to audiences emerging back outdoors. The next 12 months will be essential for clients to get their campaign strategies right and make sure that their OOH campaigns are contextual to fit with the change in audience behaviours.” With data changing constantly, specialists have a crucial role for brands and agencies, as genuine partners, to create effective targeting strategies by interrogating the data in the right way.

With no direct return to normal, expertise and a real understanding of the OOH sector is vital to exploit the real capabilities of OOH, with its broad offering and agile digital OOH channel, to help brands build trust and with the flexibility and agility of DOOH as well.

Getting the best from creativity in OOH

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A session focused on the importance of creativity referenced panelists’ favourite campaign, with Talon Business Director Emily Hyne choosing multiple-format campaign for Virgin Media, ‘Unlimiting.’ Its smart, data-led approach using Talon’s intelligent planning platform Ada, physically broke the boundaries of traditional advertising spaces, making the campaign truly ‘unlimited.’ It used vinyl wraps to dominate travel hub spaces, as well as high footfall locations surrounding traditional OOH spaces.

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Dan Dawson, Chief Creative Officer at Grand Visual chose the recent #SendingLove campaign, executed during lockdown. What started as an idea to collaborate during difficult times transformed to become the world’s largest UGC OOH campaign to date. Dawson loved its ability to send love to places people were unable to visit, adding that people love to see themselves on billboards and they become ambassadors for the campaign. UGC will be more popular trend in future as it really gets a brand in the hands of consumers and creates a truly memorable moment.

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Publicis Media’s OOH Group Director Curtis Weir selected TENA’s empowering campaign that dominated Oxford Street. His reasons for choosing the campaign was the way that it harnessed OOH’s power to reposition a brand and change public perceptions. The campaign celebrated real people in its creative within real OOH spaces. He added, the best campaigns he’s worked on never had a brief and urged greater collaboration and bravery from agencies and clients.

On OOH driving a different type of creativity, Dan Dawson kicked off with the fact that OOH is an ad medium you can’t skip or block and there is an industry responsibility aligned to being in the public domain and to ensure the content we create is appropriate for all audiences. Weir agreed adding that OOH puts a brand on show and makes consumers reconsider their purchase journeys. He said OOH is a mirror that reflects society and space it is in. We see large numbers of people taking photos of advertising that resonates or even offends them. This was backed up by Dawson who touched upon the trend of smaller advertisers branching into OOH and loving it. Once their campaign is on a billboard, it becomes real and physical, not like anything online or virtual.

The session also addressed how advancements in technology have transformed creativity in OOH. The biggest transformation for Emily Hyne was how these advancements have changed the way that we plan Out of Home. In particular Ada, our intelligent data platform enables us to use unique audience insight into real travel behaviours, which is then used to hyper-focus our campaigns to locations seen more frequently by particular targets.

Both Hyne and Weir showed that technology has enabled us to be more creative in delivering the right message, becoming more contextually creativity. 

Although the advancements we expected to see in programmatic, technology and creativity hasn’t been at the forefront of our minds for the majority of 2020, the OOH industry has stepped up in any other way that it could. This has helped us to remain stronger, smarter and even more collaborative than we ever were before the pandemic. We’ve learned to understand our audiences better,reimagine how we apply data and to become more adaptable and imaginative when it comes to creativity. This has put the industry in good stead for growth towards the end of 2020, moving into the beginning of 2021.

By Charlotte Jones, Digital Marketing Executive