Inside Talon 1

Mel Lindquist’s Journey in Talon OOH: A Focus on APAC Region

Outside thinking – it runs in the Talon family. We pride ourselves on being a company built on people with big ideas. People who constantly challenge themselves and the industry to re-imagine and re-invent the possibilities of what Out of Home can be. ​ 

In this series, we’ll be getting to know more about the people of Talon, their roles, advice and what they get up to outside of OOH. This week, we sat down with Mel Lindquist, who leads our Asia Pacific expansion as Managing Director for Talon Singapore.

Explain your role?   

Talon’s APAC office is strategically based in Singapore as a gateway to the Asia Pacific region. My role is to build the Talon profile in the region, attract new clients to Talon and deliver exceptional campaigns for local and international clients. Importantly, my role is to also advocate for the Out of Home (OOH) industry in the media mix as well as support and drive the continuous improvement of OOH, DOOH and pDOOH performance.  

What does a typical day at work look like for you?   

The role spans a wide remit from strategy through to post campaign analysis, as well as client and industry facing meetings and events. Throughout the week I am connecting with existing and potential new clients, presenting credentials or proposals, checking on campaign performance and reading research and case studies. During live campaigns I am verifying placements and communicating with the client and media owners. 

What do you enjoy most about working in OOH?     

I’ve worked in radio, television, digital and now OOH. All are enjoyable to work in but there is something about the visceral impact and tactile nature of an OOH campaign that drives my passion for OOH in a marketing strategy. I love working with marketers and agencies to deliver results using a smart, data-backed strategy that works and when you see it in the physical environment, its exceptional. 

Most memorable moment or achievement from your time in the industry?   

The opportunity to be at ground zero of Talon’s APAC expansion has been very memorable as it is a chance to build something from the ground up but with the foundations of an internationally reputable and established business. The first campaigns from the Singapore office will always be very special too with the Warriors of Future Netflix film launch in Tokyo, Taipei, London and New York and the stunning Singapore Airlines, “Welcome to World Class,” campaign on some of the most iconic OOH sites around the world. 

Any tips or advice for someone interested in joining the industry or pursuing a similar career path?   

I started in radio making tea for the breakfast announcer, reading papers, finding interesting stories and researching information to make great, compelling content for radio listeners each morning.  This was hard work but one of the most interesting roles I have ever had because you did not know what was going to happen each day.  If you have passion for media, you will find a way in via an internship, work experience or entry-level role. Then learn as much as you can from the best people and care about what you produce and deliver to clients every day. That is a great foundation for long career in media. 

What do you get up to outside of work?   

I love to travel and experience different cultures, so I am always planning my next adventure.  Recently I have visited Langkawi in Malaysia, Jakarta in Indonesia and The Azures in the North Atlantic Ocean.  Thankfully, Singapore is an amazing place to live due to its proximity to some of the most beautiful places in Asia.  It’s a 45 minute boat ride to get to Bintan or a 2 hour flight to eat in Bangkok or walk the temples of Angkor Wat.  

If you could quickly and easily learn any new skill, what would it be?   

Other languages. I’d love to be fluent in Japanese and Mandarin. 

Share a memorable adventure or travel experience you’ve had during your free time. How did it impact your personal growth or perspective?    

My first trip to Cambodia in 2007 was life changing and resulted in many more visits.  It was a humbling experience and eye-opening to the privilege I had taken for granted. A simple act like buying rice supplies, reading to children, teaching a sport or giving books to a school had an enormous impact on many lives and I have been very grateful to be able to contribute.

Talon Benchmarks: Enhancing OOH Effectiveness

Lucy Baumgartner, Senior Effectiveness Executive at Talon shares the need to know on Talon’s OOH Benchmarks.

With over 10 years’ experience planning and executing Out of Home (OOH) campaigns, Talon have always prided ourselves on thinking outside. We champion the OOH medium that is more effective and more measurable than ever before.  

At Talon, campaign effectiveness is underpinned by a simple but sophisticated benchmark database – which is unlike any other available in the market. With our extensive knowledge of OOH measurement and through following a consistent measurement framework, we have collected a wealth of data covering almost 200 campaigns which provides unique insight into OOH’s effectiveness.  

This data is fundamental to Talon’s planning cycle and forms the bedrock of campaigns. In this series, we will be deep diving into the interesting world of OOH effectiveness.

What are benchmarks and what do they tell us? 

“Benchmarks” is a word that is used a lot when it comes to effectiveness, but what are they? What do they mean and why are they imperative to OOH planning? 

In the world of measurement, synonymous with acronyms, jargon and countless metrics, understanding campaign results and performance can be confusing. Benchmarks are a fundamental part of simplifying this process. They allow us to accurately assess and understand campaign performance by providing an essential point of comparison, giving us the ability to compare performance to wider norms.

Additionally, they provide our clients with the context to effectively assess whether a campaign’s objectives have been achieved. Reporting an uplift in any brand metric is fantastic, however without understanding the context and norms of our channel, that result doesn’t mean a lot, and the campaign could be underperforming against industry standards.

How have we created our Talon Benchmarks? 

At Talon, campaign measurement doesn’t stop at individual clients and brands. A consistent measurement approach across clients, with a standardised methodology and questionnaire, has allowed us to merge and amalgamate all the data from our brand uplift studies over the past six years, creating a rich database of campaign results. From this database, average uplifts across all brand metrics have been created, providing the much-needed point of comparison that campaign assessment requires. For example, on average OOH drives an uplift of +6% in brand awareness and +7% in purchase intent.

Watch this space for more Benchmarks insight… 

While at their surface, our Talon benchmarks are simple, in this series we will explore how layers of analysis into this database provides highly sophisticated insight which underpins Talon planning strategies, informs OOH’s role in the wider media landscape and helps answer industry wide questions.

In an age where data serves as the cornerstone of effective decision-making, harnessing its power has become a non-negotiable for businesses throughout the marketing and advertising industry. Talon recognises this imperative and has been using Ada to deliver audience-first campaigns for some of its biggest clients since its launch in 2018.

Constantly consuming billions of real and recent audience data points has allowed us to launch a new Ada dashboard for people across the agency to access instant insights. The Ada Insights Dashboard builds on the success of the Covid Audience Dashboard, which proved to be an effective and valuable tool that produced intelligent, data-led recommendations during unstable circumstances. The new dashboard continues to embrace Ada Lovelace’s (Ada’s namesake – a pioneer in computer programming) innovative spirit by simplifying access to unparalleled audience insights, making planning data-driven OOH campaigns more accessible. 

Tailored to the unique needs of the outdoor advertising landscape, the Ada Insights Dashboard has evolved to better visualise granular audience behaviour across the UK. This data is used to optimise when, where and how OOH campaigns are deployed to achieve maximum exposure and engagement for our clients. Our proprietary DMP, Ada, houses footfall data to nearly 1 million Points of Interest (POIs) over the past 12 months. We use this data to better understand how audience behaviour varies across days, regions, and categories alongside the payback OOH can deliver. Ingesting over 1 billion location observations via SDK data, the platform filters footfall data by category and region to inform and optimise planning strategies for our clients. 

The Ada Insights Dashboard enables Talon’s planning teams to: 

This dashboard, combined with Talon’s other proprietary AdTech platforms, wealth of effectiveness data and experienced planning experts ensures that we are continuing to deliver the best OOH solutions and successful outcomes for our clients. 

Luke Willbourn, new UK MD said that the Ada Insights Dashboard is a great tool for Talon to enhance our audience-first planning with easier access to effective insights. “By simplifying complex data sets into instant actionable results and real-time updates, we’re able to craft campaigns that better resonate with client audiences, ultimately driving greater engagement and return on investment”. 

In an era where data reigns supreme, tools like the Ada Insights Dashboard makes data-driven OOH planning simpler. At Talon, we believe that strategic audience-first insights are the foundation for effective OOH campaigns. 

Harvinder Sokhal: An Inside Look at Talent and Innovation at Talon

Outside thinking – it runs in the Talon family. We pride ourselves on being a company built on people with big ideas. People who constantly challenge themselves and the industry to re-imagine and re-invent the possibilities of what Out of Home can be. ​

In this series, we’ll be getting to know more about the people of Talon, their roles, advice and what they get up to outside of OOH. This week, we sat down with Harvinder Sokhal, who is currently enrolled on our year long paid internship programme.

Explain your role?  

I’m currently an intern at Talon in their UK office. I started in the international team and have been rotating every two months between the Product & Data, Compass, Marketing, Grand Visual and Investment teams. 

What does a typical day at work look like for you?  

My role is varied, meaning my days are not necessarily typical. Most of my time is spent supporting the team I am currently in on an ad hoc basis. Sometimes I could be working on project for a few days at a time, and other days I might be drafted in to help finish a report which will be presented the next morning! Previous tasks have involved me collating airport site specifications for the international team, interpreting and presenting campaign data for the Effectiveness team and collecting campaign photography for the Compass team.  

What do you enjoy most about working in OOH?    

I really enjoy the collaborative and people focused environment that the OOH industry provides. I enjoyed meeting new people at university and it’s great to have that in a professional aspect too. Also, being able to see your work created into a tangible object that is seen by millions is fascinating to me and I consider OOH to be one of the more creative and intelligent media industries. 

Most memorable moment or achievement from your time in the industry?  

I am very new to this industry, so can’t say I can think of a single moment right now but attending the Campaign Tech Awards and seeing some brilliant people and campaigns win awards was amazing! Being invited to AdWeek Europe was a real highlight too, as I got to listen to industry-leaders, and I even made a couple of new LinkedIn connections. 

Any tips or advice for someone interested in joining the industry or pursuing a similar career path?  

I would say to keep an open mind when it comes to opportunities, as there are so many that pop up without you thinking about it. Working in OOH can seem full on at first but that comes with chances to learn and progress in your career. As it’s a people orientated industry, you’ll always find support and a friendly face which is good to know. 

What do you get up to outside of work?  

Interestingly, I can’t say I have many major hobbies but most of my time is spent being with my loved ones – whether it be family, friends, or my partner 😊. 

If you could quickly and easily learn any new skill, what would it be?  

Probably the ability to talk to animals as I’ve always wanted to know what they’re thinking!  

Share a memorable adventure or travel experience you’ve had during your free time. How did it impact your personal growth or perspective?   

I went on a 6-month exchange programme to Singapore as part of my degree course! My best mate and I wanted to go somewhere new, far, and exciting so it was an obvious choice. It was quite hard to settle in at first – the humidity, culture and missing home took its toll. But then I remembered why I was there… for the experience!  

I relished the opportunity and ended up joining the UN Students Association and a dance group, travelling to Thailand and Malaysia (4 times!) with new friends and most importantly, an experience that challenged me to make the most of life.  

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Cannes 2023: Talon & Grand Visual’s OOH Highlights

Cannes is the world’s biggest celebration of creativity – bringing the industry together to discuss the future of creativity and its challenges. This year, AI and sustainability were the talk of La Croisette, alongside celebrations of the Cannes Lions winners.  

The Talon and Grand Visual teams flew the flag for Out of Home with a jam-packed week of activity. Keep reading for our key takeaways from Cannes 2023.

Celebrating Big OOH ideas 

As always, the work showcased at Cannes Lions was exceptional, with winners pushing boundaries and demonstrating creativity’s potential for positive change.

British Airways and Uncommon Creative Studio were awarded the Grand Prix – Outdoor Lion for their captivating campaign “A British Original. The work, which broke in October last year, was made up of 512 executions around the reasons why people travel such as to see loved ones, get engaged or “eat the unpronounceable”. Talon loved planning and bringing this OOH campaign to life with MG OMD.

Budweiser’s “This Billboard Is Yours to Take,” also received a Bronze Media Lion, and was a favourite of many we asked in Cannes. Grand Visual, our creative OOH production agency, worked on this fantastic OOH campaign with FCB New York.

Sustainability and the need for more action 

Sustainability took centre stage at this year’s Cannes Lions Festival, emphasizing the growing importance of environmental consciousness in the creative industry. The festival organizers announced the introduction of non-compulsory sustainability reporting to the entry process for all Lions awards. This move encouraged participants to outline the CO2 emissions associated with their submitted work, aligning with AdNet Zero’s five-point Action Plan. The goal was to benchmark best practices across global creative production and distribution, demonstrating a commitment to mitigating environmental impact. 

Cannes Lions 2023 showcased an array of inspiring examples of how brands can innovate their supply chains, products, and processes to reduce their environmental footprint. Winners like IKEA’s Life collection campaign in Norway demonstrated the power of storytelling to drive the adoption of sustainable social behaviours. By sharing authentic stories behind second-hand furniture purchases, IKEA highlighted the significance of sustainable consumption while avoiding the pitfalls of greenwashing. Weber Shandwick also won a bronze for turning turnstiles into a new energy source. This campaign reinvented turnstiles into prototypes of the world’s first underground wind turbines: the Turnstile Turbines. Two brilliant examples of how brands can make a positive impact on the environment while engaging their audiences. 

Across the week, the message was clear that more action is needed to address sustainability challenges. William Skeaping of Extinction Rebellion emphasized this urgency during a panel discussion. He highlighted the gravity of the crisis we face and stressed the responsibility of businesses to step up and make a difference. These calls to action served as a reminder that sustainability should remain a top priority for brands and agencies. 

Imagining what’s possible when you Think Outside 

Talon participated in various panels and discussions at Cannes, contributing valuable insights and OOH expertise across the week. Our Group CEO, Barry Cupples, joined a roundtable hosted by Campaign Magazine UK, addressing: How can brands find the sweet spot between short-term sales and long-term brand-building? This thought-provoking discussion explored the trade-offs and strategies that brands can employ for effective marketing, read more on Campaign.

In addition, our Group CEO Barry Cupples also engaged in discussions on programmatic DOOH and digital out-of-home at panels hosted by Outfront and the DPAA, respectively.  

Dan Dawson, Chief Creative Officer of Grand Visual shared his insights on the Little Black Book & Friends Beach panel discussion, “Can we really do Everything Everywhere all at once?”

As part of our commitment to supporting industry events and fostering meaningful connections, Talon sponsored Campaign Magazine ‘s Global VIP Cannes Party. This exclusive gathering provided an excellent opportunity for networking and celebrating creativity and innovation. 

We discuss OOH’s superpowers, our favourite OOH ideas, and creativity in the real world in our Talon in Cannes video. Watch now:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTqIq__Jfls

Talon Finalist at British Business Excellence Awards

Talon is delighted to announce a new award nomination, being shortlisted as a finalist in the Medium-sized Business category of the premier British Business Excellence Awards.

Talon is a pioneering global independent Out of Home (OOH) media agency focused on delivering effective, creative, data-driven integrated OOH campaigns. Combining independence with a collaborative approach, Talon promotes open and transparent working relationships between many of the world’s leading agencies, clients, and media partners. Headquartered in London with offices in Dubai, Dublin, Frankfurt, Manchester, New York, Nashville, Singapore and Toronto, Talon delivers OOH expertise at global, national, regional, and local levels. This nomination recognises our dedication to thinking outside to provide excellent service to our clients; the award champions sustainability, diversity, equality and those that have transcended expectations and limitations throughout the year. 
 
The British Business Excellence Awards is the elite business awards programme for businesses of all shapes and sizes. The awards host a year-long programme of networking events, round tables and exemplary judging processes, all of which will then culminate in a spectacular awards ceremony on Tuesday 14th November 2023 at the Grosvenor House Hotel, London.  

Sarah Austin, Founder & Director of the Lloyds Bank British Business Excellence Awards, commented on the announcement, “As the UK’s unrivalled celebration of business brilliance, resilience, and innovation – the Lloyds Bank British Business Excellence Awards takes centre stage – and this year is no exception. The anticipation is electrifying as we gear up for the grand event at the glamorous Grosvenor Hotel. 

Our excitement levels have hit the roof as we’ve witnessed a spectacular level of submissions across a wide range of dynamic industries – but with a real trend across the energy, recruitment, wellbeing, food & drink, and tech sectors, highlighting just how much the UK business landscape is thriving. 

Kudos to each and every finalist who has made the shortlist – your entries have truly left us in awe of your extraordinary talent and dedication, setting the bar high for what it means to be a champion in the business world. You’ve made us stand up and take notice, and we can’t wait to celebrate your remarkable achievements.” 

Sarah Parkes, Group Chief Sales & Marketing Officer, said: “We are delighted to have been announced as a finalist in the British Business Excellence Awards. It is a testament to our talented team, who embody what it means to think outside, delivering exceptional service for our clients, agencies and partners every day. At Talon, we prioritise sustainability, diversity and equality and it is brilliant to be recognised for this. Well done to all the finalists and fingers crossed for the 14th November.” 

Concept of emotional intelligence

Barry Cupples, our Group CEO, shares how embracing the concept of emotional intelligence changed his leadership style for the better with Management Today.

Lucy Baumgartner’s Talon Story: Leadership and Innovation

Outside thinking – it runs in the Talon family. We pride ourselves on being a company built on people with big ideas. People who constantly challenge themselves and the industry to re-imagine and re-invent the possibilities of what Out of Home can be. ​

In this series, we’ll be getting to know more about the people of Talon, their roles, advice and what they get up to outside of OOH. This week, we sat down with Lucy Baumgartner, our Senior Effectiveness Executive and also the recipient of the OMA’s Rising Star Award.

Explain your role? 

My main role is to provide campaign measurement solutions for our clients. I manage the measurement fieldwork with our research partners, and then create reports and run debriefs with clients, giving insight into how their campaign performed and future recommendations.   

What does a typical day at work look like for you? 

I usually get into the office early to beat the busy commute and check in on where our measurement studies are tracking. If studies have completed and we have received client data I will create reports, and if not I work on wider projects to inform industry questions. You’ll usually find me buried in our benchmark database and admiring my excel formulas.  

What do you enjoy most about working in OOH? 

I think generally it’s a very exciting channel. I love constantly pointing out our campaigns when I’m out and about (to the annoyance of my friends!) We’re also a very sociable bunch so the lunch time drinks are usually the highlight of the day. 

Most memorable moment or achievement from your time in the industry? 

Definitely winning the OMA’s Rising Star award and celebrating with all my colleagues and friends! 

Any tips or advice for someone interested in joining the industry or pursuing a similar career path? 

Don’t get too wrapped up in what you think you should do in your career. I studied history at university and absolutely hated numbers and presenting at school. Now analysing numbers and trends and presenting back to the company and clients is the largest part of my job and I thoroughly enjoy it.  

What do you get up to outside of work? 

At the moment, my favourite thing to do is look after my new niece. But when I’m released from babysitting duties I enjoy exercising and getting out of the city for walks.  

If you could quickly and easily learn any new skill, what would it be? 

Definitely learn a language, probably Italian so I could travel the country and eat my bodyweight in pasta and tiramisu.  

Share a memorable adventure or travel experience you’ve had during your free time. How did it impact your personal growth or perspective?   

I met my partner in Thailand at an elephant sanctuary after he offered me a banana – no pun intended.  

Copy of Talon Landscape Social Temp

After attending MAD//FEST 2023, Senior Effectiveness Executive, Lucy Baumgartner, discusses the hot topic of effectiveness and the importance of overcoming data-washing.

Balancing Quantitative & Qualitative: Evaluating Campaign Effectiveness

Moving to the forefront of industry events and brand and agency agendas, we’re hearing time and time again that the topic of effectiveness has never been more important. This was a key theme that ran through many of the panels and discussions at MAD//Fest last week, raising the question – How should campaign effectiveness be fairly assessed in an industry where short-termism and quantitative data is becoming the currency for success.

Pete Harbour, CMO of European Ice-Cream at Unilever, highlighted this dilemma in his provocatively entitled talk, “The Numbers Don’t Lie.” He convincingly argued how an over-reliance on quantitative data can have immense impacts on the planning of a campaign and its outcome as important insights into human behaviour, mindsets and attitudes can be overlooked.

At Talon, we recognise that audience behaviours need to form the heart of media planning, and our tech marries these qualitative behavioural elements (e.g. what fashion brands they are likely to visit) with robust quantitative Out of Home (OOH) measurement (e.g. what frames will deliver the most impressions to the target audience). This audience-first approach fuels our programmatic campaigns activated through Atlas, ensuring qual data informs smart automated buys of digital OOH.

Image Credit: Pete Harbour

So how do we start overcoming this data-washing at each stage of the planning cycle, and start to integrate consumer qualitative data into post-campaign assessment? As Harbour outlined, understanding consumer mindsets is crucial in planning an effective campaign, but it is also crucial in understanding why a campaign was successful, or didn’t hit the mark. Prioritising creative effectiveness is the first step. Research has demonstrated that fundamental to effective campaigns is the impact of creatives, a factor which is inherently human, and as Neasa McGuinness, Head of Strategy at Mother London said, “effectiveness is human”. Metric uplifts and declines can only tell you so much, and creative performance, which reflects emotional human responses cannot be ignored.

This is why at Talon creative performance is prioritised throughout the planning cycle. Talon Canvas, our eye-tracking tool is used to understand what aspects of a creative consumers dwell on. This was developed to provide clients with a chance to test their creatives before going live, ensuring measurement is being implemented from the start of a campaign, and that the most effectual creative is being used. This is particularly important in OOH. As a low dwell time media channel, we understand time is vital when grabbing consumers’ attention and conveying campaign messaging.

Talon Canvas focusses on attention metrics e.g. % fixating and double take. Whilst this quantitative data is hugely beneficial, we need to ensure that creativity is actually being measured and ensure it is not hidden within a vast array of numbers and stats. To overcome this, we intertwine creative response to our brand uplift studies, allowing us to score campaigns based on emotional engagement to a creative and campaign as well as giving respondents the chance provide written responses and feedback. These creative insights and verbatims have been fundamental in informing results and providing future recommendations to clients. But these two forms of measurement and data, both quantitative and qualitative, are overlayed to produce invaluable insights which also feed into channel and industry performance too.

Image Credit: Rachelle Headland

One example of this was observed across the finance, travel, gambling and FMCG categories. Benchmark analysis found that the inclusion of monetary deals and offers was highly effectual in driving bottom funnel metrics and purchase intent. However, there were some campaigns which included monetary deals but stood out from this trend. By moving away from solely relying on quant data and exploring the consumer verbatims, we learnt that there is a delicate balance between an enticing monetary deal, and one which seems unattainable and turns consumers away.

This relates closely to a point made by Emma-Jayne Paxton, Senior Brand Manager at Cadbury, that creative effectiveness is not just visual and the message you are relaying to consumers is just as important. In the case of monetary deals, looking at Talon Canvas results, we saw that consumers dwelt on those offers longer than any other creative aspect. However, had we not read into verbatims and understood thoughts and attitudes towards those offers, we would have assumed strong creative effectiveness without learning that respondents actually found the offers unrealistic.

Overlaying quant and qual data has allowed us to fully understand why some clients continually see strong levels of emotional engagement with their creatives. For example, a long-term measurement approach used for one of our clients demonstrated continual strong creative performance in their OOH activity. Eye-tracking data through Talon Canvas showed how their creatives continually over-indexed in engagement levels because consumers dwelled on the characters and faces included in creatives.

Image Credit: Ali Wallace

But industry wide research has already demonstrated that the inclusion of people and faces within creatives drives engagement. It was through overlaying these data points with consumer verbatims and attitudes that we learnt how the strong sense of inclusivity and diversity shown within those faces and characters made one of our client’s creatives resonate with consumers. Without that qual data, and only seeing the quant data in a silo, we would not have gained this valuable insight into consumer mindsets.

This knowledge is critical with industry wide research, as well as our internal Talon benchmarks, showing that creative has the single biggest impact on campaign effectiveness. This means that you can plan the most effective campaign in terms of all the quantitative data points (across reach, targeting the right audience, spend levels), but if the human, qualitative aspect of creative effectiveness is under par, your campaign performance will be impacted.

It was great last week to see at MAD//Fest industry leaders speaking on topics which are core to Talon. Effectiveness and creativity go hand in hand, and have long been synonymous with OOH, with brands using the channel to push boundaries and achieve cut through. But in an industry which is putting more and more emphasis on numbers, we need to evolve the way we view creativity and the fundamentals of effectiveness, and begin to place equal emphasis on emotional human connections.

Barry Cupples: Charting OOH’s Future – CEO Today Interview

Barry Cupples, our Group CEO, flies the flag for Out of Home in the June edition of CEO Today. In the article, Barry shares insight into his impressive career, his time at Talon and the exciting future ahead for OOH.

Read now on CEO Today.