Strategic Partnership to Fuel Groundbreaking OOH Creative Ideas for Agencies & Brands

Grand Visual and Whisk: A Dynamic Partnership in Advertising

New York – May 17, 2023 –Talon, the pioneering global independent Out of Home (OOH) agency, today announced an innovative partnership between Grand Visual, Talon’s creative OOH agency, and Whisk, the leading online emerging media platform. This collaboration marks a significant milestone in the OOH industry, enabling brands to revolutionize their advertising strategies and deliver ground-breaking, innovative, and impactful campaigns.

In today’s dynamic business landscape, brands are seeking advanced solutions to gain a deeper understanding of their audiences and deliver compelling advertising experiences that cut through the noise and supercharge ROI. The partnership between Grand Visual and Whisk addresses those exact needs.

Founded in 2019, Whisk has pioneered a cutting-edge AdTech platform that curates the best next-generation media channels and produces never-done-before ideas, enabling advertisers to diversify budgets and create innovative campaigns that align with their brand briefs. Grand Visual, Talon’s award-winning OOH creative services arm, brings extensive creative expertise to the partnership.

Grand Visual will now leverage its expertise to power Whisk’s OOH and experiential campaigns, pushing the boundaries of the medium and unlocking a new realm of possibilities. By combining their strengths, the partnership will deliver immersive, experiential, and unmissable concepts that guarantee unprecedented impact and results for advertisers. Together, Grand Visual and Whisk are reshaping the landscape of advertising, providing brands with unparalleled campaign experiences.

As audiences increasingly diversify their attention across multiple media platforms, Whisk fills a critical demand from brands to embed media diversification early into the campaign development process, and allocate their ad spend effectively and efficiently into channels, like OOH. Among all advertising mediums, OOH advertising stands out as the most effective in capturing consumer attention. According to a recent survey conducted by the OAAA and Morning Consult, an overwhelming 88% of adults notice OOH ads, with nearly 80% of those viewers inspired to take action.

Amy Still, Founder and CEO of Whisk, added, “The rapid pace of change in the OOH sector presents immense opportunities for brands to be innovative and make a lasting impact in their media plans. Partnering with Talon’s Grand Visual allows Whisk to offer our customers the most advanced solutions in OOH and experiential advertising worldwide.”

Commenting on the partnership, Jay Young, Chief Client Officer of Grand Visual, said: “We are excited to partner with Whisk and to be able to offer brands even more powerful creativity in OOH to help them reach their target audiences. The combination of our creative expertise and Whisk’s innovative technology platform is a game-changer for the industry.”

Barry Cupples, Group CEO of Talon, added: “I am excited to see this partnership between Grand Visual and Whisk. By combining our respective strengths, we’ll be able to provide advertisers with a truly unique and effective approach to OOH advertising. This partnership demonstrates Talon’s commitment to driving innovation in the OOH space and delivering measurable value for our clients.”

The partnership between Grand Visual and Whisk marks a pivotal moment in the OOH advertising industry. With a shared commitment to innovation, personalized messaging, and creating significant campaign impact which resonates with audiences and reaches consumers in a meaningful way in the physical world.

Tourism is returning to pre-pandemic levels and travel is leading the way as a top-spending advertising category so far this year. By leaning into data, technology, and creativity, destination marketers are building effective cross-channel campaigns that reach consumers throughout daily journeys, bringing captivating travel experiences to life that prompt consumer action.

Earlier this month, Talon US CEO, Jim Wilson moderated a panel, Data-Driven Omnichannel Strategies: Turning Data to Stories, at the eTourism Summit in Las Vegas.  

For the destination storytelling discussion, Jim was joined by panelists: Stuart Butler, CMO, Visit Myrtle Beach; Donald Lilley, Director of Technology and Business Intelligence, Visit Baltimore and Anna Strider, Director of Digital Strategy & Online Marketing, Visit Lake Charles.

Key Quotes & Takeaways:

“Our brand is a juxtaposition of our different destinations and what we have to offer. We’re looking at new and creative ways to get in front of our audience and we’re using OOH to get our message in front of a new audience. In making decisions, we focus on where that OOH placement is and who’s seeing it as it’s about reaching the right audience at the right place.” – Anna Strider

“Content is king, visitor experience is queen and visitor data is the crown jewel. We look at data from a lot of different perspectives. We use data to help us tell stories, look at what content is resonating and for audience-building. We hook people through content as a gateway to get people to come to our destination.” – Stuart Butler

“We’re using OOH for experiential, and we try to have playful interactions with people. Last year, we ran an OOH campaign that calculated the distance to our beaches so people driving down from Ohio and New York can see how much further before they arrive. We heard a lot of feedback that people loved that campaign, and it was our most commented piece that we’ve done in OOH — and people in our local community loved it.” – Stuart Butler

“For us, destination storytelling is about three components — authenticity by keeping it real, the engagement with the audience and the data. From a data perspective, we know that 53% of visitors to Baltimore are visiting friends and families. So, it’s important for those same family, friends and relatives to be part of our storytelling. Tourism needs to impact your community and our stories need to be about our neighborhoods and our minority-owned and women-owned businesses.” – Donald Lilley

London and Toronto – MARCH 20th, 2023 – Talon, the global independent Out of Home (OOH) media agency, today announced that it has acquired Novus Media Canada Corp, a leading specialized media agency, to further bolster its global presence and accelerate growth in the Canadian market.

Talon Expands in Canada: Acquires Novus Media for OOH Dominance

Under the ownership of Novus Media LLC, Novus Canada has leveraged its prowess for geography and understanding of location to build smart campaigns for agency partners and their many OOH advertisers.  In the past four years, the agency has grown into one of the largest and most respected OOH specialist agencies in Canada.

Approaching its tenth anniversary, Talon works with global brands such as PepsiCo, PUMA and BBC as well as leading agencies Omnicom Media Group, Havas and Stagwell, delivering the most effective, innovative and creative media solutions for OOH at global, national and regional levels. Talon secured new investment from Equistone Partners Europe in July 2022, providing the capital to support its global expansion both organically and acquisitively.

Talon’s acquisition of Novus Canada provides true independence and global access to best-in-class buying, planning, creativity and industry-leading technology platforms to enable all agencies and direct advertisers to connect with engaged consumers in their daily journeys in Canada and globally. With OOH poised to achieve 12% growth in Canada in 2023, Talon’s Canadian team will be equipped with Talon’s creative and technology-forward solutions to lead the OOH marketplace in Canada.

Talon Group CEO Barry Cupples said, “Our global agency scale and innovation focus sets us apart and the addition of Novus Canada marks another important step in our growth strategy. As the leading global independent OOH agency, we’re delivering best-in-class services, data and technologies that enable brands to take advantage of a resurgent Out of Home market.”

Out of Home has evolved into a sophisticated, data-driven and innovative medium – and Talon is at the forefront of the transformation. Through digitization, audience-based targeting, advanced measurement and unmatched creativity, Talon is helping brands and agencies re-imagine the possibilities of what OOH can do to deliver better outcomes for brands and add genuine value to the top and bottom line.

“As we embarked on our expansion strategy into Canada, we recognized that while many of our brands are cross-border, Canada is a unique and exciting market,” said Jim Wilson, Talon US CEO. “Novus Canada has established itself as the leading independent agency with stellar leadership, a specialist team and a track record of success. Joining forces gives us an even greater opportunity to realize our growth ambitions in North America, drive higher advertising market share into OOH, increase innovation in the market and unlock more value for brands in Canada.”

“Becoming part of Talon is not only an exciting opportunity for our Canadian Out of Home team,” said Melony Rios, CEO of Novus Media LLC. “It’s a win-win scenario for clients in Canada, for Talon, and Novus. Novus Media will continue to stay focused on our rapidly growing U.S. multimedia business delivering customized, fully multichannel media programs for marketers.”

Debbie Benadiba, CEO of Talon’s Canadian operation, said, “Not only will we be integrated and aligned with Talon’s strategic growth objectives, but we will also be positioned to leverage our combined best-in-class tools and technology for marketers. It positions us to be Canada’s largest, truly independent OOH agency that has compelling and competitive advantages for our clients and agency partners.”

Debbie is a media veteran, with leadership roles on the media vendor side with Bell Media and Rogers Media for more than 20 years, and leading Novus Canada since 2019. She currently holds board seats with DPAA, a global digital OOH trade association, and COMMB, a leading OOH industry association in North America and chairs WE.DOOH. DPAA’s Women’s Advisory board.

Unlocking OOH Value: Data, Creativity, and Growth

In the latest edition of Geopath OOH Office Hours, Talon America CEO, Jim Wilson joined Geopath President, Dylan Mabin for a conversation on how advertisers can take advantage of data-driven planning and targeting capabilities, emerging creativity, and outcomes-based measurement to unlock more value in OOH.

Key Takeaways:

A core mission is to utilize data-led technology to reduce friction in OOH buying and get more dollars into the medium. While advertisers have historically allocated just 4% to 5% of overall ad budgets to OOH, brands and agencies have shared that they’re planning to invest more in OOH over the next three years according to Talon-BWG research.

“We’re democratizing inventory and the ability to give advertisers access to real-time availability,” said Wilson. “This allows them to know what the best pieces of inventory are out there for them to use. This is a big part of reducing friction.”

Automation in the form of Programmatic OOH is another growth opportunity as advertisers look to leverage the speed and flexibility to change campaign messaging or delivery on the fly. “We’re seeing new clients coming to OOH with the use of programmatic buying,” said Wilson. “And this represents incremental dollars for OOH.”

Brands are pushing the creative boundaries of OOH with new technologies like full-motion digital video, AR/VR, and 3D creative – and this is becoming more mainstream with the growing use of dynamic creative capabilities in OOH. “We’re creating engaging experiences that delight consumers and drive behavior,” said Wilson. “It’s all about experiences and there’s no better medium than OOH for using data-driven creative to bring brands to life.”

Watch the full Geopath OOH Office Hours fireside chat here.