DPAA Summit 2021 Talon: America CEO Jim Wilson on Growing OOH Spending

Talon CEO on Boosting OOH Spend

As OOH specialists and media owners invest in new technologies, how are advertisers shifting more dollars into OOH? Marketers are focused on reach and frequency but knowing that their media spend is effective at driving results is table stakes.

At last week’s DPAA Summit, Barry Frey, President & CEO of DPAA, conducted a fireside chat with Talon America CEO Jim Wilson on the transformation of OOH as an outcomes-based business – and Talon America’s accelerated growth journey fueled by data-driven innovations.

Among Jim’s key takeaways:

Growing OOH Spending with More Education

Digitization is transforming the opportunities for advertisers to be able to target and measure OOH more precisely in the same way as other dominant media channels – and reach large and diverse audiences quickly and simultaneously. But education is necessary to help brands and agencies understand this fragmented channel, which has been one of Talon’s missions to help simplify OOH planning and media buying for advertisers.

“We spend 70 percent of our time outside yet only five percent of advertising dollars go to OOH. The future of digital OOH is about local messages on local screens. We see tremendous opportunities to shift more dollars through education and by giving advertisers the tools to access inventory and audiences – and more importantly, prove that we can deliver measurable outcomes. This is our focus at Talon.”

Transforming OOH with New Tools & Technologies

From agency and brand research executed in partnership with BWG Strategies, the top client priorities are attribution and measurement, as well as confidence that they are hitting the right audiences. As such, the role of data and insights to inform media strategy has never been more important and Talon is utilizing data to drive cross-platform buying and deliver outcomes-based measurement.

“One of the biggest challenges for agencies in OOH is complexity. This is a highly fragmented market and there are still thousands of networks that need to be aggregated. Talon is solving this fragmentation through automation and aggregation by making it easier for advertisers to access OOH through our tools and platforms, such as Plato.”

Unlocking OOH’s Value with Cross-channel Video

One of Talon’s education topics is helping brands and agencies embrace the concept of ‘unsiloing OOH’ to drive more value and quantify the effectiveness of OOH in the larger context of the cross-channel media buy. The growth of digital video is fueling this movement from in-home to out-of-home and Talon recently launched an offering to help advertisers activate their cross-channel video strategy. 

“The biggest opportunity for OOH is in customer journeys – and to shift dollars from declining broadcast to create DOOH video extension from OTT. We’re enabling advertisers to start an OOH journey in-home and end it outside the home.”