Plexus & Mediaplus: Elevating Global OOH Campaigns

Talon Group’s Plexus – a leading independent out-of-home (OOH) global network – today announced a strategic partnership with Mediaplus Group to provide OOH services to Mediaplus clients.

The partnership opens up new opportunities for both sides to implement cross-border OOH campaigns. 

Headquartered in Munich, Mediaplus is the largest independent and partner-managed agency in Europe, and develops multi-market strategic plans that are adapted for local markets, and enhanced with local media expertise and insights.  Leveraging Plexus’s full-service offering across digital and traditional outdoor media will further deliver on their ambition to link traditional and digital media planning with brand-specific target group models and media strategies. 

Part of the Talon Group, Plexus is the fastest-growing independent global OOH network, with over 20 Talon and partner offices around the world. Plexus plans and buys international campaigns in more than 75 markets worldwide for clients such as HSBC, Chanel, Bacardi-Martini, Airbus, Diageo, Virgin Atlantic, and Peroni.

Winfried Karst, managing director Europe, Talon Germany says: “We are delighted to have Mediaplus as like-minded entrepreneurial partners working closely together in the area of global OOH.”

Dr. Andrea Malgara, managing partner, Mediaplus Group commented: “Out of Home is a very regional medium that requires experienced specialists with knowledge of each market. Partnering with Plexus on cross-market campaigns enables us to deliver consistent, best-in-class OOH solutions for our growing portfolio of international clients.” 

Adrian Skelton, managing partner at Talon Group added: “We are really excited to be working with Mediaplus, and look forward to raising the bar with creative and innovative international OOH campaigns and demonstrating leadership in the ever-evolving space of programmatic OOH.”

Out of Home (OOH) specialist agency

Talon Outdoor, the leading global independent Out of Home (OOH) specialist agency, announces that Sarah Parkes joins in the newly created role of Chief Sales and Marketing Officer with immediate effect.

Reporting into Barry Cupples, Talon Group CEO, Sarah will lead corporate sales and marketing functions across the Talon Group to deliver against the business’ ambitious global growth goals.

Sarah moves from Global Media & Entertainment Ltd to oversee Talon’s new business and marketing function across the Talon Group. Sarah brings a wealth of experience to the role, having held board positions at Hearst, Airport Media and Primesight, alongside running her own businesses. She’s also an active member of WACL, YPO and Speaker for Schools.

Sarah Parkes, Chief Sales and Marketing Officer, commented:

“I am delighted to be joining Talon at such an exciting time for both Talon and the industry. As data-fuelled technology continues to drive huge opportunity for OOH, we are on the cusp of a genuine renaissance.

Talon has a fantastic team with a fantastic proposition focused on delivering smarter, creative, data-driven integrated OOH communications.  I am looking forward to being able to put my previous experience to good use to influence and grow our business and brand globally.”

Barry Cupples, Chief Executive Officer of Talon Group, Commented:

“We are absolutely thrilled to have Sarah on board. Sarah is an exceptional business leader and will be a driving force for the global alignment of our strategy as we continue to deliver our market leading position within OOH. Sarah has extensive experience in building successful sales and marketing strategies and teams and is focused and committed to driving the value equation for clients. We look forward to her making an immediate impact on the business.”

With the year behind us, knowing what you know now, what is one piece of advice you would give to your 2021 self?

Looking Ahead: The Future of Advertising in 2022 and Beyond

Looking at last year’s responses, the key themes were around, adapting, preparing for the unexpected and maintaining relationships. However, this year’s answers took a different view: 

“Continue to be proud to work in such a resilient and creative media channel,” said Jamie Finn. “It’s no secret that OOH was one of the hardest hit mediums during the pandemic – but it’s recovery and the fantastic quality of work that we are seeing shows how much brands value using OOH and I’m excited about how this can be further built on in 2022.” 

For Tom Perrett, “Being patient, but preparing to be adaptable. The audiences will return, and we have the data to be able to analyse and advise how this will happen across multiple markets. Too many times there has been false dawns, particularly over the recovery of international travel. Change and learning never stops and OOH has proven now more than ever how much of a flexible and adaptable medium it is.” 

Adding a data and insight perspective, Emily Alcorn, said, “Be prepared to do a lot of campaign effectiveness studies! Measurement will become more important than ever, even though budgets may be scrutinised to a greater degree, the need for clear evidence is at the top of all agendas. Demand for brand impact studies measuring the impact of OOH exposure on key branding metrics such as awareness, perception and consideration increased 2-fold vs 2020 and rose by 55% vs 2019 (Talon brand impact studies Jan-Oct2021).”

And finally, what would do you expect OOH & the wider media landscape to look like in 2022? 

Amy has three points to add, the first being, “I believe that the demand for bespoke OOH creative solutions will continue to grow exponentially with greater emphasis on delivering results.” In her second point, Amy adds, “Across the media landscape and OOH in particular, transparency and verification of campaign delivery will be at the forefront of client expectations which as an industry we need to work together better.” And finally on the topic of clients, Amy also suggests, “More clients will be using more digital and data for smarter targeting of out of home audiences.” 

James believes that “2022 will continue to build on a strong Q3 & Q4 ’21 and return to pre-pandemic revenues. Ada & Atlas will drive smarter execution for our clients and attract incremental revenue from digital spenders. We will continue to focus on improving our ability to measure client outcomes. OOH will play an important role in delivering young upmarket audiences to support TV schedules and provide the broadcast reach and delivery to complement online activity. Sustainability and ESG will be at the top of the agenda for clients and OOH has a big opportunity to be well placed in this arena.” 

Speaking from a TV & OOH perspective, Helen adds, “As advertisers continue to return to OOH, and at the same time factors affecting other media channels come into play (such as advertisers readying themselves for new HFSS legislation on TV) we expect to continue to see demand outstripping supply across the most sought-after broadcast OOH formats. The result of this will be a movement towards long term investment strategies from the most media savvy clients, and we expect to see OOH leading the charge as a broadcast media channel in 2022 & 2023.  

With technology and creativity at the forefront of Dan’s mind, he adds, “There has been much laudable technology and automation technique hitting the OOH space over the last few years. What the pandemic facilitated, due to the unexpected downtime, was a chance to take stock, rethink methodologies and technologies that aid the creative delivery of campaign creatively.”  

Our latest tools and techniques are ready to roll into the automated and programmatic OOH landscape that we find ourselves in, allowing creative to keep up with the ever-shifting sands of the OOH media landscape and helping ads and content be more responsive and appropriate for active audiences than ever before. Having creative tools that complement the wider Talon stack of technology stands our group in the perfect place to continue to lead the market.” 

Here’s to a successful 2022.

New York, NY and London. December 17, 2021 – Stagwell Inc. (NASDAQ: STGW) and Stagwell Media Network today announced a strategic partnership with leading out-of-home (OOH) media specialist Talon to accelerate global growth in OOH advertising. Talon joins Stagwell’s network to expand their collective global presence in offering smarter, data-driven, and creative-led OOH planning, buying, and proprietary technologies to advertisers.

Talon Partners with Stagwell for Global OOH Growth

With the outdoor movement returning to pre-pandemic levels, the global OOH market is rebounding quickly, achieving a 21.8 percent uptick this year and an expected 13.3 percent increase  in 2022, according to WARC. The combination of Talon’s deep investments in market-leading adtech platforms, including Ada, Atlas and Plato and strategy-led OOH leadership, and Stagwell’s global scale offers brands and agencies around the world a powerful path for accessing innovative capabilities to power outcomes-based OOH campaigns.

“The global digital OOH market is highly fragmented and represents an untapped growth opportunity and Talon has built an impressive portfolio of technology and service capabilities with a deep bench strength of OOH specialists,” said Jon Schaaf, Global Chief Investment Officer of Stagwell. “Our collaboration with Talon will help educate more brands and agencies across the global marketplace on the growing OOH opportunities for tapping into richer behavioral and location insights for quantifying the channel’s true impact across the customer journey.”

Barry Cupples, Talon’s Global CEO said, “The digital transformation of OOH is bringing game-changing opportunities for advertisers to apply modern, data-driven advertising techniques to target audiences and measure outcomes more precisely than ever. Stagwell is one of the fastest-growing and transformative creative services networks and we look forward to our collaboration in fueling our next stage of growth in making it easier for advertisers in more markets to access and execute captivating and performance-driven OOH campaigns that surround people’s everyday journeys.”

With its complementary media capability of global digital out of home, Talon joins Stagwell’s diverse network of Affiliate Partners providing unique solutions around the world. Designed to provide brands with capabilities to engage audiences during pivotal moments across cultures, Stagwell’s Affiliate Network spans a host of capabilities including e-commerce, scaled content and media.

This partnership comes on the heels of Talon’s rapid expansion in the U.S. market. Talon formed a strategic partnership with The Buntin Group to create a new entity named Talon-Buntin America that delivers scale, agility, and expanded capabilities for local and regional brands. In addition, Talon unveiled a new connected video offering, which unifies OTT and digital OOH (DOOH) advertising through a new partnership with MadHive. Earlier this year, Talon formed a North American partnership with Hivestack that makes OOH buying as frictionless as possible with self-serve access for advertisers.

The Out of Home media specialist will harness Experian’s data sets to gain deeper insights into OOH audiences.

Out of Home (OOH) media specialists, Talon, today announces its partnership with Experian, to enable brands and advertisers to target greater audience segments via Talon’s proprietary data management platform (DMP), Ada. The partnership will enable both Experian and Talon to drive their offering with a customer-centric approach based on transparency and data privacy.

Talon Partners with Experian for Enhanced OOH Audience Targeting

Consumer behaviours have changed as a result of the pandemic, with lifestyles now a hybrid between online and offline. As a result, advertisers need to be able to target audiences who aren’t loyal to one purchasing channel. Ada manages, aggregates and activates audiences through billions of consented location data points to create fresh intelligence on real-time and recent consumer behaviours. Talon is driving leading-edge and outcomes-based data-driven OOH audience targeting and campaign measurement by enabling advertisers to measure campaign effectiveness by tracking footfall and store visits.

The datasets provided by Experian’s Audience Engine platform gives a holistic look at a range of audiences, based on their likely characteristics and preferences. This partnership will enable brands to better understand their audiences’ OOH exposure while gaining a richer view on consumer movement across the UK.

Audience Engine helps brands and advertisers to make the most of rich data and insights to quickly create powerful campaigns with targeted and effective messages through the most suitable channels including mail, email, social media, programmatic, TV, and now thanks to the partnership, OOH too.

Josko Grljevic, Chief Transformation Officer at Talon comments: “Talon’s new partnership with Experian will provide valuable insights and audience segmentation to further increase a brand’s ability to serve targeted ads. Ultimately creating more effective OOH outcomes. This is a fantastic partnership which adds yet another layer of effectiveness to Talon’s data and insights capability”

Colin Greives, Managing Director of Marketing Services, Experian UK&I, comments: “Our partnership will enable greater targeting OOH opportunities and provide actionable insights for advertisers, creating a multi-faceted approach to reaching new audiences.

Talon has always focused on delivering smarter, creative, technology-led, and integrated campaigns and working with Experian will provide a new level of market-leading, granular insights to take its clients’ campaigns to new heights.”

Talon Outdoor, the UK’s leading independent Out of Home (OOH) media specialist, has further strengthened its international operations and capabilities with the acquisition of Poster Plan Limited (previously trading as Kinetic Ireland), one of Ireland’s leading OOH specialists.

This strategic acquisition continues to build Talon’s global reach, extending its leading-edge automation, data, resources and culture into new markets. As UK market leader, Talon has brought growth to OOH through its digital engagement, smart planning and proprietary technology that embraces a wider integration of data and behavioural planning capability. Talon has won numerous awards for its creativity, planning and people values, whilst bringing its expertise and technology to global markets, including the US and Germany.

Poster Plan was established in 1990 by co-founders Simon Durham and Carol Hogan and operates offices in both Dublin and Belfast.  The business delivers full OOH planning and buying capabilities, focusing on dynamic and data-led solutions for a wide range of agencies and clients.

The acquisition of Poster Plan follows the recent appointment of Andrew Sinclair as Managing Director. Andrew will lead the business with Aoife Hudson, Deputy Managing Director. Both Simon Durham and Carol Hogan will remain with the business.

Talon’s Group CEO Barry Cupples says:

“Having worked closely with Poster Plan for a number of years to deliver OOH campaigns for Talon’s clients in Ireland, this strategic acquisition was a natural next step. We are excited about the prospects for supporting the continued opportunity to drive the renaissance of OOH, by adding Talon’s service and solutions culture to Poster Plan’s deep customer relationships and strong reputation. We are delighted to be partnering with Group M in a new long-term relationship to support their clients and teams in delivering better outcomes.”

Speaking about the transaction, Andrew Sinclair said:

“This acquisition by Talon is a ringing endorsement of the strength of Poster Plan’s offering in the Irish marketplace, which provides an exciting platform for future investment in our people, product offering and position within this market. We look forward to enhancing our offering to our clients with benefits of  Talon’s industry-leading products, tools and technology.”

Simon Durham, Co-Founder of Poster Plan said:

“Today marks an exciting new chapter in our OOH journey and we are delighted to have completed the sale of the business to the Talon Group. Having been Talon’s exclusive partner in Ireland for some time, we have first-hand experience of their dynamism, forward-thinking and overall ambitions for showcasing the power of OOH.

Arriving at this point wouldn’t have been possible without the unwavering support of WPP/GroupM and their clients, and I would like to personally thank them for all their support in making this deal possible. We look forward to continuing that close working relationship with all Group M agencies and their clients.”

Poster Plan will continue to be the exclusive provider of OOH planning and buying services to GroupM’s client base in Ireland. Bill Kinlay, CEO of GroupM Ireland commented:

“Talon entering the Irish market represents an important and progressive step as they bring their experience and expertise to bear here. GroupM is looking forward to continuing the excellent relationship that we have had with Poster Plan for over 20 years, and to building on this with Talon going forward.”

Talon’s IPA Effectiveness Accreditation 2021

Talon is pleased to announce it is an IPA Effectiveness Accredited Agency. The IPA launched its inaugural IPA Effectiveness Accreditation, an endorsement that your agency culture is dedicated to business effectiveness, this year, announcing today that Talon Outdoor, along with 18 other agencies and the only OOH Agency to receive this award.

This accreditation certifies that effectiveness runs through the veins of our agency, demonstrating Talon’s ability to create an evidence-based economy within OOH. The judging process, conducted by a panel of leading brand owners, academics, authors and effectiveness specialists, was a rigorous process, through which we had to demonstrate how effective at Talon we are, from effective planning, tech and measurement.

This IPA seal of approval supports our Smarter as Standard philosophy and gives Talon credibility and confidence for our clients by demonstrating how integral effectiveness is to our agency business mindset.

James Copley, UK CEO commented: “We are very pleased to have been awarded the IPA Effectiveness Accreditation to proudly show that effectiveness is paramount at Talon. We continue to focus on client outcomes and driving effectiveness capabilities within OOH.”

Emily Alcorn, Head of Insight added: “As an OOH specialist, it is our role to challenge, lead and champion effectiveness within the industry. The IPA Effectiveness Accreditation endorses Talon’s role within OOH and our leadership in effectiveness.”

OOH Impact: Elevating Suicide Prevention Campaign

Prior to May 2021, Find Your Anchor, a grassroots suicide prevention, awareness, and education initiative; Born This Way Foundation, Lady Gaga’s nonprofit mental-wellness organization; and the Ali Forney Center, a nonprofit that provides housing and supportive services to LGBTQIA+ homeless youth, had relied heavily on Facebook to drive awareness of their public service announcement (PSA) – the Please Stay Pledge, a powerful suicide prevention project. However, the recent introduction of out-of-home (OOH) to their media mix has significantly elevated the campaign’s impact – and potentially saved young lives.

The integration of OOH yielded immediate and measurable results, driving a 66 percent increase in online pledge participants, a 32 percent rise in printed pledge downloads, and boosting website page views by 33 percent. In total, the 21-state OOH campaign generated 194 million impressions between May and July, a media value of more than $1.8 million. Talon America supported the campaign pro-bono, developing a media strategy and securing targeted media placements in partnership with Clear Channel Outdoor, Lamar Advertising, OUTFRONT Media, Pivot Media Ventures, Intersection Co., and New Tradition.

The nonprofits devised the launch of the Please Stay Pledge after a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) study painted a bleak picture of the nation’s mental health during the pandemic, including harrowing stats on the uptick in young adults considering suicide. The powerful PSA asks individuals to take a pledge to stay alive and tap numerous mental health resources via its dedicated website. The OOH campaign creative displayed compelling messages, such as “This is the sign you’ve been looking for.” and “We need you here,” which were specifically designed to interrupt suicide and encourage those contemplating self-harm to seek help.

“As a result of the Talon-led OOH campaign, online engagement and ultimately pledges have soared in a span of two months. What’s also notable is that before turning to OOH to amplify our suicide intervention and prevention message, the number one Please Stay acquisition source was Facebook. Now, thanks to our OOH ads, the primary source has shifted directly to our website, which is significant,” stated Ali Borowsky, Founder, CEO Find Your Anchor. “Guided by the talented Talon team, OOH has proven to be a powerful and highly effective channel to drive awareness and responses to our message.”

“Suicide is a serious public health problem, and it was an honor to join forces with Born This Way Foundation, Find Your Anchor, and the Ali Forney Center to directly address the matter,” said Jacqlyn Roberts, Talon America Client Manager. “We’re happy to do our part in disseminating life-saving public service communications that drive online engagement and increase pledges, possibly helping individuals through these trying and uncertain times.”

Throughout 2020 and into 2021, OOH has been an indispensable medium, lending its platform in a myriad of ways to thank essential workers for their tireless efforts and bring critical COVID-19 safety and vaccination messaging to the American public. The industry continues to leverage its extensive networks and formats to effectively target relevant audiences and extend the reach of impactful messages.

The Please Stay campaign was also featured in CampaignUS: Talon America elevated the Please Stay Pledge’s impact with targeted OOH media placements.

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.

After what feels like an eternity of face masks and social distancing, Freedom Day – for the first time in over a year – finally marks when we are able to start living life to the full again, and just in time for Summer.

Freedom Day Impact: OOH Opportunities Post-Lockdown

Vaccinations  

So far, around 88% of adults have had a first dose of the vaccine and around 68% have had both. Overall, vaccinations have been a success as the number of hospital admissions and deaths is dramatically lower than before the vaccination had been implemented. A decision for vaccinations for those under 18 is set to be confirmed in a matter of days. 

So, what’s different? 

One of the biggest industries, the travel industry, is set to resume business as normal again – albeit, with a traffic light system. Holidaymakers now have the option of travelling to:

The hospitality industry is also set to benefit significantly from the July 19th changes. With no capacity caps on large-scale events and no more limits on group gatherings, all remaining businesses, including nightclubs, are now able to reopen.

Excitement is in the air for Freedom Day 

A quick browse on Twitter and we were able to find hundreds of Brits excited for Freedom Day. Here’s just a quick snapshot of what they were saying, with a couple of users exclaiming their excitement for dancing again.

This is further backed up with a recent survey from REKOM Night Index, which found that a staggering 94% of young Brits plan to visit late-night venues and a further 56% plan to go out as often or more often than they did pre-pandemic.

Consumer Activity 

Last month saw a huge +13.1% increase in retail sales vs June 2019. Q2 2021 was also up +10.4% vs Q2 2019 – the highest leap on record! More importantly, the overwhelming majority are now comfortable visiting indoor spaces to shop.

International Travel 

With today marking the start of quarantine-free travel for fully vaccinated passengers returning from amber list countries – it’s no surprise that EasyJet saw a +400% increase in amber list bookings.

Airport OOH is the perfect environment to target these holidaymakers!

Staycations 

Despite the increase in bookings abroad, staycations still remain a popular alternative – with at least 62% planning to take a staycation this year. Roadside and local OOH is a great way to reach these holidaymakers as they travel to these destinations across the UK.

Travelling & Commuting 

With around 3.9 million unique tube travellers per month and steady ongoing growth amongst both rail and tube users, OOH and DOOH is the perfect solution for reaching both commuters and people choosing to spend time in the cities.

Those choosing to work from home has decreased, with only 22% working entirely from home and 27% of adults working from the office 5 days a week – up a fifth since March.

So, there are huge positives around audiences out of home. Brands can be confident in targeting these audiences to drive engagement, brand awareness and action. July 19th brings numerous opportunities around events, the return of commuters and those socialising for brands putting their best creative foot forward for recovery in 2021.

For more information, please contact marketing@talonoutdoor.com or get in touch with your Talon Planner to discuss OOH opportunities within the mall and retail environment.