JCDecaux, QMS tout effectiveness of growing programmatic out-of-home propositions

Programmatic out-of-home’s full-funnel impact was firmly put in the spotlight this week after JCDecaux officially took the wrappers off its programmatic proposition and test campaign results, and QMS released fresh effectiveness findings on its latest programmatic campaign.

After first touting plans to bring programmatic to its offering at scale to market in 2019, JCDecaux has officially taken the wrappers off its scaled programmatic proposition. The out-of-home (OOH) provider is claiming to be the first publisher locally to trade 100 per cent of its digital roadside inventory programmatically.

As part of the launch, JCDecaux said it has set aside at least 5 per cent of its primary digital networks on an hourly basis to be published via an exclusive supply-side platform, Viooh. This marketplace was created by JCDecaux in 2018 in the UK and is currently trading in 12 markets globally. It hopes to reach 18 markets by the end of the year. The company has been working with Hivestack, Vistar and Verizon Media and has just integrated with The Trade Desk.

JCDecaux executive GM of revenue strategy and operations, Cassandra Cameron, said out-of-home is primed for its next big step change, to ensure relevance and growth for the next 10 years.  

“2020 has provided the impetus for JCDecaux to accelerate this change, propelling out-of-home into a truly data-driven, real-time, digital media channel. Programmatic out-of-home used to just be an idea, but it’s now very much a reality,” she said.  

In a virtual event celebrating the launch of the new programmatic capabilities and Adobe partnership, Tourism Tasmania CMO, Emma Terry, shared why the tourism body had been a test case for the programmatic digital out-of-home offering. The campaign represented phase two of Tourism Australia’s ‘Come down for air’ brand launch and was aimed at showing the depth and breadth of what Tasmania has to offer in.

In total, the campaign ran across linear TV, BVOD, radio, digital and social channels as well as OOH.

“We originally launched the campaign just before bushfires and COVID hit and it was about creating the air and space and landing the feeling,” Terry said. “This latest strategy was about pulling through the feeling but also showing Australia who have experienced border closure and lockdowns what it’s like to feel more human again and what Tasmania can offer them in terms of reconnecting them with people and place.”

There were three main benefits in booking programmatic digital out-of-home, Terry said. The first was the flexibility and agility to change things up as needed and based on the fluid environment existing around campaign work. In particular, this saw Tourism Tasmania able to turn specific screens off and on as lockdowns, restrictions and other situations emerged around Australia’s COVID response. The agency was also able to dynamic change the 10-second creative mid-flight, both in response to the market plus how the campaign was performing.

The second reason was being able to target audiences and reach those at micro level, making it more effective. Finally, Tourism Tasmania was attracted by the ability to track and measure impact of the programmatic out-of-home on the campaign, Terry said.

“Every marketer wants to see the results when we do a piece of advertising and if it’s leading to a particular behavioural change we are looking for,” she said. “In our case, it was about intent to travel to Tasmania.

“Our brand study on programmatic show it’s [digital out-of-home] has been a key lever in both planning and intent, and a 10 per cent uplift in intent for people to come to Tasmania who have been exposed to the out-of-home media.”

“During this campaign, we were able to monitor a 32 per cent lift in consideration and 10 per cent lift in travel intent to Tasmania,” said Vistar media sales director, Ben Baker.

Tourism Tasmania is one of a number of clients who have been testing the platforms over the pilot period. JCDecaux added close to 20 per cent of advertisers running campaigns were new or lapsed to the company across the test phase of launching digital programmatic out-of-home.

Audience data management

As previously reported in CMO, JCDecaux has also struck a new partnership with Adobe as it works to build more audience-led and dynamic targeting capabilities that support its digital and programmatic proposition.

The partnership will see JCDecaux’s platforms integrated with Adobe Audience Manager. This will allow advertisers to have audiences created within the JCDecaux environment directly fed into Adobe’s platform for segmentation, augmentation and digital marketing activation. It also gives advertisers a mechanism to identify which out-of-home locations their audiences are most likely to interact with and conduct marketing activities with JCDecaux based on these insights.

The integration has been made possible by JCDecaux’s work with mobility data provider, Adsquare, to capture identified mobile devices frequently exposed to its out-of-home locations. Off the back of this, the company said it’s built what it’s calling a ‘JCDecaux universe’ that forms the basis of its data management platform (DMP).

“Up until now, there has been a hard barrier between connecting with audiences online and offline,” JCDecaux chief marketing officer, Essie Wake, said. “JCDecaux’s partners can now begin to transcend the divide between offline and online marketing activities, enabling digital native brands to transition easily into our world of public screens.”  

QMS touts reach and effectiveness  

Meanwhile, QMS this week also released results of a new study conducted by customer intelligence platform, Lifesight, that used mobile identity to verify the impact of its latest digital out-of-home campaign. The campaign was again for the tourism and travel sector.

The four-month study reportedly attributed more than 2000 tourist visitors who booked a trip as individuals as being exposed to the campaign via QMS digital outdoor sites. The research achieved this by correlating the exposed mobile identifiers of those had the opportunity to view a QMS digital outdoor site before booking and taking a trip to the advertised destination. The name of the client was not disclosed.

QMS’ GM of programmatic and large format, David Sutherland, said the results demonstrated how clients are embracing programmatic digital out-of-home (pDooh) effectively as part of their broader media campaigns. He also saw the results highlighting how outdoor channels can be used beyond just awareness medium to impact further down the traditional marketing funnel.

To date, QMS said it’s delivered more than 150 programmatic digital out-of-home campaigns across its digital network of large format billboards, street furniture, airport and retail locations. But fast-tracking its mobility data offering through COVID-19 saw client interest accelerate, Sutherland said.

“Our focus for the last three years has been to collaborate with all DSPs and SSPs to provide a truly agnostic approach for agencies and advertisers. We see the potential in how pDooh can enhance the media mix of campaign with real results and view this as major step forward in helping propel the overall growth of the OOH sector here in Australia,” he said.

QMS’s SSP partners include Hivestack, Vistar, Broadsign. It’s also working with major DSPs to provide a mix of programmatic buying including open exchange, private marketplace and guaranteed.

“The pDooh journey for outdoor in Australia has well and truly set sail,” Sutherland continued. “Despite the global pandemic, we again saw double-digit growth in pDooh for our business in 2020 and we are on track to see that grow exponentially this year as we bring traditional digital media spenders into OOH and help existing spenders in the sector with simple programmatic opportunities that enhance their traditional activity.”

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