Our Industry Profile takes a look at some of the professionals working across the advertising, adtech, marketing and media sector in Australia. It aims to shed light on the varying roles and companies across the buzzing industry.
Erin Koedam: sales director at Hivestack
Time in current role:
Two years and seven months.
How would you describe what the company does?
Hivestack is a global, full stack, programmatic digital out of home (DOOH) ad tech company with a suite of proprietary products and solutions including a Demand Side Platform (DSP), Supply Side Platform (SSP), Ad Server and the industry’s first DOOH Header Bidder.
On the buy side, marketers use Hivestack’s DSP to plan and deliver measurable campaigns that activate DOOH screens in real-time based on consumer behaviour and audience movement patterns.
What do you do day to day?
My overarching daily objective is to deliver best-in-market product and service to our customers and partners. A typical day includes jumping on calls to lead on commercial conversations with our agency and media owner partners, working collaboratively with our teams to grow critical new partnerships. Most of my conversations are rooted in a desire to educate the industry on the latest developments and innovations within the programmatic space.
Define your job in one word:
Evolving.
I got into the industry because:
I saw the future of out of home as programmatic - fully automated, targeted and measurable.
What’s the biggest industry wide challenge you’d like to see tackled?
In simple terms, how we can come together as an industry to solve for a cookieless future. Channels that rely less on cookie tracking technology to initiate one-to-one connections with individual customers have started to gain momentum and there is real potential in this space.
An example of this is within the out of home (OOH) channel itself - as opposed to looking for individual connections, OOH leverages user behaviours at a macro level to connect brands with crowds of people (for example, in malls or on roadside environments) through contextual targeting, also known as a ‘one-to-many’ approach. In this way, we can see that context really is king.
Previous companies:
JCDecaux for seven years.
Notable campaigns/initiatives:
I’ve really enjoyed seeing the power of addressable DOOH come to life using DCO via the Hivestack DSP. We are working closely with GroupM Sightline, EssenceMediacom and Hogarth to streamline DCO delivery using VAST tags which is a really innovative space for our industry. We’re currently running a campaign for COEX (Container Exchange) which calls out local suburbs in Queensland and counts the number of cans recycled in a live tally, displayed across targeted DOOH screens.
DOOH as an addressable and contextual channel is gaining a lot of interest in the programmatic space and can drive more impact, engagement and recall for brands and this ease of activation will play a big part in driving demand.
Who has been a great mentor to you?
It may sound cliche but I would say my Mum has always been my greatest mentor! As a single mum, she’s worked hard and embodies the strong, career driven woman I aspire to be. She does it all while being compassionate and doing so much for others.
Words of advice:
People won't always remember what you said but will never forget how you made them feel.
If I wasn’t doing this for a living:
Maybe my DJ career would have taken off?
My philosophy is:
Embrace change and always be open to new experiences.
My favourite advert is:
The Carlton Draught “Big Ad” - such a classic!
Subscriptions:
Spotify, Netflix, Binge, Prime.
In five years' time, I'll be:
The media landscape will look very different with AI and automation at the forefront of decisioning. We will still need a human lens however and it is important that we protect our crafts and value the quality of people, passion and expertise that make our industry great.
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