Ooh!Media, which yesterday revealed an 18% spike in revenue, is investing heavily in data to revolutionise the way clients and agencies can plan and buy media across its network.
Brendan Cook, CEO of Ooh!Media, tells AdNews the “great challenge” outdoor has always had is being able to help people to plan which outdoor environments they should buy. By investing in data and building a tech stack to strengthen its digital and programmatic capabilities, Cook says Ooh!Media is changing that.
He says using its new data capabilities - a result of a partnership with Quantium - produces “material differences” in the media plans being executed for clients, compared to what they would have traditionally done.
Ooh! is working with a handful of major clients to trial the data-led approach and Cook says four of those have already increased their spend in outdoor following strong results.
Cook says Ooh! has described itself as a “location media” company for the past five years, which is why it has diversified into content, mobile and other assets beyond traditional outdoor formats. He also calls what Ooh! is building an “engagement ecosystem for content”.
“We’re fortunate that our audiences are not as disrupted [as publishers’] and technology is our friend - while its an old line it's a true line. Opportunities are brewing around how data at location is being captured and what that can drive in terms of what we can represent to the market,” he says.
“Those opportunities are allowing us to use the medium differently and find better ways to achieve results for our clients.”
He claims Ooh! has the broadest suite of assets, in the broadest geographical locations that aren't covered by the industry measurement system MOVE. So the company had to look for advanced data that would go beyond reach and frequency.
With Quantium, it developed a model based around transactional data to connect consumer habits with locations.
“It allows us to work with clients and find the best mix of inventories that will deliver more, whether they are current buyers, potential buyers, lapsed buyers, whatever the specific objective [of the advertiser]. The data set is so large, you can pretty much do anything with it, and doing that leads to a better result for the client,” says Cook (below).
“We’re running thousands and thousands [of campaigns] doing what we always did with the best intent with the data we had, and now running [campaigns] with the new data. We’re finding in many categories some quite material differences.
“Just as with digital online, tools that allow a client to reach their audience, attract more revenue, and what we’re clearly hoping is that this brings a greater science to the artform of planning and buying out of home at a specific location level, and we’ll also look at it on a bigger, macro level.”
Cook gives an example of a current major road in Sydney, which features two large billboards, both running the same ad for a car brand. He suggests the duplication is redundant, with the advertiser not getting any better result with two ads than with one.
He suggests the way Ooh! Media can now plan and execute campaigns based on location data would show there is no incremental value in placing two ads in such close proximity.
“We’re making it more scientific for [buyers] and making it easier for them and their clients to accept what they're buying,” he says.
Ooh! is also building a bespoke end-to-end tech stack, designed to “re-engineer” the way the entire business operates from sales and finance through to scheduling. More than half of Ooh!'s revenue now comes from digital.
Cook says while the company is currently still “immature” in terms of programmatic, its tech stack and data capabilities will help the business trade more effectively in the future.
“The systems that are built for out of home, realistically aren't going to work in a highly digitised environment. We used to do 40,000 physical installs a year. We’re now doing 120,000 digital changes a month. That requires a totally different operating platform,” he says.
Ooh! is six months into an 18-month journey to build the platform.
Cook outlined in the results call with analysts that the outdoor sector is outpacing the total market and he believes it can significantly grow its share of total ad spend.
“The data says the outdoor industry has a 5% or 6% share of total ad spend. The consensus is that it will reach 8%, I think it can be 10%, particularly as we see more fragmentation of consumer behaviour and habits. There's no reason we can't continue to grow our share of the wallet.”
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