Increasing data and technological advances mean that outdoor advertising provides more than just reach and frequency, says Adshel chief revenue officer David Roddick. But he also said advertisers need to adjust their mind set to take advantage of what it offers.
Roddick spoke to AdNews following Adshel's announcement that it was tying up with Roy Morgan to use its geo-locating tool, Helix Personas,. It means its street furniture assets can now be audience-segmented into 56 identifiable personas, giving media agencies and brand advertisers the ability to “deliver the right message to the right people at the right time”.
Roddick said the industry is still trying to educate its clients on understanding that the targeting abilities of outdoor has changed.
“It's all part of a general movement to try and provide more value to the advertisers,” Roddick said.
“It is worth advertisers re-evaluating what OOH provides, because I think sometimes it is just viewed as a reach and frequency media, and it's certainly becoming more than that.
“It's incumbent on us to continue to fight that fight. It's certainly much too early to declare victory on that one, but advertisers are beginning to look at OOH.”
It's not the only push into data that Adshel has made.
Roddick touted the Outdoor Media Association (OMA) MOVE metric as another way outdoor media is pushing further into accountability. In addition, Adshel launched a beacons network in March, to build up the accountability of the outdoor medium, with functionality looking to be extended to provide advertisers with push notification capability.
“We're trying to get that combination of data points to add richness to what we can give to advertisers,” Roddick said.
“We want to understand who is passing panels at certain times, with what kinds of apps on their phone and that can give us insights into the people that we’re reaching. So it's trying to get beyond just the block broadcast, demographic data.”
While it is still early days for its beacons network, Roddick said the launch of the functionality has seen the company have conversations with both new advertisers as well as bigger conversations with existing clients.
He also said the company is in discussion with a number of advertisers on building the network to a push notification stage, but that there is a focus on ensuring it “adds value to clients”.
“There is a huge, diverse range of clients,” Roddick said. “What we're really gratified with is that everyone is very circumspect about push notifications. Clients know they've spent a long time building up their user base and so there is a sense of ensuring it's done right.”
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