One of the most promising things of Digital Out of Home is the ability to make use of data triggers to enlarge relevance. This article covers five examples of Dutch brands’ usage of data in their DOOH campaigns.
In display marketing, data has driven smarter and more targeted campaigns for years. As Out of Home takes on more of the characteristics inherent to online, the same opportunities exist for targeting outdoor advertising campaigns. Here you can read how five Dutch brands use data in their Digital Out of Home campaigns.
Although outdoor advertising is one of the oldest advertising tools, it is thriving and flourishing like never before. Recently, industry association Outreach reported a more than doubling of Out of Home (OOH) spending in Q1 2022 compared to a year ago. Digital Out of Home (DOOH) accounted for the largest growth. JCDecaux also confirms, after a tough Corona year, a significant recovery in group turnover in 2021. The driver: ‘a forceful digital revenue growth’.
In addition, DPAA sees a growing interest in the channel. A 2021 survey among advertisers shows that 77% have updated their knowledge on DOOH in the past 18 months. 81% said they recommend it in their media plans for 2022.
Programmatic DOOH: Targeting opportunities from digital back to real-world interactions
Underlying this revival of the OOH industry is the shift to digital. Across Europe, media owners are rapidly digitising their billboards. This already made it possible to show moving advertisements on outdoor advertising screens in addition to static ones. Moreover, outdoor advertising operators also made their DOOH inventory available programmatically.
Flexible purchasing
With this shift to automated purchase of outdoor advertising spaces, the age-old channel is increasingly adopting features and benefits of online advertising. Using DOOH-specific Demand Side Platforms such as Sage+Archer, you can effortlessly purchase DOOH inventory from all DOOH operators based on specific conditions. The campaign only goes live – and advertisers only pay – once these conditions are met.
Dynamic DOOH creatives
In addition to the flexible purchasing options, it also offers the possibility of displaying a specific message or creation in a specific location and/or context. With dynamic DOOH ads, specific content, based on a chosen condition or data feed, is automatically loaded onto the screen. For example, a supermarket brand can automatically show barbecue promotions when the mercury rises. And automatically show a more generic offer when the weather turns.
Five data categories in Digital Out of Home
But what type of data can you use in out of home? Programmatic DOOH may not offer the same kind of one-to-one targeting that has been used (and abused) in online and mobile advertising campaigns for years. But there are plenty of future-proof features that can help increase relevance in out-of-home advertising campaigns.
Digital Out of Home currently has roughly five data categories and targeting options:
- Location: regions, localities or point-of-interest (points of sale/supermarkets, schools, cinemas, etc.)
- Time: times, days (of the week)
- Environment: weather conditions or traffic and crowdedness
- Audience-index: students, families, motorists
- The brand’s own customer insights (first-party data): visitor data, purchase data, search behaviour
The existing triggers can be used alone or in combination. Which makes it an interesting, but also creative playing field. Below are five well-thought-out practical examples of brands and agencies from the Sage+Archer (S+A) platform:
Real-time appointment trigger for every Schoonenberg Hearing service location in Out of Home campaign
Data trigger: Own customer insights (first-party data) via Channable API + location
Schoonenberg is a hearing specialist in the Netherlands. The end of the year is an important time for consumers and companies in this sector. After all, the level of compensation for a hearing aid depends on the deductible used in health insurance. For this reason, the hearing specialist wanted to achieve extra coverage around Schoonenberg locations. However, only when of value to that service location. That is, when there was sufficient availability for a hearing test appointment.
To achieve this, media agency Yonego opted for a data-driven DOOH strategy using location and own data. Using the point-of-interest (POI) generator in the Sage+Archer platform, the agency created a customized screen targeting list. This included all potential digital screens within a 1.5 KM radius of the participating service locations.
The campaign was then linked to a Channable API that centralised the appointment inventory of each participating shop into a feed. This feed was not only used to activate the campaign in the right place at the right time. It was also used for a location-based creation, where the ad showed the closest service location.
In this way, Schoonenberg and Yonego spent the media budget only on Schoonenberg locations that could best use the attention of consumers at that moment.
The Schoonenberg campaign used dynamic (HTML5) creatives that automatically loaded the address of the nearest Schoonenberg with appointment availability.
Source: Presentation by Schoonenberg and Yonego at the Data + Digital Out of Home Summit on 24 May, organised by Sage+Archer, JCDecaux and VIOOH.
Radio campaign trigger for synchronised Out of Home campaign
Data trigger: Radio scheduling (Time) via a custom API. The campaign of cadeaubon.nl was visible at the exact moment that the radio commercial was broadcasted on different radio stations.
Radio and Out of Home have been a favourite marketing tool among marketers for years. This is due to the fact that radio is widely consumed in cars and there are plenty of advertising billboards along motorways and main roads. With this knowledge, ABOVO Media also developed a cross-media campaign for Cadeaubon.nl in which Radio and Out of Home were part of the strategy to reach consumers.
On top of that, the agency found a clever way to further strengthen the synergy between these two channels. It used the radio broadcast schedule of the commercial as the condition for when the Out of Home campaign should be visible. By linking a radio scheduling API to S+A’s purchasing platform, Cadeaubon.nl and ABOVO Media managed to automatically trigger the campaign around the same time when the radio ad was played. This way, drivers heard and saw the Cadeaubon.nl campaign at exactly the same time.
Luxaflex Out of Home campaign activates when it’s the ideal weather for mosquitoes
Data trigger: weather conditions (environment)
Luxaflex offers a variety of window coverings, including mosquito screens. It keeps insects out while allowing you to enjoy the fresh air. The brand sees that consumers start looking for mosquito prevention when the problem arises: the first buzzing past the ears. And that’s why Luxaflex wanted to be visible only during this moment of truth.
The moment of truth for Luxaflex can be predicted on the basis of meteorological signals. Namely, mosquito activity increases from a temperature of 20 degrees Celsius together with high humidity. But, in a country like the Netherlands, these conditions vary by day and by region. This calls for flexible and efficient solutions. Therefore, Luxaflex used programmatic Digital Out of Home based on a combination of the aforementioned weather signals to automatically activate the insect screen campaign with the ‘perfect’ mosquito weather. And did the weather conditions predict low mosquito activity? Then the advertisement for sun blinds or black-out window coverings was simply shown.
Real-time visitor data triggers for Digital Out of Home campaign for Moco Museum
Data trigger: Own customer data (first-party data) via custom API + location
The contemporary art museum Moco Museum wants to reach its full visitor capacity. Thanks to an API link between the live visitor data of the Moco Museum and the purchasing platform, it shows advertisements around the museum in off-peak hours when visitors are most welcome.
Audience targeting in Out of Home for reaching families in Belgium
Data trigger: Own customer insights (first-party data) via custom API + location
To promote Walibi Halloween in Belgium, Dentsu International set up a Digital Out of Home campaign using audience targeting. A targeting option whereby specific ads are shown at locations and moments where the coverage of the chosen target group is high.
Audience data in Out of Home media is realised thanks to an international partnership with data provider Adsquare. Adsquare uses up-to-date mobile data sources to assess where (location) different target groups are spread over a day (time). And it links to this information the locations of nearby DOOH screens of all outdoor advertising owners in Belgium, among other countries. Linked to the S+A purchasing system, the system automatically bids for screen locations and times at which the target group’s index is the highest. The result was that Walibi Belgium automatically showed their outdoor advertising to the right audience at the right times and the right places.
Thanks to the audience targeting option, Walibi Belgium could fully automatically show an advertisement at locations and times where the index of the target group was measured the highest (by Adsquare). The heatmaps in the image above visualise the result in terms of delivery: based on Adsquare data, at 6 o’clock in the morning the ad was shown on only a few high traffic locations. Around 10 am, this is much more spread out over the region and the frequency is higher.
Source: Presentation by Dentsu International at the Data + Digital Out of Home Summit on 24 May 2022. Organised by Sage+Archer, JCDecaux and VIOOH.
The Netherlands as the star performer in data-driven Digital Out of Home campaigns
The use of a single or combination of data triggers in Digital Out of Home makes it an interesting playing field. It is one of the reasons why in several countries in Europe, interest in the channel is growing – and so is the activity on our platform.
Compared to other European countries, we see Dutch marketers creating cool and valuable data-driven Out of Home campaigns with the aim to reach consumers more efficiently and effectively. We’ve earned this star status through the rock-solid cooperation between local outdoor advertising operators (including JCDecaux, Global, Clear Channel, Ocean Outdoor), international SSPs (such as VIOOH and Broadsign), data providers and local DSPs. That’s what really made the programmatic infrastructure in the Dutch OOH industry accessible.
But, the game is far from over. It’s important that we continue to invest time and energy in the development of further valuable data solutions. Because, in my opinion, that is what the OOH industry deserves.