Independent ad platform Amobee solidified its standing as a force in video advertising with its acquisition, early this year, of advanced software provider Videology. Now, a partnership with Place Exchange adds a new seamlessness to physical space and the screen world, for audiences as well as clients. Amobee calls this collaboration “one of the first truly programmatic marketplaces for out-of-home media.”
Given what can fall through the cracks, in terms of information, audience experience, and extra legwork on the agency side, this new marketplace promises to increase a campaign’s reach and efficiency.
“For an advertiser, the consumer journey and user’s potential interaction with their brand is what matters the most,” said Katie Ford, Chief Client Officer for Amobee. “A consumer journey encompasses interactions in both the digital and physical worlds. With the current solutions out there, one of the biggest challenges is that an advertiser has to plan and execute campaigns separately for digital and physical. It’s inefficient, complex, and, ultimately, the marketing intelligence suffers.”
This new paradigm makes the agency’s job more effective in placing out-of-home. Real-time data from foot traffic and other signals allows the brand conversation to continue with its audience, from street to phone and other channels.
“Through Amobee’s open real-time bidding integration with Place Exchange,” Ford explained, “we enable true real-time bidding and event-level data integration to seamlessly unify the workflow, reporting, attribution, and analytics for out-of-home with other media channels. Brands can now drive performance across the funnel — online and offline — through a powerful new channel, while accessing new clients and budgets previously unaddressed in the programmatic landscape.”
For audiences, how does this change the experience? It sounds like marketers are only beginning to scratch the surface.
“Imagine walking in New York City on a cold winter morning,” said Ford, “and you see a really compelling picture of hot coffee on the side of a bus station. Then you pass a store selling the same brand of coffee while browsing your phone, and you see an offer pop up for 20 percent off when you buy two donuts and a coffee. This sequence of events significantly increased your chances of walking into that coffee shop. That is the potential yet to be unlocked when advertisers combine mobile and out-of-home marketing.”
The programmatic component makes executions like this scalable, suggesting that if they become more widespread, audiences will embrace the deep personalization and seamlessness, instead of bristling at any sense of being followed. Variety of content and channel will also go far to keep the message fresh and interactive, instead of drumming and stale.
”Out-of-home and mobile marketing go hand in hand, and we aim to enable our advertisers to deliver their brand message in a coherent and relevant manner across these different mediums to drive the overall user journey,” Ford stated. “As programmatic digital out-of-home grows over time, the overall marketing insights and learnings generated from it will be incredibly valuable in media activation across other channels.”
She adds, “With the advancement of targeting and contextual relevance, audiences will have a better experience by being served compelling ads at the right place and right time with the right context. Advertisers now have a better understanding of the full consumer journey, which will improve the overall media mix modeling by serving the right ad to individuals on the right screen, based on where they are in the marketing funnel.”
If brands seek to engage consumers in a more blended and interactive way, they need meaningful data and insights. Connecting out-of-home with other channels improves timing and specificity, making this new attempt to accelerate “across the funnel” a welcome opportunity for brands, agencies and consumers alike.
