Life in Programmatic Digital Out-of-Home
00:04:48 · Dallas Wiles
[00:04:48] S2: I suppose the million dollar question was always asked by clients and agencies why are you doing programmatic? You know because there are those misconceptions of programmatic in other channels, the unknown you know how accurate, how truthful was it. And we have to make ourselves relevant and in any sector, in any business that is always evolving, you need to make sure that you're on the front foot and move with the times and sometimes try to be ahead of the times. I suppose the early conversations that I had with people when they heard about our journey and our investment and joint proposition with VIOOH was why is this different to other programmatic? And I suppose what we had to do was not persuade people but say to people is if you can hit an audience that is in an open mindset, in a public domain, that cannot be turned off, is visible and people are in different modes be it work, be it personal, be it social, why wouldn't you want to execute programmatically and out of home? I remember someone saying to me, one of the independent agencies said to me, do you know what? On a Saturday we would sometimes spend £50,000 in the Daily Mail online trying to target rugby audience. Now why wouldn't you want to target the rugby audience on rail when they're traveling to the ground or walking to the ground or commuting to the ground or driving to the ground? Know we've got a captive audience we had to be part of that journey and as you and I know we often discuss the revenue figures week in week out Dom. We're taking more money on weekends now than we ever have. Absolutely. Because there is a platform that's automated and there's less of that manual intervention. Now look at the recent revenue growth that you know JCDecaux Holdings you know shared. Out of home programmatic has grown significantly over the last five years let alone over the last two years and I think you know the success stories that we can point to and I know we'll talk about the Programmatic Awards later on that we've launched but there were plenty of success stories out and about. So join the evolution or join the revolution whichever way you want to see but I do think more people are taking notice and I think that we're in a very strong position and working for JCDecaux, you've always got the premium asset.
00:07:24 · Dom Kozak
[00:07:24] S1: I think there's two messages that perhaps people don't understand about out of home often. One is exactly that being a media for good, 46 being the pound, going back into the community in one way or another. And the other is the fact that we are, inherently, we reach all audiences. Anyone who leaves a home is accessed by out of home. You know, we're not, we're not discriminatory. You can reach those absolute niche audiences and could be really egalitarian in your in your market planning, which you can get a great advantage. Thinking back to these other first conversations with agencies and brands about programmatic Out-of-Home, You you got any examples of how they played out?
00:08:02 · Dallas Wiles
[00:08:02] S2: I think it's always difficult trying to get someone to be the first to test something because I always worry about what happens if it goes wrong. The initial conversations I had with agencies and clients were test, test with us which is a value that you and I share within our business and it's one of our values in our business is test and learn. And you know when you say to people, we've a value in our business is test and learn, they go, yeah but we all do that but really do you test and learn? I think what I realized was the more we told people about it, more FOMO started appearing. And when I say FOMO is it wasn't just agencies and specialists, it was also clients because you'd have some clients that traditionally weren't out of home buyers or might have been you know lapsed spenders and now in the competitive set they've been visible to their client base and to their competitors and they're going well we want a bit of that. So the FOMO thing I think was a great leverage and in all honesty, I personally would thank all those brave CMOs in the first few years willing to try something new, willing to see if it does make a difference. And at the end of the day is you know we've got some fantastic stats and case studies on ROI and return on investment, know reaching those audiences. We've And got a data story to tell about it you know and the data is there you know. So I think often people think Out-of-Home doesn't have enough data to tell the story. I think Out-of-Home has got plenty of data to tell the story. And guess what? We know where our screens are or we're a location based channel or I suppose the best channel for understanding their locations. So I think working with those people willing to make change or trying to do something different paid off five years later. The cost to buy in out of home is now more accessible than ever to brands because one of the things people always said you need to be a scaled brand to do a brand campaign. Whereas now, know, week in week out, when you update me on the brands that are activating and programmatic, 50% of them I've never heard of. Yeah. And that's great because we're giving people new opportunities to reach our channel.
00:10:19 · Dom Kozak, Dallas Wiles
[00:10:19] S1: Absolutely right. It's about that precision but at scale. [00:10:22] S2: That's what I'm offer. Exactly. [00:10:25] S1: Kind of want to dig into way more questions around that, but I'm going to move on and we'll get lost in the data story, I'm sure. About your role as a senior leader, you're responsible for making sure that JCDecaux embraces change and we innovate and remain competitive in today's digital first landscape. What are the main challenges that you're facing in doing that?
00:10:46 · Dallas Wiles
[00:10:46] S2: You have to keep relevant. Technology evolves. I hope that people see JCDecaux in The UK now as an extension of their business. What I mean by that is brands are experts of their brands. They know their brand better than anyone else. We know our product better than anyone else. So how do we become an extension of their business to make sure that we get the best return for those brands by using our technology, using our expertise, our people. You need people to make decisions. Computers don't make decisions yet. I don't think we'll be around when computers make the decisions for all of us. But I think you know we've had to make sure that we can be an extension of everyone's business and you can't be an extension of everyone's business if you don't collaborate and work closer together. So that's sharing of best practice. And you have to invest. We've invested significantly particularly on our data story. Data is a key pillar and a key investment for our business not only in The UK and globally. And then also it's always nice to have these nice big new shiny tools but if you don't invest in your people and help them develop you can have the best tools in the world but it could be it could be you know less successful if you don't have the capabilities of your people. So I suppose that is more about JCDecaux. I think concurrently at the same time you've to think about our sector out of home. I think we under club. I think more people should take sit up and take notice about what's going on in out of home. The technology, the product, the solutions and at the same time the creativity, the brand fame, everything that you and I evangelise about all the time. But a lot of our programmatic buyers are now omni channel buyers and that to me is showing you that buyers, advertisers, agencies, digital natives actually see the power of out home by influencing their decision making in an omni channel buy. So I think we just got to keep talking about that and those point of references have to be you know we have to be more vocal about it. How do you become more vocal when you're a small channel? And we just got to keep shouting louder and louder about it. So I mean I suppose those are some the things we have to think about.
00:13:14 · Dallas Wiles, Dom Kozak
And you also got to rely on people like you and the Programmatic team to understand what the new trends of the future are because we want to keep ahead. [00:13:24] S1: That's really interesting that you kind of mentioned that global word a few times. It's something you and I talk about a lot. It's something I'm massively passionate involved in that scale that we have with the business. I guess what do you see as those opportunities in the channel and programmatic outposting specifically from a kind of international opportunity compared to a local market opportunity? [00:13:46] S2: Yeah. I mean, know better than I do our launch of our recent international airport opportunity, a programmatic opportunity by touch of a button across 20 plus airports around the world. Why wouldn't you want to be at Heathrow activating a campaign programmatically? [00:14:04] S1: Yeah, and then at LAX.