Life in Programmatic Digital Out-of-Home
00:06:23 · Dan Larden
[00:06:23] S2: Yeah, I mean it couldn't have been more different, could it? Mean, yeah, so five years ago, again, were first through the gate, got the bloody nose for sure. I think there was a lot of testing going on. There was a lot of uncertainty on the buy side of how do we set this campaign up, what creatives do we use, how do we optimise this, how do we plan it, how can we incorporate the data into our existing digital campaigns. All of these things were sort of the first time that we'd done it. So although it was quite exciting, often problems come. And we were talking just before this around just simple integration pieces, overcoming how do I incorporate root data into the bid stream. These sorts of challenges meant that we were stopped starting and campaigns got delayed for sure. And again, on top of the issues that we had in terms of the client trying to get budgets signed off for this new way of doing out of home. And then I think fast forward to last year when we ran this test with you, and it was I I couldn't believe how much it changed actually and how much easier it was because all of those problems have almost been, over five years, been ironed out for sure. So now the thing that surprised me the most was when we ran the campaign, it was just how quickly and easily we could determine the availability of ads, the out of home screens. Very quick to do the planning piece. The creative tracking that we did, I think it took a week maybe even less than that, think. And that's including the build, wasn't it? And then getting it traffic to the DSP and getting everything signed off on your side. So yeah, I think everything from just the technical piece and then obviously then just all of the bits that you need to run a campaign in terms of that trafficking and setup piece really surprised me. And then getting hold of the data as well to do our analysis was pretty simple as well and easy to do. So I think for sure all of the headaches that we had five years ago, you know, fast forward today, it's certainly benign now into a much smoother process to just get creatives built and done and activated.
00:08:45 · Dan Larden, S1
But what's exciting isn't it, what's exciting still is that even all that's been ironed out in terms of the bit that you would expect to be ironed out, but the use cases are still coming thick and fast into how do you actually then use that as a brand and as a marketer to the best of your ability, that is still an area which I think is still moving forward isn't it? [00:09:09] S1: Yeah it makes me think about the kind of traditional crawl, walk, run life cycle and kind of where we are on that journey. I think even if I would try and answer that I couldn't give you a firm answer, don't think we're running yet or what I'd say we're definitely not running yet but are we between crawl and walk or between walk and run? I don't know and I think one of the things that's evolving in this space and it's really interesting certainly for media purists is what is the media theory behind all of this and then how is it applied and how is it proving itself to be true or not. And I know again talking to you before this session today, we've talked about the concept of I believe what you're calling fixed point programmatic. So I just kind of want, we'd like you to kind of explain what that is Dan for the people listening into this and what this concept that have named we should call it the Dan Larden fixed point programmatic I think.
00:10:04 · Dan Larden
[00:10:04] S2: I mean I've come up with the term just because I don't think anything else exists for it and it's something that should exist but it's essentially and if anyone else is you know maybe there's a term I just haven't heard of it yet so very happy to not be the term fixed point programmatic. But essentially I think what we're talking about here is that we now have the ability to buy a placement that never moves in a real time programmatic way and that placement is potentially going to be seen by more than one person. I think that programmatic out of home was the first time that actually happened because before we were within programmatic and within auditable, we were pretty much talking about a placement of an ad that was probably going to be seen by one person maximum. So you think about connected TV, which is bought in the same way, similar way, out of home placements and potentially digital radio, So we're talking about being able to buy these very static devices or static screens, which again don't move. Know the fixed point. And obviously previously we've kind of had, you you could argue we'd have desktops and desktops didn't move, but actually people have laptops now and laptops move around and mobile phones move around and that's where predominantly that's where social is bought on those screens. So you know we're talking about within Programmatic for a long time, talking about not really talking about location, talking about user. But now we have this ability to be able to talk about a very specific fixed point and this very specific screen which you know exists, which you can go and check on Google Maps. And obviously with connected TV, you're talking about a fixed screen in the home. So I think what the term fixed point programmatic, I think just is it defines that. But again, it talks to the opportunity that you can have as a brand now to be able to be in a very granular way, buy that very fixed placement and then start to do really interesting uplift studies when you know that you have bought advertisement in those fixed places. And I think that's really exciting. And I think that's a huge opportunity, which is very much untapped for quite a lot of brands.
00:12:28 · Dan Larden, S1
I think quite a lot of brands probably haven't got their head around the fact that they can get a huge amount of data in terms of where they can buy and then where they have bought and exactly what crates have been shown and with an idea of who's seen it. And I think that whole premise is still just almost like make its way into the planning process. And that's the kind of the definition which I'm talking about. [00:12:56] S1: Can you bring that to life a little bit Dan and kind of really go into what is that or maybe some real examples of what that opportunity is that's being presented, and I guess also what challenges that solves potentially?
00:13:08 · Dan Larden
[00:13:08] S2: Yeah, well I mean part of it is to do with the way that programmatic media and biddable media is kind of measured right now because well documented pieces around legislation and technology changes, have actually made the measurement of, again, programmatic display, YouTube, all this sort of one to one digital buying that we're very used to within programmatic. The measurement of that's becoming harder and that's because of the things I've just talked about. But I also think the ability to buy those devices and to buy programmatic in that way, in a location based way, is becoming harder too. So the latest Google Pixel phone has got VPN as standard, for example, so that's going to obscure the user's location. So being able to actually target locations within those environments is going to become harder and even the likes of the walled gardens are probably going to struggle with that. So in a way, the opportunity then becomes if you really want to target a location, which a huge amount of advertisers do. So you're talking about with the opportunity there to be able to localize, you're talking about the ability to do city rural. You're talking about John Lewis, they can only deliver to certain points, therefore advertising delivery outside of those zones is wasted. There's a huge amount of benefit that can come in order for using location within advertising. So almost the targeting opportunity is there within fixed point programmatic because you know that screen exists and you know it's not moving, and there is almost a fixed IP address and location. And then I think from a measurement angle, again, think when we're moving away from where measurement is becoming harder one to one, did this multitude of ads which I've served across these myriad of channels, did they have an effect on the outcome that I'm trying to drive? And then what was the combination of those ads? What's the perfect combination of these ads in creative? That's becoming much harder. Multitouch attribution has almost died with the death of the identifiers. So in a way, there is a really big opportunity for advertisers to actually move that money out and potentially put it into fixed point programmatic, KCTV and out of home, and know that they've targeted those ads, know that they've served those ads and those placements and then do uplift studies around the effect.
00:15:48 · Dan Larden, S1
That can be anything from did sales go up in this store? Did sales in my website within this location go up, but also just traditional brand new studies which are very sophisticated now in terms of location, in terms of affluency and things like that. So there's a lot more data that can be done in the location piece and I think, again, I think we're going to probably start to see a lot of that being incorporated into the more traditional programmatic and digital journey piece around planning and measurement. [00:16:23] S1: I often talk about this time in the evolution of digital marketing of the kind of old school or the old world if you like and the new world combining. We're in a really interesting, in my opinion, in a really interesting point of time where it's not just the kind of old school media, the traditional above the light media learning from the newer digital media, it's now actually the evolution of that digital media as well and learning from the more traditional media and really combining the best of both. That's enough about me gasbagging about my opinions Dan, we're here to talk about you and I guess kind of getting towards the end of our recording today, just really want to know, you've been through this ringer, but what advice would you give to someone who's new to the channel and thinking about dipping their toe into programmatic Digital Out of Home?