Fast 5 with Vistar Media Co-Founder and CEO – Michael Provenzano

Whether it’s the flexible buying options, operational efficiency, or enhanced data targeting options, pDOOH is on everyone’s minds. We caught up with Vistar Media CEO and Co-Founder, Michael Provenzano, to ask what the future holds for programmatic in Out of Home here in Australia.

How do you think pDOOH will complement the role of traditional Out of Home strategies?

Instead of thinking about programmatic strategies being separate from traditional OOH strategies, at Vistar we tend to think about how to execute OOH overall in a data-driven, automated and measurable way. Through that lens, audience-based buying, which is similar to the way brands transact in online media, can be easily implemented through programmatic. We’ve seen brands leverage both audience-based and screen selection/location-specific strategies across a mix of budgets in order to properly reach the consumer with both upper and mid-funnel KPIs in mind.

Particularly, PDOOH is an excellent way for brands to transition previously online-only campaign strategies into the physical world. By extending the same audience tactics, campaign planning and measurement approaches to OOH, programmatic allows for a truly omnichannel activation. Today, marketers are putting their largest budgets into online media and connected TV. It is only logical for OOH to fit into this media mix so marketers can extend their reach and don’t miss out on activations that align with their audience-based strategies.

What are some of the best uses of data you are seeing applied in other markets that is making Out of Home a stronger proposition?

Data-driven programmatic campaigns are helping marketers more effectively reach their audience on their path to purchase and drive measurable KPIs. Some brands are leveraging data from 3rd party providers while others are using their own 1st party data.

To promote its new cold brew coffee, Jagermeister, with agency ENGINE, leveraged IRI household Data, Vistar Behavioral Audience and Foursquare Demographic Targeting to reach its target audience and resulting in a 73% lift in product awareness, a 66% lift in product consideration and a 14% lift in purchase intent.

Similarly, to make noise about its upcoming TV series, The Masked Dancer, FOX and agency Rapport LA utilized LiveRamp Data Store to target a “TV Viewership Audience” resulting in an 8% lift in awareness, a 12% lift in consideration and an 11% lift in tune-in intent.

Whereas, a well-known beauty retailer partnered with Vistar to use the brand’s 1st party data on shoppers to create a custom audience and then analyze GPS data to reach them throughout their day and retarget on mobile devices. As a result, the campaign drove a 10% lift in consideration, an 11% lift in purchase intent and a 127% lift in foot traffic.

What do overseas markets tell us about what the future could hold for pDOOH?

In multiple markets, we’ve seen PDOOH reach a tipping point when there is a true aggregation of supply and rapid growth of brand spend is unlocked. We have seen the OOH industry in Australia greatly adopt programmatic and expect that to excel now that oOh! is joining the space.

The simplicity to target and measure DOOH campaigns, similar to online, helps buyers adopt data which accelerates spend. Data plays a crucial role and the opportunity looks strong in Australia. What makes the Australian market truly unique is the level of data that businesses such as oOh! have invested in. oOh! Quantium Data set will ease any transition digital buyers might face when looking to buy OOH programmatically.

Finally, in every market where programmatic OOH has truly accelerated buyer investment there has been a significant investment in education across the industry. Digital buyers need to be educated on the value of OOH formats they may not be familiar with as well as the nuances of running successful OOH campaigns. Similarly, OOH media owners must lean in and educate all of their teams to speak intelligently about programmatic and how it can complement their full suite of offerings.

Since Covid-19 what industry trends have you seen either in Australia or overseas and how does pDOOH play a role in this new world?

Coming out of the peak of COVID-19 in the US, we saw a direct correlation between mobility patterns and OOH investment. As people started getting out again, brands wanted to reach them at that positive point in the consumer journey when they were not stuck at home.

In fact, according to a report from Vistar Media and MFour, the majority of Americans report enjoying being out of the house these days (72%), feeling happy when they are out of the house (70%), and look forward to being out of the house (68%). For brands, there’s an exciting opportunity to engage with consumers with elevated moods in these public spaces to develop positive associations. Digital OOH (DOOH) presents today as an advertising medium that engages consumers in an environment where they are energized, positive and active – “in the world”. 98% of consumers have visited a DOOH venue type in the last 30 days.

Programmatic in particular, gave brands the flexibility to reinvest in OOH in a safe way and shift budgets on media type based on the constantly changing restrictions in local government which correlated to which venue types were receiving the largest investments.

IAB Australia’s Attitudes to Programmatic DOOH Report predicted that the sector will see greater creative experimentation in FY22. Why do you think this is?

Programmatic inherently lends itself to creative experimentation. For example, our partnership with IBM WeatherFX enables us to change creatives upon any weather condition down to the postcode level. We have already seen brands like Dulux leverage this technology in Australia to great effect. In a recent campaign, Dulux and Vistar levered a weather-triggered and time-targeted campaign to only serve ads when and where consumers were in close proximity to specific retail locations that sold its paint. Aiming to highlight its paints can endure all weather conditions, Dulux used IBM Watson’s weather Targeting to deploy specific creative messaging when local conditions indicated sun, wind and storm patterns. This campaign resulted in over 10 million impressions served and a 130% lift in-store visits. As the number of brands that incorporate pDOOH in their media mix continues to grow and the number of repeat customers continues to scale. It is inevitable that the level of experimentation and use cases for pDOOH will increase as well.

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