#Getoutofhome digital OOH
To inspire and excite the ad industry about the power of OOH, the Outdoor Advertising Association of America (OAAA) and its members have initiated a national OOH campaign, to prove its value and significance in today’s digital world. Running across more than 50,000 OOH sites, #GetOutOfHome includes 27 digital screen networks, in 30 major US markets, over the coming weeks.

Touting the value of OOH as a great media amplifier, the campaign, created by Publicis New York, features ad industry icons, young creative thinkers and social media influencers. To encourage attendees of Advertising Week NY (October 1-4) to engage in the conversation, a real-time digital OOH campaign will run as part of the activity using the hashtag #GetOutOfHome.

#GetOutOfHome Digital OOH

Produced by Grand Visual, the dynamic creative will include live commentary, tweets, and Instagram posts published direct to digital screens across New York City. OpenLoop, the real-time campaign management and distribution platform from ad tech provider, QDOT, will deliver the live commentary and buzz from Advertising Week’s online social engagement to screens across NYC in a showcase that highlights the medium’s flexibility and relevance.

“Today’s advertising creatives and media planners grew up with the internet in the palm of their hands; they get digital media and push it forward,” said Stephen Freitas, OAAA’s chief marketing officer. “We want to show them some ideas are too big to stay trapped online. Bold ideas need a bold platform.”

#GetOutOfHome digital OOH

Ben Putland, MD of QDOT, said: “The technology and ad tech systems are now in place to make the delivery of real-time creative across multiple digital OOH networks seamless. Flexible, contextual messages complement the broader static campaign whilst responding to social triggers and encouraging people to participate online.”

Josh Horn, Creative Director, Publicis New York, commented, “OOH has become the ultimate stage for brands to get their message seen. It’s contextual, measurable and responsive. We wanted to celebrate its power to amplify today’s best campaigns.”

AW NYC 2017

For the past 14 years, Advertising Week has brought together industry professionals in New York City to discuss marketing, branding, technology and the evolution of the industry.

This year’s seminars and workshops touched on all the hot topics including native ads, programmatic, data and mobile, leadership, transparency and the role of politics in our world. Across all discussions, a huge emphasis was made on how the broader advertising
industry continues to use an innovative and tailored approach to address these subjects.

Extended and Embedded Models

With new players continuing to be introduced, the role of CMOs must evolve to remain relevant in their respective businesses. As a result, more teams from across the creative landscape are beginning to cozy up to the idea of sitting within the client’s team or at their partner’s spaces, to facilitate efficiency on joint projects. The experimental mindset is growing and the model of extended teams is being embraced and improving results for clients.

Clients have different needs and the advertising ecosystem is continuing to evolve and grow to meet those needs. In the session An Uncomfortable Conversation with CMOs, Angela Ceccarelli, Vice President, Marketing, HSBC said “Marketers need to be orchestrators and not conductors; they need to leverage their staff, partners and loyalists.”

Connected Screens

Another interesting theme emerging throughout the week was the evolution of connections between the digital and physical worlds. Consumers only perceive one connected world, therefore you shouldn’t have separate online and offline strategies, you should have one overarching strategy that touches all elements within the consumer’s journey.

As technology and digital solutions continue to evolve, it’s interesting to see how advertisers are aligning marketing objectives across different devices and locations. There’s a certain excitement around treating offline the same way we treat online. What does programmatic outdoor look like? What does search in a physical environment imply?

Outdoor Solutions

During the session, When Programmatic Buying Gets Placement Right, Nathan Eide, Director, Media Technology & Innovation, FRWD, enthusiastically shared his experience with programmatic digital OOH for one of their biggest clients; a top national retailer. Programmatic buying, and the right location and data partners meant that they could identify and track individuals – meaning that for the first time they were able to measure the client’s ROI down to the dollar.

Modern Convergence

As consumers constantly change and absorb content in different ways, agencies need to feel equally comfortable with outsourcing to specialists that create content and other connected solutions in different ways as well.

At the end of the day, we all need to learn how to collaborate in this ever-changing playground. It’s important to play nice in your client’s roster and educate your partners on what you do best (and vice-versa). This will help you deliver beyond your scope, and clients are expecting you to do so.

As Winston Binch Chief Digital Officer, Deutsch NA, wisely said “Meet the ask, but bring the need.” The digital capabilities are out there, it’s time to partner up and move the industry forward.

Grand Visual Advertising Week Europe

Last week Advertising Week Europe descended upon London for its 5th year. The event brings together an estimated 30,000 people from the advertising industry, attending 160 events held throughout the week.

A few of us from Grand Visual made our way to Piccadilly’s Picture House to hear the latest opinions in ad land…

A standout theme that emerged was hearing brands, agencies and creatives talking about the need to focus on storytelling and ‘humans’ rather than data and algorithms.ms.

On Monday we attended “Reinventing the Real World”, where panelists discussed connections – to people and to things. They made the point that brand communications need to enhance, rather than interrupt consumers lives and brands should be really clear on the role that their comms take.

On Tuesday we saw the Dentsu Aegis session “Renaissance: A New Creative Value System” where the panel discussed how the world is now more than ever powered by technology and data. They discussed the power of ideas and the changing roles that creativity and technology are playing when it comes to advertising. Tracy De Groose (CEO, Dentsu Aegis) mentioned a study by McCann Japan who pitted an AI Creative Director against its human counterpart – the human won. The panel agreed that it was best for the industry for technology and creativity to be ‘happy bedfellows’.

Our final highlight was “Realising The Human Potential: Technology’s Cognitive Capabilities” hosted by Microsoft. Ravleen Beeston kicked things off with some stats on how technology is changing adoption rates. It took TV 38 years to reach 100 million sets sold mark, Smartphones 3 years, and PokemonGo took just 33 days. The discussion explored voice, image and emotion recognition and what opportunities these technologies present for marketers.

The main takeaway this year was the shift towards ‘people based advertising’, a refreshing change after years focused on data & technology.

 

AW NYC 2017

Last week, Advertising Week celebrated its 13th Annual gathering in New York City. With over 250 sessions held across nine different venues, it’s safe to say that plenty of different conversations developed throughout the week. Nonetheless, a general sentiment for change was consistent across seminars and workshops… A change that the industry should take in order to grasp what’s needed now, not in the future.

The theme of change was highlighted mainly when it came to the following topics:

Technology

Technology is opening the doors for more and more media channels to become digital. In the session “Technology vs Strategy: Who’s Steering the Future?”, Rich Raddon (Co-Founder, ZEFR) said “technology needs to be part of every brand… it empowers it, it super charges it”. Strategic technology decisions are making businesses more competitive and in IBM’s session “Digital Transformation in the Cognitive Era”, Bob Lord (Chief Digital Officer, IBM) explains how his company contributes to this shift, mainly by applying Watson to campaign planning and execution.

Machine learning will get better and better… But it’s important to recognize that agencies and marketers need to go beyond machine capabilities and add a layer of creativity, aiming at closing the gap between the digital and physical world. AR and VR are definitely helping to bridge these two worlds, and beyond this, location technology is raising the bar, transforming smart cities into connected cities.

Data

In the session “The Great Debate: Agencies vs Consultancies”, Mark Barrett (President, Heat) said “the language of business is data and CMOs are increasingly speaking this language”. With all the emergent technologies and access to data, our industry needs to guide brands through what specifically can be measured, its value and how it drives a positive impact for their business. As a result, there’s a need to invest in metrics that measure performance across devices in a more connected way… in the way that it impacts consumers.

We all need to be aware of the fact that not all big data is good data; context is what matters most when connecting with consumers. In the session “Media Meets Creativity (Again, Always, & Forever): The Value of Getting Closer”, Jim Mollica (VP of Digital, Under Armour) points out that we all need to know the difference between data vs insights you can build an idea off of. Data is digested to get insights from which strategy is developed; there is no longer a need for long research processes. But be aware… insights are debatable; be ready to test and repeat. Even if you have access to all the data in the world, it doesn’t mean you’ll get the results you are looking for on your first try.

Organizational Shifts

With technology and data shaping the world we live in, organizations need to structure themselves in a way that embraces these digital foundations; this is required across the board (creative agencies, media agencies, brands, consultancies, publishers, media owners and partner/vendor teams).

During Droga5’s “Media Meets Creativity” session, Lindsay Nelson (Global Head of Brand Strategy and Marketing, VOX Media) alleges that the current structure is designed to fail; we talk about what should be done, but we are still not adequately integrated… Why? She says “follow the money”; see who is incentivized and how, and you’ll understand why most of these structures are not as flexible as they should be.

The number of times the terms “working in silos” and “lack of transparency” was mentioned throughout the week was astonishing. Put this into perspective… When it comes to technology, trust needs to be handed to the specialists. When it comes to data, if we don’t collaborate, it will sit unused.

It is “the end of marketing as we know it”, said Marie Gulin-Merle (CMO L’Oreal USA) in the session “Building Connected Stories”. She assures we are moving towards “designing experiences”; these experiences are designed by strategically adding layers of content, data and services along the consumer journey. Let’s not forget what our consumers want, it’s still all about them. The brands that are using technology and data to collaboratively identify and engage with consumers in key touch points are winning the game.

So why wait for the future? Let’s make our industry better… now. This was the big takeaway from Advertising Week 2016.