AdQuick Partner Spotlight: Q&A with VIOOH’s CMO, Helen Miall

ICYMI: We recently announced an exciting new partnership with VIOOH, a leading programmatic digital out-of-home (DOOH) supply-side platform (SSP).  Thanks to our unique, SSP-agnostic approach – and partners like VIOOH! – AdQuick DSP is quickly becoming the industry’s most scalable and measurable solution for programmatic digital out-of-home.

As a global, independent programmatic planning and trading platform, VIOOH connects DOOH media owners to the programmatic digital ecosystem, and provides a full stack for automated trading, data management, content serving, and ad exchange functionality.  

We had the pleasure of speaking with VIOOH’s CMO, Helen Miall, recently.  Helen is a programmatic DOOH expert and evangelist, who educates the market about how the unique features of programmatic DOOH can help media owners and advertisers deliver high-impact advertising.  

Read on to hear Helen’s take on:

• the top 3 tips for success with programmatic DOOH,
• the biggest myths and misconceptions about programmatic DOOH,
• the trends she’s most excited about in the coming year,
• and much, much more!

AdQuick: Can you tell us a little about VIOOH?  What sets you apart from other OOH SSPs?

Helen Miall: Led by a team of digital OOH and programmatic tech experts, VIOOH is pioneering the transformation of the OOH sector, championing its role in enhancing omni-channel digital campaigns through the use of programmatic capabilities and data. Simply put, we’re changing the conversation about OOH. VIOOH operates in a fully transparent way, meaning 100% of campaign budgets briefed to VIOOH is spent on buying media. VIOOH is also solely focused on being an SSP; we don’t try to serve two masters so there is no suggestion of double-dipping.

AQ: VIOOH is backed by the world’s #1 out of home company, JCDecaux.  How does this impact your inventory?

HM: VIOOH is financially backed by the world’s #1 out of home company JCDecaux, and was launched to accelerate the growth of Out-of-Home and connect the industry to the programmatic digital ecosystem.

VIOOH operates independently as an integrated automation and programmatic trading platform, incorporating both JCDecaux and third party media sellers, to connect buyers with premium and brand-safe inventory across over 11,000 digital OOH screens globally.

AQ: Why is it important for brands to include programmatic DOOH advertising in their media mix?

HM: We deliver effective programmatic DOOH for our partners in an innovative way. With increased competition for ad spend, our flexible, efficient and measurable platform is enabling more advertisers to include OOH in their programmatic budgets.

Programmatic has, for the first time, enabled OOH to become truly part of an omni-channel strategy. Not only are brands now able to utilize the same audience data across channels to targeting and activation, but the increased flexibility means that mid-campaign optimization can now be applied to DOOH. For example, the best locations for driving in-store traffic or mobile downloads can be upweighted at the click of a button, and advertisers can see the impact of each media within the campaign mix and adjust accordingly.

AQ: What do you view as the biggest benefits of programmatic DOOH?

HM: Programmatic OOH provides brands with the ability to reach diverse audiences on the go, in a broadcast and brand-safe environment. As well as high impact locations that are free from ad-blocking, programmatic DOOH also provides advertisers with benefits that they’ve previously only had in one-to-one programmatic environments - enhanced targeting, the use of data for trigger-based activation and creative, unified messaging across channels, and mid-flight and cross-channel optimization.

AQ: What are your top 3 tips for success with programmatic DOOH?

HM:It's important to think about the following:

1. What stage of the funnel are you targeting? Programmatic DOOH can be used to deliver both brand-led as well as performance-based campaigns, combining impact with flexibility, but different locations and types of OOH inventory are better suited to certain objectives, so consider these alongside factors such as time of day, proximity to retail, etc for the best outcome.

2. What data can you use to increase the relevance of the campaign, either at the planning stage or during activation? When OOH is planned manually, certain locations are often “cherry picked” due to pre-conceptions from the planner, but when you lead with an audience-data strategy in a programmatic OOH buy, we see better performance from the campaign. Similarly, the most successful campaigns are those that use real-time data to adjust or trigger the creative - anything from live weather information, to in-store queuing times to limited time offers.

3. How is the programmatic OOH element working alongside the rest of the campaign, and in particular mobile and social? Brands are able to leverage the affinity of mobile and digital OOH through geotargeting, movement tracking, retargeting & sequential messaging, for targeting and cross-channel optimization. Mobile advertising is amplified by up to 17% when audiences are exposed to a brand’s OOH campaign, and DOOH combined can drive in-store visits and app downloads.

With social, your DSP uses the same audience data across OOH as for other digital channels, creating alignment between the public / broadcast element in the OOH execution, and the private / one-to-one element on other screens such as mobile and display. In fact, OOH can supercharge the effects of Social Media, increasing brand recall by 125% and engagement by 52%.

AQ: What are the biggest myths about programmatic DOOH?

HM: As when programmatic started in display, one myth is that programmatic in DOOH is used to sell remnant inventory. Unlike with display however, programmatic OOH has finite capacity, meaning that there are only a certain number of impressions available in a day or hour slot that can be bid on due to a fixed number of locations and hours in a day. So the equivalent of “long-tail” or unknown inventory simply does not exist in OOH.

There is also little chance of audience fraud or click bots. Digital OOH uses both first and third party data, and due to the public, broadcast nature, there is no ad blocking, bots or skipping, as often experienced with display or mobile advertising. It also has strict rules about where creative can be displayed, ensuring brand safety, and OOH media owners moderate all creative. All of these features remain true when the OOH inventory is traded programmatically, and through this transparency and control, location and time based targeting is available, as well as real time reporting insights delivering full transparency.

AQ: What is one thing you wish more OOH buyers knew about programmatic DOOH?

HM: The merits of being able to utilize high impact, premium OOH inventory to create awareness or intrigue while also activating the campaign in a smart way using programmatic trading and event-based triggers can work extremely successfully. Analyzing and optimizing at individual OOH screen level mid-campaign, and seeing its impact on metrics such as footfall, in-store and online purchases, means that with programmatic, OOH can now truly be considered as both a branding and performance channel.

AQ: What industry trend or development are you most excited about in 2021, and why?

HM: The pandemic has accelerated interest in programmatically traded DOOH, and we expect this to continue. At VIOOH, we’ve seen an extraordinary period of rebound and acceleration, with 35% to 50% month-on-month growth in the number of active programmatic campaigns since the beginning of the year. Ad spend is also increasing at a very strong pace, despite some markets still being in some form of lockdown, as advertisers continue to value the flexibility that comes with programmatic DOOH.

AQ: What are you most excited about over the next 3-5 years?

HM: Programmatic DOOH is still in its infancy and has huge potential to deliver valuable results for brands. It’s a relatively new way of trading media that has emerged from a well-established and successful medium, and working together as an industry to develop common standards will only make it easier to plan, trade, activate and optimize within an advertiser’s overall campaign. VIOOH is actively participating in these initiatives and will continue to do so, helping to progress the market and give confidence to advertisers and their agencies

AdQuick DSP makes it easy to launch data-driven programmatic DOOH campaigns in minutes.  Want to learn more?  Connect with our team of OOH experts today!