The future of ad targeting: striking the right balance
The privacy landscape is evolving fast, and advertisers today are having to rethink their targeting strategies to ensure they strike the right balance of reaching their customers without appearing invasive. What is driving this is a growing awareness among consumers of how companies use their data today, which is in turn fueling demands for responsible data use that can benefit both businesses and consumers, as evidenced by announcements made by Google and Apple earlier this year.
The future of ad targeting: striking the right balance
Leading advertisers are increasingly exploring tactics that don’t involve personalized, one-to one-targeting such as group targeting and contextual advertising. That’s exactly how out-of-home (OOH) advertising campaigns have always been planned; as a mass reach medium. The ads you see on billboards, bus shelters and street furniture are great at reaching large audiences rather than individuals, and they are inherently contextual based on where the ad is located. What better way to reach shoppers than on a busy high street where people are shopping right now?
As the online world shifts towards a similar model of group targeting, I’m excited at the opportunities this will open up for OOH. We’re going to see a leveling of the playing field in campaign planning, which will make OOH more accessible to new players. Brands and advertisers that have previously chosen to go digital only will be able to easily book an outdoor ad without the need to spend time and cash on developing a new campaign strategy given the group behavior they’ll be targeting will be the same – the only thing changing is where to find them.
Not only will advertisers be able to apply their digital campaign strategies to OOH with minimal tweaking, they’ll also be able to apply the same tactics they use in online advertising to OOH. What has attracted advertisers to go digital the last two decades beyond the use of data is the ability to be fast, flexible, targeted and dynamic. With digital OOH (DOOH) and programmatic, advertisers can now do the same with their outdoor campaigns.
Advertisers can book 1000s of ad locations on premium DOOH screens using the same automated trading platforms they use for programmatic digital buying. And they have the same level of flexibility and control as with online campaigns, with the ability to tailor the precise time, location, frequency and messaging.
Advertisers can now also use OOH to react to real-time triggers, further ensuring their campaigns are contextually relevant. An airline campaign, for example, can be activated in new locations at a moment’s notice to react to news that the government has added new ‘green’ countries to its travel traffic light system, while a retailer could switch their summer OOH campaign promoting their BBQ kits to their ready-made soups on a rainy day.
Programmatic OOH makes running dynamic DOOH campaigns even easier by simplifying the buying process. Earlier this month, we launched Clear Channel Launchpad, which brings our digital OOH inventory across Europe into the omnichannel buying ecosystem for the first time. In other words, today advertisers can book ad slots on our DOOH inventory in the same place they book their digital ads, opening our medium up to even more brands than ever before.
With programmatic, advertisers who may have limited experience with OOH can easily add public screens to the private screens in their existing digital media strategies, adding new audiences and increased impact to their omnichannel strategy. More experienced OOH buyers can leverage the benefits of programmatic OOH to complement their strategy with real-time optimization and campaign triggers to react to big moments throughout the year, ensuring their ads are contextually relevant.
Programmatic is the next step in our digital transformation journey and has been specifically designed to be data-led by using insights from our proprietary campaign planning tool Clear Channel Radar. By marrying programmatic DOOH with Radar, brands can now choose the right locations to reach their target audience group and see their ad at said location within hours. And, most importantly, ensure they strike the right balance with their customers.