Fresh new face of Outdoor is Data!

Angie (pictures above with her team and below) cut her teeth in the game early in her career having helmed OOH media specialist networks and has taken head on her biggest challenge todate: an inventory management tool which creates a slick selling platform for the Outdoor Association of Malaysia (OAAM) members, making management and proposals processes a breeze.

She takes her cue from the recent FEPE International Congress in the Italian coastal town of Sorrento, famous for its lemons and limoncello. Here,
the global constellation for Out of Home (OOH) advertising players gathered to hail Data and Collaboration as their new clarion call.

According to PwC, digital outdoor ad spending is growing at 15 percent annually, and will overtake traditional outdoor postings by 2020.
Angie’s hungry team at TAC Media are working closely with Moving Walls, their data partner on location data, for information of the unique reach and circulation around billboards.

“As mobile and digital become part of OOH, we are seeing how it can be integrated to create a campaign or do retargeting,” she says while noting this is only the beginning of newer marketing tools and tactics.

Angie has as much skin in the game as the rest of the industry, citing the OOH industry as a high-cost venture that deserves better and more sophisticated marketing strategies to fit the times.

“We are the only Malaysian company who’s a member of the Global Outdoor Association with access to media owners globally and many collaborations. Our alliances cover China, India, Thailand, Vietnam, Philippines, Singapore, Indonesia and Japan.”

While it seems scary Google may match web browsing data with the ads displayed on billboards, the possibility has not escaped the prying minds of marketers.

Privacy concerns mean Google’s unlikely to be able to target out-of-home ads at individuals, but it can pull demographic data on what
kinds of people are in a given place at a given time.

So it is highly likely in a train full of Selangor fans heading to Stadium Merdeka, the advertising hoardings change to show ads for sports fans, while during the Monday morning rush hour the hoardings change to display ads for a different set of people across different locations in the city.

The customisation of mass marketing has begun.

Angie’s team held a recent workshop on this for all OAAM members talking about the importance of data and the marketing benefits the Association is giving them.

TAC Media brought the power of programmatic, location-based targeting techniques for media planners and marketers at this eye-opening workshop.

The workshop also covered new trends in buying, synchronising campaigns, competitive pricing, performance metrics, addressing the dilemma of Inventory vs Utilisation and awesome stuff that should be in the playbook of all OOH players and advertisers.Using cellular data for advertising hoardings isn’t new, telcos like the BT Group already sell data to advertisers.

Not surprisingly, Google’s parent Alphabet Inc. is already in talks in Germany about pushing into out-of-home advertising. And when Google gets into the action, you know where the next unicorn is coming from: High-tech in OOH Advertising.

For example, using location-based intelligence, marketing at a concert venue can deploy Digital OOH to message fans about a brand which seeks the same demographic with the clever use of programmatic ad technology.

Free wifi is the game changer here. With Google’s dominant position in mobile operating systems and location-based mobile data the rest is a no brainer. The thing is, all these technologies will arrive at our door step before we can say Equanimity.

That’s why Angie is a lady in a hurry. “Our proprietary OOH Planning tool called Infinite Outdoor Advertising Solution helps clear this path for many planners. No relearning required,” assures Angie as she talks about how TAC Media’s partnership with Moving Walls can help OAAM members with audience insights and retargeting campaigns.

“People spend 70% of their time outside their homes while staying connected on the move. And they leave a digital footprint wherever they go. That’s how moving audience analytics solves offline media challenges through Behaviour, Demographics and Technographics.”

As technological giants encroach on traditional OOH territory, the writing is on the wall: collaborate or perish. With the plethora of innovative Malaysian OOH players out there, Angie hopes to galvanise them by partnering with the Outdoor Association of Malaysia, whose members drive 75% of OOH ad spend in the country.

In her parting shot, she cautions that OOH has to integrate with mobile. “And this is not an option.”