EUROPE NEWS

FEPE: FEPE Gala Dinner will be at the Berns Hotel, Stockholm

The Gala Dinner for the 58th FEPE Congress (June 7th - 9th 2017 at the Radisson Blu Waterfront Hotel and Congress centre, Stockholm) will be at the Berns Hotel, in central Stockholm.

The Berns hotel is an iconic Stockholm landmark and the hall (opened in 1886) where we will be eating has hosted concerts by Abba, Aretha Franklin, Diana Ross and Marlene Deitrich in the past.

"Since the doors opened in 1863, Berns has been an oasis for curious cosmopolitans. By constantly presenting cutting edge events and challenging conventions we have been the Stockholmers’ own living room for over a century. World famous stars mix with up-and-coming artists, sophisticated businessmen and trendy media people.

The contrasts are mirrored in the extravagant halls that are decorated with gold and stucco that hold secret corners and scandalous stories."

We will be having 2 days of presentations with high calibre speakers from across the world, all of whom will be bringing their unique viewpoints on the Out of Home industry.

We will begin announcing the programme of speakers soon.

There will be an exclusive and much larger exhibition area attached to the main congress hall, and spaces are now available to reserve.

If you are a supplier who wishes to get your product in front of an audience of global OOH decision makers please email us soon so we can hold a space for you. We also have additional sponsorship opportunities available for interested parties, please email Mark Flys at FEPE for further details.

Early bird registrations will be open until the end of February, which will allow delegates an extra €100 reduction regardless of FEPE membership status.

Delegate fees are unchanged at €1100 for members and €1600 for non members, plus the additional early bird reduction.

Booking form is available on the FEPE Homepage

UK: US owners explore sale options for OOH giant Exterion with a $1bn price tag

Exterion Media – the UK-based out-of-home (OOH) advertising outfit with some of the most lucrative contracts in Europe – is up for sale, with its US-based owners Platinum Equity reportedly asking for up to $1bn, according to reports.

The London Evening Standard today (February 17) carried a report alleging that “sale memorandums started landing on potential buyers’ desks in the past few days”, and claiming that its owners were asking for bids of up to $1bn, a significantly higher sum than was touted in previous reports when it was said to be exploring a sales option in late 2016.

The latest report claims the sale is being handled by Goldman Sachs and Peter J Solomon, with Germany’s Ströer International touted as a potential bidder from within the advertising industry.

UK: Out of Home revenue reaches £1.1 billion in 2016

Outsmart, the trade body for the Out of Home (OOH) industry, has announced that the total revenue reported across all Out of Home advertising for 2016 is £1.1 billion.

The quarter September to December generated £316 million, up by 2% year on year and the highest quarterly total ever recorded. 2016 proved to be a year of substantial growth for the Out of Home medium, with total revenue up by 4.6% year on year.

Digital revenues amounted to £418 million for the year, up by a significant 26% on 2015, with digital accounting for 38% of all Out of Home revenue, an increase of 6 percentage points on last year.

Justin Cochrane, Chair of Outsmart, comments that “2016 marked a year of strong growth for Out of Home, which will undoubtedly carry on in 2017 as the industry continues to invest in digital while building on the strong foundations of classic Out of Home.”

Visit the Outsmart website to download a breakdown of all previous revenues for the OOH industry.

Source

UK: JCDecaux and Transport for London celebrate the 500th digital screen installation in world’s largest advertising bus shelter contract

The digital transformation of TfL’s bus shelter network is a core element of JCDecaux’s vision to make London the global showcase for digital Out-of-Home. A key part of the roll-out was the total digitisation of Oxford Street, with its digital screens synchronised last year to dramatically increase the impact and noticeability of the Oxford Street network. The Luxury network extends across the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, Kings Road, Knightsbridge, Hyde Park Corner, High Street Kensington and Park Lane.

This new channel of communication for London has increased the vibrancy of bus shelter advertising to the benefit of both advertisers and passengers with new dynamic capabilities and increased screen quality. A new data centric strategy has been enabled through JCDecaux’s SmartBrics planning platform and its Smart Content management system driving a new era of contextual, topical and socially integrated campaigns across London.

USA: Smartphone Usage Patterns Inform OOH Opportunities

As mobile device usage exploded, and resulted in enormous ad spend, it’s evolved into a strategic ally for OOH. Instead of eroding audiences as it does with most traditional media, mobile is used most heavily in the OOH space creating a natural convergence of the two.

To leverage the ability of OOH to impact mobile consumer behavior, it is important to understand trends in the mobile space. Many of those are tracked by comScore, a company that measures mobile audience behavior and brands. Their December 2016 report is filled with insights on the mobile landscape which allow OOH media companies to have informed conversations with clients and prospects using the mobile platform.

All numbers reported are for share of subscribers ages 13+ for the time period September – November 2016:

USA: Kinetic's New Social-Mobile Approach To OOH Planning

Last October WPP’s OOH specialist Kinetic worked with Universal Pictures on a unique promotion for the upcoming movie “Girl on the Train” that induced subway commuters in the U.S. to “snap to unlock” encrypted billboard ads, letting Snapchat users scan the content and “unlock” special, hidden filters created to gain further attention before the film’s debut.

The agency says that the promotion helped the movie top the box office charts in its first weekend of release when it earned $24.5 million. That promotion was one of several beta projects that the agency created for clients that combined OOH, mobile and social to capture the attention of consumers on the go with a call to action.

USA: Can outdoor take advantage of digital’s disarray?

The Outdoor Advertising Association of America may be hitting back against the shortcomings of digital advertising, but maybe it needs to play to its strengths and get advertisers to recognize the medium for its inherent advantages not try to transcend them.

P&G’s Chief Brand Office Marc Pritchard does not want to waste time and money on digital’s “crappy media supply chain” and took the industry to task for ad viewability and fraud in a speech at the Interactive Advertising Bureau's Annual Leadership Meeting. A week later and the Outdoor Advertising Association of America put up six billboards near P&G headquarters in Cincinnati stating: "Hey Marc, This ad is real."

The power of outdoor to reach an audience is undeniable. Kantar Millward Brown’s CrossMedia studies routinely find that outdoor has good reach. Across a large range of studies conducted across Europe for a variety of advertisers, we see that point of sale and outdoor advertising achieve similar reach, second only to TV and typically higher than digital formats like display, Facebook or video.

Canada: Spotted! A transit shelter that keeps you warm

Ikea Canada is warming up the streets of Toronto this winter… well, one transit shelter on one street.

The retailer has been promoting its Market Hall selection of products since late 2016, and the latest wave of ads is focused on reducing energy consumption (and heating bills) in the colder months by layering on wool blankets at ikeaCanadaKingStWarmhome.

To illustrate the warming effect of its blankets, Ikea, along with its media agency Jungle Media and creative partner Leo Burnett, have built a transit shelter with an ad that heats up when someone stands in front of it. Once a consumer enters the transit shelter on King St. West, a fan is activated by motion detectors, with the air warmed by heaters at the bottom of the shelter filling the ad case. The fan shuts off after 20 to 30 seconds and stays off until the motion sensor is activated again.

USA: OUTFRONT Media Partners with RIPE Bar Juice to Develop #NationalMargaritaDay Campaign

OUTFRONT Media Inc. is leveraging its in-house creative boutique, OUTFRONT Studios, to help brands produce and promote creative out-of-home campaigns tied to timely national days. This is demonstrated by OUTFRONT Media's current partnership with RIPE Bar Juice for National Margarita Day today.

"These quirky national 'holidays' receive strong social traction and often have associated trending hashtags such as #NationalMargaritaDay," said Jodi Senese, OUTFRONT Media's Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer. "OUTFRONT Studios is continually looking to leverage these days as an opportunity for our partner brands to tap into the trending online topics, and connect with current and potential customers. Consumers see national days as a rallying point and a reason to celebrate a specific aspect of life worth celebrating, so it's natural for brands to want to be a part of these events."

OUTFRONT partnered with RIPE Bar Juice, the nation's first cold-pressed, fresh juice bar mixer, to produce billboard creative around National Margarita Day on February 22. The campaign's billboards are strategically placed in areas like New Haven and Hartford, Conn., alongside the state's most traveled highways to catch the attention of commuters making their way through the cities.

Australia: Ooh!media delivers strong result as out of home advertising grows

oOh!media has delivered shareholders a 17 per cent growth in profit and a jump in annual dividends as spending on out of home advertising increases.

The company will pay a final dividend on of 14 cents per share, up from 9.5 cents per share for 2015. oOh!media reports its financial results for the calendar year. Post-tax profit is up 17 per cent to $21.5 million after revenue grew 20 per cent to $336 million.

The company ended 2016 with 190 digital format large screens - 100 more than in 2015. Revenue from road side billboards is up 12 per cent thanks to more digital billboards in premium locations.

Australia: oOh!Media confident merger with APN will proceed

The chief executive of outdoor advertising company Ooh!Media is confident its proposed $1.6 billion merger with rival APN will get the green light from the competition regulator.

Ooh!Media chief executive Brendon Cook saidthe proposed merger to create a clear leader in the outdoor advertising market in Australia was expected to go ahead when the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission concluded its investigation into how the tie-up could affect the nation’s $12bn-a-year advertising market.

“We had the confidence to go through this process and spend the money to do this so we wouldn’t have entered this if we didn’t think it was worth it and if we didn’t think it would be approved,” Mr Cook said.

South Africa: #FDTOOH: Following the breadcrumbs

The functions of out of home (OOH) touchpoints are rapidly changing, moving from driving awareness across audiences to purchasing products. OOH is at the beginning of a revolutionary change as disruptive forces, including consumer media habits, advertiser demands and technological advances, change the medium...

OOH is moving from a static medium to one that targets the consumer based on their location, says MD Posterscope South Africa, Bruce Burgess. He was addressing delegates at Posterscope's Future Defining Themes of OOH Conference held at the Venue Green Park in Sandton.

Location is the common currency, adds Nic Halas, Head of Futures for Posterscope UK. “It is a key thread and has been called the marketing vital frontier by Forbes. By the end of 2019, nearly 50% of spend in all channels will have a location filter.”

India: MCC proposal to allow advertisement hoardings in city

Even as the Mysuru City Corporation (MCC) has launched a campaign against defacement, the civic body will allow advertisement hoardings and billboards that had been prohibited in the city for the last two years.

After the licenses issued for advertisement hoardings and billboards across the city were misused, leading to not only a loss of revenue to the civic body, but also marring the beauty of the environment, the MCC had, in April 2015, decided to stop renewing the existing licenses or issuing fresh licenses. However, the civic body is now planning to come out with a new advertisement policy.

FEPE OOH News 23rd February 2017