The agency’s dedicated out-of-home media team, AdCity, is using a number of datasets bundled together in a tool called AdCity Solution.
Inputs include Route, the outdoor media industry’s standard for audience measurement, but also mobile device location data supplied by GroundTruth under an exclusive partnership.
“GroundTruth finds devices in specific locations, for example a fast food restaurant, then looks at where that device is when it isn’t in the fast food restaurant. We then target those locations with OOH”, a Havas Media spokeswoman told Campaign.
While GroundTruth data can be bought by other media agencies, the spokeswoman claimed that Havas Media is the only one with a partnership arrangement.
Another data source is O2’s SmartSteps, which comes from the network’s 25 million handsets. “Every handset has user demographic or audience attached to it and we know which locations that handset is in throughout the day”, the spokeswoman said. The data is available to all clients of AdCity, which include O2.
Other sources can include a client’s first-party data as well as generally available data such as weather feeds, transport timetables, points of interest and social media data.
Matt Teeman, the managing director of outdoor media owner Primesight, called AdCity Solution “an exciting move as the industry explores the possibilities that trading by audience will bring clients in the near future”.
Jo Blake, head of AdCity, added: “The AdCity Solution is completely changing the way we plan and buy OOH – it’s going to be more efficient and more streamlined, ultimately allowing clients to reinvest into the likes of dynamic content, cross-platform partnerships and big, bold, special build executions. Buying by audiences rather than formats is a concept that’s in its infancy, but it’s an exciting one.”
