Out of Home Will Reign Supreme in the Cookieless Future. An Interview with Chris Grosso, CEO of Intersection

Chris Grosso, the new Chief Executive Officer of Intersection, understands the role of urban OOH as an important component to an advertising campaign. 

His company, Intersection, “is an experience driven, out of home media technology company  focused on bringing programming, consumer amenities and advertising to cities,” he explained and added, “We are aiming to elevate the urban experience for consumers and advertisers.” His company, which reaches the 15 biggest cities in the U.S., offers a range of consumer services such as free internet access, such as through LinkNYC, real time information and way-finding products.

A Changing Media Ecosystem Based on Greater Privacy

In an emerging world of IDFA and the prospect of a cookieless future, there will be some media platforms that can easily pivot to this new reality. Out of Home is one of them. The shift from consumer opt out to consumer opt in creates an opportunity for a more passive form of collecting consumer data coupled with a platform the offers premium content. “If you advertise on a premium publisher you know the audience you're getting. You know that the audience is going to be high quality. I think that's got benefits for publishers, because the publishers get the full value of the audiences and they don't have these ad tech companies as middlemen,” he explained and added, “The notion of content and context becomes much, much more valuable and publishers that can deliver that kind of audience are going to be in a really good position.”

Privacy looms large as a challenge for many companies but Grosso is unconcerned because when it comes
to out of home, “You don't need to know who that person is you just need to know that people who were by your screen showed up at the store. You don't need to know anything about those people other than that and that's a very privacy friendly way.”

Intersection’s Offering

Intersection positions itself as a publisher that can offer a range of compelling content such as that found on LinkNYC which offers weather, time, factoids, art, notices of local events, etc. In addition, the company can offer a point of purchase opportunity for advertisers. “Say you're a beer company and want to reach people who are going to bars. You could buy a digital out of home campaign on our screens on Friday nights, right around the bar. I don't need a cookie to be able to get that audience, I can just get that audience, where they are at a logical place in a logical time,” he noted.

And the sun-setting of cookies poses no problem and even offers a compelling point of difference for out of home, according to Grosso. “I can put ads in the drugstore, but I also can put ads on digital out of home screens or even static out of home screens right outside the drugstore and again that's a powerful context, so I think location and context become really important in a world where you can't try to use cookies to track that kind of audience,” he shared.

Intersection’s Measurement

Measurement deliverables for advertisers include both established currencies and strategic partnerships. “We rely on Geopath which is an audited set of metrics for the out of home industry,” for reach, frequency and impressions, Grosso explained. “Geopath is the currency that people buy and sell on. We found that it was a good baseline. But you have to enhance on top of it. So we’ve put together an ecosystem of partners that can build on top of what you get from Geopath,” which includes more demographics – the types of people who have seen the ads and what they do after exposure.

One example is StreetMetrics for exterior buses. “We sell advertising on 10,000 buses in the United States and using StreetMetrics provides digital style measurement in attribution based on the data they collect,” using the GPS from the bus to match to the data they collect to better understand the audience, he noted.

Looking Ahead for Out of Home and Intersection

For Grosso, the future is bright with possibilities. “Valuable premium audience with differentiated content is going to be really, really successful,” he began, “That's going to be true in the digital space and that's going to be true in the physical space.” He pointed out that the opportunities are there for both big and small companies. Big platforms like Facebook or Google, “will continue to be hugely successful because you have lots of data and big audiences that are highly engaged. If you're a specialized vertical publisher with good audience you're also going to be successful. The premium out of home companies that have assets that can reach hard to reach audiences with really good creative in contextual brand safe environments are also going to be hugely successful because so much advertising is targeted by location and without a cookie trying to find those people on a mobile phone, is going to be very hard, I can guarantee you.”

He sees that, “People are coming back to cities and going out frequently. Advertisers want to reach those folks at critical points throughout the day, so high quality out of home publishers are going to really thrive. Out of home will become a great way to add highly localized reach for any of these marketers because if they want to target locations or consumers who congregate and specific neighborhoods, the best way to do it has always been out of home, but now it'll be the only way to do it. Out of home will continue to be the most cost effective, privacy friendly and brand safe way, if you want to target a geography,” he concluded.

This article first appeared in www.MediaVillage.com

 

Creating a New OOH Standard Measurement. An Interview with Kym Frank

I remember Kym Frank when she worked at Zenith. But her background expands across every media channel, “always with,” she notes, “a focus on data and insights.” 

Frank is currently President of Geopath, an out-of-home trade organization formerly known as the Traffic Audit Bureau. Charged with leading the charge to advance OOH measurement through data and analytics, she is using the GeoPath platform to, “drastically improving the industry’s standard currency.”  Here are the details:

Charlene Weisler: What is the state of OOH measurement today? How does it compare today to the way it was measured before?

Kym Frank: Until recently, the OOH industry measured audience exposure using a combination of somewhat static data sources, such as traffic counts that were gathered from the Department of Transportation, US Census data and information from the American Community Survey.  This solution provided the industry measurement of audience exposure for an average week of the year across standard age, gender, income, ethnicity demographic breaks. 

With the migration to Geopath, the industry embraced new, more granular data sets, such as mobile location data and speed data harnessed from in-dash navigation systems and connected cars.  The new measurement provides anonymous, aggregated, privacy compliant audience exposure at the hourly level that is dynamic throughout the year.  We also integrated thousands of incremental audience segments that encompass purchase behavior, psychographics and even usage of other media channels. 

Weisler: What is the advantage of OOH vs other media?

Frank: OOH is a unique channel that is immune to many of the issues faced by other media.  It cannot be blocked or skipped.  It is not subject to ad fraud and it is relatively immune from brand safety issues. It is not dependent upon a media platform for delivery. And it is ubiquitous – present when and where consumers are making purchase decisions.  

Weisler:  Tell me about GeoPath - what is it and how was it developed?

Frank: Geopath, is an industry trade association for OOH advertising that was founded in 1933 – a joint initiative from the ANA, the 4As and the OAAA - the Out of Home Advertising Association of America.  It was established to provide transparent, responsible measurement of the medium.  We are governed by a tripartite Board of Directors that equally represents the interests of media operators, agencies and advertisers. In fact, the ANA, the 4As and the OAAA still hold seats on our board today!  

Weisler:  How do you collect the data and which data is most important?

Frank: The core of our measurement solution is harnessed from mobile devices.  It is all aggregated and anonymized by our partners at AirSage and then modeled to represent the population movement of the entire US by our partners at Citilabs.  Those data are provided to Geopath, which we match against our proprietary database of audited OOH inventory to convert population movement to audience impressions. 

Weisler:  Is other data merged with GeoPath data and if so what and how?

Frank: Yes! We are partnered with Claritas to layer audience targeting information on top of our impressions. This allows our users to optimize their OOH spend by identifying the best placements to reach people in the market for a new car or individuals who frequent fast food restaurants.  The coupling of big movement data with granular audience data maximizes OOH’s potential – in that it can provide both broad reach and targeted advertisements. 

Weisler: How are advertisers and brands responding to GeoPath and how are they using it?

Frank: The support that we have received from the advertising community has been overwhelming.  Since the beta launch of the new measurement system last spring, our membership has grown to record levels, up more than 50%!

Our members are thrilled with the ability to use the data so that they can provide audiences as a basis of transactions rather than locations.  This type of granular, sophisticated data is helping to propel growth in the industry and increase the value of the inventory that is available.

Weisler:  Do you incorporate other media platforms and if so what and how? Any insights from this?

Frank: Thanks to our partnership with Claritas, we are able to understand the media consumption of the audiences that interact with OOH advertising.  For example, we can use our data to understand how to reach consumers who don’t have a cable subscription or who don’t visit social networks or watch YouTube.  This empowers buyers to amplify their spend in other channels by reaching consumers they may be missing.  

Weisler:  Any surprises from the new GeoPath data?

Frank: Because we are measuring people as they move throughout their day, we are often delighted to see that the profiles of audiences are much different than the people who actually live near a piece of OOH inventory.  For example, we have seen that a billboard may be physically located in a geographic location where there is a greater concentration of lower income HHs, but the resulting audience exposure actually among higher-income individuals, just due to commuting patterns.  

Weisler:  Are you working with other organizations on these measurement initiatives? If so who and what?

Frank: Certainly.  Because we are a non-profit, all of our member organizations are involved in the development and evaluation of our methodologies.  They loan us their best and brightest minds to sit on our Insights Committee, for example.  We are working very closely with the MRC, developing OOH Measurement Standards.  We are also streamlining all of the industry’s best practices with the key trade bodies for OOH. This includes the OAAA, the DPAA, the DSF, and the IAB.  

This article first appeared in www.Mediapost.com

GeoPath Upends the World of Out of Home Measurement

In a world where we are more and more likely to use our mobile phones for a range of activities, the data collected from these devices are proving to be very helpful to advertisers, behaviorists and marketers. Kym Frank, President of the OOH trade organization, GeoPath, has just released a new measurement platform that promises to upend the way we measure OOH.

According to Frank, OOH ads cannot be blocked or skipped and is not subject to ad fraud. These ads are often located close to the point of sale when purchasing decisions are being made.  GeoPath will now add more granular data sets, such as location data and speed data from in-dash navigation systems and connected cars.  It will also have audience segmentations for purchase behavior, psychographics and other channel usage.

Over the next three years, Frank believes that “we will see more focus on the integration of incremental data sets – specifically first party data – to provide custom, proprietary solutions to advertisers.” She also expects to see greater, “integration of OOH measurement within the existing measurement ecosystems and planning/buying solutions of other channels, as well as greater integration of OOH data into attribution platforms to ensure recognition of these dollars in driving outcomes.”

She notes that, “As our measurement platform becomes the currency for OOH, we fully expect to see not only a strong continued growth for OOH ad dollars in local markets, but continued infusion of spend from national brands who are now able to use our audience segments to buy in these markets – just as they would on a national level.  And that is going to increase the value of OOH inventory for sellers, and enable buyers to define ad effectiveness and efficiency like never before.” Let the revolution begin.

This article first appeared in Cynopsis.