Edith Gagné, VP of development, is just one of the many smart and talented people that have joined the Broadsign team with our recent acquisition of Campsite.
Edith has been working in the DOOH industry for 15 years, and it’s with this experience that she helped lead the creation of Campsite. Since it’s launch in 2016, the DOOH ad-exchange has become the largest in Canada, with top national and international brands running successful campaigns on screens across the country.
You may also recognize her from many speaking sessions and panels across the industry, where she shares her knowledge and expertise on the current state and future trends of programmatic DOOH. In today’s interview, she weighs in on why everyone should get started with programmatic digital out-of-home ASAP.
DOOH media owners need to adopt programmatic (and it isn’t as scary as they think)
Most of my background is working with DOOH publishers on the sales and ad ops side of things, and I became familiar with the realities of keeping up with trends and adopting new products. These steps are necessary for growth, but making the leap to try new things is often quite challenging – as we know, people are often resistant to change.
But change isn’t a bad thing, just as programmatic isn’t a bad thing for DOOH media owners. It’s an opportunity for them to grow their business, reach new buyers, and improve the efficiency of their network. Embracing programmatic DOOH now, in its beginnings, is the ideal time for media owners to prepare for the future of the industry.
Understandably, many media owners are still unsure how programmatic fits into their business, with the direct sales teams being particularly concerned. Yet, programmatic doesn’t mean the end of one-on-one relationships between buyers and sellers. Sales teams will still need to demonstrate the benefits of their screens, differentiate themselves from the competition and work with advertisers to launch great DOOH campaigns. It’s not about replacing this relationship, but simply enhancing it with the newest tech enhancements, an unavoidable evolution of the industry.
Our job, as leaders in programmatic DOOH, is to help media owners through this transition. We work closely with our publisher partners to implement best practices in business strategy, operations, sales and more, to prepare them for the programmatic shift our industry is undergoing.
The same goes for media buyers: they should get started with programmatic DOOH too
Media buyers are also feeling this transition. This is a new marketing channel for digital media buyers, and a significant change to a traditional channel for out-of-home media buyers.
Our main objectives here lie in demonstrating the benefits of DOOH where it is a new channel, and also demonstrating benefits of a more efficient transaction for those looking to test and understand the evolution of an established industry. Over the next 12 months, I think we’ll see adoption take off, with things like increased scale and ever-improving measurement technology being some important next steps.
At Campsite, we’ve seen that landing the first campaign with a brand or agency is the biggest challenge, but once a campaign is run, they quickly see the benefits DOOH brings them. It’s cost-effective, highly targeted, contextual, and audiences are very receptive to this kind of messaging. This has lead to triple-digit year-on-year growth for us, and is the reason why over half our accounts are recurring users.
We’re seeing more budget coming from purely digital media companies, adding DOOH to their online and digital strategies. Agencies and brands that get on board now will benefit from first-mover advantage and can set themselves apart as leaders in omnichannel programmatic campaigns.
Working with Broadsign opens up more opportunities for buyers and sellers
We’re thrilled to be able to bring our Canadian customers to Broadsign. Their global presence will add to our business by helping media buyers reach more global audiences, and media owners reach more buyers. We’re also excited to see how existing Broadsign and Ayuda relationships will help us grow.
We’re also seeing more associations come together to work to improve our space. The DPAA, IAB and more are really pushing for the betterment of DOOH. The industry as a whole is growing, the Campsite and Broadsign partnership is only one piece of the puzzle.
