Product News | October 11, 2021

How Starlite Media elevates the shopping centre experience with DOOH

Across America, shopping centres anchored by grocery stores, big box stores, pharmacies, and other businesses draw tens of millions of consumers each day. These consumers are a group prepared to transact on location, but who are likely also growing accustomed to information-rich shopping experiences in the online space.

For brick and mortar stores, one of the keys to maintaining or establishing strong connections with this audience is to meet, in real time, its demand for information on available products and services. With its growing network of intelligent digital out-of-home screens placed at and around shopping centres, Starlite Media believes it has found a solution that will do just that.

Toward a digital future

Since starting out in the out-of-home space in 2003, Starlite has built up a strong stable of static inventory and locations at outdoor shopping centres. Around 2014, however, the company began to focus on the future of digital and the opportunities that could come from replacing static inventory with dynamic, intelligent tools for communicating with audiences. Beginning in 2019, Starlite began replacing signs in its most prominent locations with digital screens.

A test conducted with the help of Nielsen has shown this migration to digital to be an excellent choice. In mid-2019, Starlite placed digital and static advertising for a national cereal brand in Starlite’s locations, comparing resulting sales lift between the formats. Where static achieved a solid 8% lift, digital’s lift reached even higher, to 14.5%. According to Nielsen, both outperformed in-store, TV, radio, and online advertising.

With an expected count of 500 screens deployed in New York and other critical markets within the next 12 months, and several thousand more on the way within the next couple of years, the company is eager to build on its early success in digital and deliver new opportunities to retailers at its locations.

There where people transact

Every one of Starlite’s screens is at a shopping centre that includes a grocery store, as well as pharmacies, restaurants, and other sorts of retail establishments. With Starlite’s screens given prominent placement at these shopping centres, it offers media buyers an enhanced ability to connect with shoppers right before they go to make a purchase. The screens are a great way to deliver valuable information about products and services through a compelling medium, making it easier to raise awareness and even fuel impulse purchases.

Better still, with the vast majority of shoppers heading directly home after going to the grocery store, memorable advertising on Starlite’s displays can lead to a quick turnaround for at-home searches, or even online transactions. Brands around the world are seeking out multichannel marketing opportunities that incorporate both DOOH and mobile or online advertising, and Starlite’s unique market means it is in a good position to benefit.

The sights and sounds of DOOH success

With its move into digital, Starlite is hard at work ensuring its network delivers on all the features advertisers want. The company’s screens all offer full-motion video, some up to 4k, and audio playback capability. It’s a feature set that holds a great deal of appeal for advertisers of all kinds, but the company also foresees the entertainment industry, and particularly companies in the film space, being particularly drawn to the multimedia potential of these screens for trailers and other ads that incorporate sound.

For all the benefits of that sort of flashiness, it’s the potential beyond the display that Starlite finds the most exciting about the DOOH space. Audience analytics features and detailed campaign reporting are must-haves for the national and global brands that typically advertise on the company’s displays. By ensuring its data are accurate and third-party verified, the company is seizing its opportunity to provide the data-driven insights that advertisers crave, and to build a sterling reputation within the industry.

Given time, they believe that this approach will help win them and other forward-thinking DOOH networks a large slice of the ad budgets commonly devoted to online advertising today.

Starlite and Broadsign

Wanting to ensure its entry to the DOOH space was done correctly, the company spent years evaluating software options before settling on adopting the complete Broadsign platform. This includes Broadsign Control for content management, Broadsign Direct to manage sales and inventory, Broadsign Reach to enable programmatic transactions, Broadsign Publish to enable local content management and Broadsign Control Live for instant control over network health and playback.

By adopting this suite, Starlite is enabling putting in place all the pieces it needs for a successful, aggressive DOOH expansion. Critically, intelligent playback will help ensure the right content is played on the right screens at the right times, while integrated sales and inventory through Broadsign Direct drastically reduce time spent on RFPs and inventory management. The company will also be able to attract new buyers and different kinds of campaigns by enabling data-driven, programmatic transactions through Broadsign Reach.

Finally, Broadsign’s compatibility with a wide array of services, like the Quividi audience analytics platform, ensures Starlite can bake all the intelligence and features they want into their network. As the company’s network grows, it will be empowered to maintain the high levels of efficiency and quality that will set it apart.

Product News | October 11, 2021

PATTISON Modernizes its Out-of-Home Technology Stack with Broadsign

Partnership streamlines daily operations and unlocks new revenue potential; enables PATTISON clients to maximize OOH campaigns

Montreal, Canada, April 25, 2024 – Out-of-home (OOH) ad tech leader Broadsign today announced that PATTISON Outdoor Advertising, a leading Canadian OOH media owner, has adopted the full Broadsign OOH technology stack. With Broadsign already providing a centralized hub for its programmatic digital OOH (DOOH) workflows, the expanded partnership now enables PATTISON to dynamically manage and optimize its OOH inventory to unlock previously untapped revenue opportunities. The partnership also opens up new ways for brands to book campaigns on PATTISON inventory with a more targeted, impression-based approach and accelerates the rate at which PATTISON can display client ads across its OOH inventory, spanning urban pathways, residential and office buildings, transit hubs, airports, and other venues across Canada.

Providing a near real-time ad scheduling workflow comprising advanced optimization and prioritization tools, the Broadsign platform is helping PATTISON reallocate time previously spent on manual campaign pacing and adding daily plays to bump up the delivery of low-pacing campaigns. Broadsign’s optimization engine works on a play-by-play or impression level based on each campaign’s goals, and enables PATTISON’s sales team to easily find more available inventory, even in high sellout periods. With the updated OOH platform, PATTISON can now easily customize campaigns to align with client needs. Since beginning its rollout of the new platform in early March, it has powered OOH campaigns for some of PATTISON’s largest clients, including Holt Renfrew, Lotto Quebec, McDonald’s, and Tim Hortons. 

“In evaluating our options, the Broadsign tech stack quickly emerged as the best fit, especially for our ad-serving needs. It lets us maximize yield and revenue potential while ensuring pDOOH campaigns can be seamlessly executed based on client goals, with little to no manual intervention,” shared PATTISON Director of Digital Innovation Jessica Littlejohn. “Our digital product offering has never been more robust than with Broadsign at its core, and our team has more time to do what we do best – understand and help our clients achieve their objectives.”

Echoing Littlejohn’s sentiments, PATTISON President Steve McGregor, added, “The support the Broadsign team has provided along the journey has been instrumental in helping us to achieve our business goals and prepare for our next phase of growth.”

“PATTISON is an industry trailblazer with a reputation for always being one step ahead of the curve. It was one of the first media owners to offer full-scale programmatic DOOH and advanced audience-based targeting options,” shared Maarten Dollevoet, Chief Revenue Officer, Broadsign. “PATTISON’s commitment to evolving its digital toolset to prepare for the next wave of OOH is inspiring, and we’re excited to partner with them to help them reach their goals.”

About Broadsign

Broadsign empowers media owners, agencies, and brands to harness the power and reach of out-of-home to connect with audiences in ways unlike any other advertising channel. More than 1.5 million static and digital signs along roadways and in airports, shopping malls, retailers, health clinics, transit systems, electric vehicle charging stations, and more run on Broadsign, reaching audiences at multiple touchpoints throughout the consumer journey. The Broadsign Platform helps media owners such as Outfront, Pattison Outdoor, Global, and Intersection streamline business operations and maximize revenue opportunities while enabling marketers and agencies to more easily plan and execute dynamic OOH campaigns that resonate with audiences. Brands spanning AB InBev, Disney, FanDuel, H&M, Honda, HP, Johnson & Johnson, KLM, Uber Eats, Sea-Doo, Samsonite, and many more have run successful programmatic DOOH campaigns enabled by Broadsign technology. https://broadsign.com

About PATTISON 

PATTISON Outdoor Advertising, a division of The Jim Pattison Group is Canada’s largest Out-of-Home advertising company. PATTISON Outdoor helps brands and businesses harness the power of Out-of-Home advertising by providing the most comprehensive range of products, markets, insights and customer support services. With its roots reaching back to 1908, PATTISON has been providing innovative solutions for Out-of-Home advertising opportunities with products ranging from traditional billboards to transit, digital, airport, residential, office, and street level formats. PATTISON is headquartered in Toronto, Ontario with over 25 sales offices across the country, providing advertisers unmatched reach and coverage with products available in over 200 markets coast to coast.

Product News | October 11, 2021

What’s new in the Broadsign Platform: Sophisticated targeting, creative management and UI improvements

Spring has finally sprung, which means fresh air, greenery, and, most importantly, fresh updates to the Broadsign Platform. This season we are bringing you sophisticated targeting tools, streamlined creative management, and major UI improvements to make the campaign planning and management process for directly-sold campaigns as seamless as possible for campaign planners. 

Why does this matter? While the activation process for digital out-of-home (DOOH) may only require a couple of minutes, the campaign planning and management process often requires much more time. Discovering available and relevant inventory, collecting data to prove the medium’s effectiveness in meeting campaign goals, and managing campaign creatives are all time-consuming tasks.

The new spring updates introduce a new level of automation that not only reduces the time and complexities of getting DOOH campaigns out the door but also helps make out-of-home (OOH) a competitive and attractive medium for buyers. Let’s dive in!

Sophisticated targeting tools that find the best inventory 

We don’t believe granular targeting should be just for programmatic buys. That’s why media owner campaign planners who plan, execute, and monitor directly-sold campaigns through the Broadsign Platform now have access to the same flexibility and comprehensive targeting capabilities as online and programmatic media buyers. 

With our new targeting tools*, you can now filter your inventory by location and key points of interest (POIs), enabling campaign planners to find the most relevant inventory for each campaign at the click of a button. You now also have access to an intuitive map visualization that displays your inventory with quick filtering by area, support for bulk location uploads, and setting radius parameters. 

These additions to the Broadsign Platform not only cut down on the manual work required for inventory discovery but also provide your team the opportunity to be more of a strategic partner to buyers. 

For your sales team – who juggle multiple responsibilities, like business development, client relations, creating proposals, negotiating deals, and overseeing campaign execution and performance –  they can spend less time on administrative tasks and more time advising buyers on the effectiveness of OOH and its complimentary effect with other mediums. For your campaign planners – who often juggle multiple campaigns at once – they can plan and set up campaigns a lot quicker, freeing themselves to focus on more critical tasks. 

*Disclaimer: For sophisticated targeting capabilities, you must be fully migrated to the Broadsign Platform and be located in the following supported countries – Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Switzerland, United Kingdom, United States of America. 

Simplified creative management and centralized campaign planning

Media owners juggle multiple campaigns and creatives at the same time, and without the right tools, the creative management process can become complex and stressful for your teams. Our new creative management tools now allow you to create, edit, manage, and assign campaign creatives with ease. On top of that, you’ll also be able to push your campaigns live – all within a single unified workflow through the Broadsign Platform.

In this update to the Broadsign Platform, you can now manage creative bundles for each of your campaigns directly through a new web-based workflow, eliminating the need to go through the Broadsign desktop tools. This enhancement provides your team with greater flexibility by allowing them to access and manage their campaigns from any location at any time. 

We think you’ll also love how intuitive and easy-to-use the campaign planning tools are to adopt. Users of all technical proficiency levels can quickly learn and use this streamlined approach to create and manage campaigns with ease. 

Additional management tools for an improved user experience

Along with comprehensive creative management and targeting tools for directly-sold campaigns, additional tools and UI enhancements have been added to improve the usability and user experience of the Broadsign Platform:

The Guaranteed Campaigns module is now fully integrated into the Broadsign Platform

We’ve fully integrated the Guaranteed Campaigns module, formerly called Broadsign Direct, into the platform interface. This consolidation allows you to more conveniently manage campaigns, packages, and settings directly from the Broadsign Platform, eliminating the need to visit the original stand-alone application. 

Inventory package accessibility

Access inventory packages effortlessly through the platform’s updated navigation bar, enhancing efficiency and ease of use.

Centralized settings management

Administrators can now adjust and manage all necessary settings for digital and static inventory, user management, and more directly within the platform’s web-based UI through a centralized hub for control and configuration.

Campaign monitoring enhancements

With the newly implemented progress indicator, real-time monitoring of campaign pacing is now possible, giving immediate insight into campaign performance. This allows for quick adjustments to be made, as needed, to meet campaign goals effectively.

Search functionality and filters

An improved search mechanism, complemented by additional filters like campaign, client or contract names, enables quicker and more accurate campaign retrieval, saving time and improving workflow.

Dashboard customization

Tailor the platform’s dashboard to meet individual needs, ensuring that the most relevant and important information is always front and center.

Want to know more? 

Here’s a short FAQ to provide you with some answers to some questions you might have regarding our latest updates:

What do I need to do to prepare for the update?
There’s no need to do anything to prepare for the update. It will be applied automatically to your Broadsign Platform account.

Will all my users have access to creative management?
Admins automatically have access, and we’ve also created two new creative user roles which would also have access, if granted. Take a look at our documentation for more information on roles.

Will this affect any of my API integrations?
No, there will be no impact on the use of APIs or any integrations.

Will the update affect my existing campaigns?
No, the update will not affect your existing campaigns.

Will I still be able to access the original Guaranteed Campaigns (Broadsign Direct) interface?
Yes, however only by using this URL. The Broadsign Platform will now no longer redirect you to the old interface. 

Will https://direct.broadsign.com still work?
Yes, however we highly encourage you to use the new Broadsign Platform moving forward as new features and improvements may only be accessible there.

Interested in testing out these new features? Book a demo today