Product News | October 11, 2021

Introducing our intelligent cloud-based ad server: Broadsign Air

When we envision the future of out-of-home, we envision an industry free to deliver amazing content in all sorts of contexts. We envision a space that allows for boundless creativity, and the ability for just about any OOH business to access powerful tools that save them time and maximize the value of their inventory.

To get to that place a little sooner, we created Broadsign Air, an intelligent cloud-based ad server that brings all the power of the Broadsign Control CMS to non-Broadsign players. With Broadsign Air, players running Android, or other architectures previously unsupported by our platform, can be added to networks alongside Broadsign Players.

If you want to build a network with a great deal of hardware flexibility but don’t want to sacrifice on software features, now’s your chance. Broadsign Air can help you make it happen.

How Broadsign Air Works

Broadsign Air is basically the ad-serving capabilities of Broadsign Control, just uncoupled from the Broadsign player software used by PC players to handle incoming media.

With Air, when content is uploaded to the Control CMS, the content also gets uploaded into an Amazon Web Services S3 repository. The URL indicating the location of the piece of content within the repo is then sent by Broadsign Air to your third-party player of choice.

Upon receipt of the URL, your Air-connected player will need to download the associated media file and then render the content for the display.

Note: Broadsign Air alone will not be capable of playing media on your network. You must connect Broadsign Air to separate software that can play the content it serves.

What does all of this mean?

For day-to-day use, using Broadsign Air will be basically the same as using Broadsign Control normally. Users will log in to the Broadsign Control administrator tool and be able to enjoy all the great features it has to offer. That means automated scheduling and delivery, industry-leading security, and a virtually unlimited ability to scale your business while maintaining a streamlined workflow.

You will be able to use players connected through Broadsign Air both on their own or as part of a larger network that includes full Broadsign Players, giving you increased flexibility and choice when building out your network.

And, finally, you can also make full use of the Broadsign Direct sales solution, and will be able to connect any players running on Broadsign Air to the Broadsign Reach supply-side programmatic platform.

The main complication is just that it takes some time and development resources to establish the connection between Broadsign Air and your player of choice.

What do I need to use Broadsign Air?

Because Broadsign Air does not make use of the native connection between the Control Administrator tool and the Control Player, you will need to do some development work to establish the connection between the Broadsign Air ad server and your players of choice.

We will provide REST API endpoints for your team to connect your client application. This will allow your client to send POST requests. Your developer or team of developers therefore will need to know how to work with Postman, CURL, or some other development environment suitable for working with a REST API to make the connection.

Note that this project can be complex, and so it is not the kind of thing that can be handed off to the average intern. A dedicated, experienced developer, either in-house or outsourced, can likely achieve the required connection with a couple of months of work (assuming you already have a player ready/selected).

Limitations of Broadsign Air

Broadsign Air was built to deliver everything you know and love about Broadsign’s intelligent scheduling and ad serving capabilities to a wider array of players. There are, however, a few important details to keep in mind when selecting this software to power your content scheduling.

Broadsign Air does not handle playback

We’ve mentioned this above, but it’s a point worth repeating: Broadsign Air allows you to connect the Broadsign Control scheduling and ad-serving capabilities to a non-Broadsign player. It will not provide content playback, incident reports, or network monitoring for your network. It will only generate content playlists based on campaign conditions and creatives, and then make media available for download by your third-party player accordingly.

Note: Proof-of-play functionality powered by Broadsign Air is supported. It is up to your third-party player to report successful playback back to Broadsign Air so that it can be included in proof-of-play reports.

Broadsign Air must be used with Control as the CMS

Broadsign Air is not a totally standalone product. Rather, it requires that you adopt Broadsign Control as your CMS and use it to schedule content to Air-connected displays. Without the use of Broadsign Control as the CMS, Broadsign Air will not function.

Currently incompatible with Broadsign Publish

At launch, Broadsign Air will not support custom HTML5 content managed through our local messaging service, Broadsign Publish.

Got questions? We’ve got answers

If you want to learn more about what Broadsign Air can do for you, please reach out to your Broadsign rep or request a free demo to see what it’s all about!

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