Latest / The Yield Doctor with James Deaker / Stephanie Gutnik on DOOH

Transcript

Stephanie Gutnik on DOOH · The Yield Doctor with James Deaker

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my guest today is Dr Stephanie gutnik Dr
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gutnik obtained her doctorate and MBA
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from Edinburgh business school she was
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formerly the head of digital out of home
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for Yahoo and she is currently the chief
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strategy officer at Bops she is a
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genuine expert in digital outof home
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advertising and today we are going to be
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talking about some of the challenges and
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opportunities Stephanie I am so glad
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that you're able to join me thank you
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well thank you for having me James
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excellent excellent let's start with um
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what is Billups for those who aren't
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familiar can you please describe the
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company and the space that you play in
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definitely so Billups first and foremost
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is the last name of the founder bench
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Bops and uh the agency has been around
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for 20 years we celebrated our 20th
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anniversary last year uh started out of
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Portland Oregon and now we are the
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largest independent out of Home media
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agency in North America and really
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expanding globally super quickly at this
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point I uh I was brought into the role
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in September of 2023 and promptly after
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I started uh we acquired an agency in
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Toronto which is where I live so now
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we're covering Canada in that regard
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another one in Malaysia and another one
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in Belgium excellent thank you and
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congratulations on the on the role thank
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you stepping back um I used to naively
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hear digital out of home and think oh
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that's digital Billboards but I know in
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reality it is much more than that so can
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you help Define the digital out of home
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space for me please definitely and
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you're not alone most people think
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digital Billboards when they hear digit
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out of home uh but really the inventory
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spans any screen that you will be
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engaging with outside of your home so
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from the minute that you get on the
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subway uh if there are screens in the
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station or even on the Train sometimes
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um or if you are heading to an airport
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you and I both travel a fair bit for
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business you'll see some great displays
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in around the airports and in the backs
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of taxi cabs on the tops of taxi cabs
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shopping malls office elevators the list
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goes on
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Cinema and um when you're thinking about
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the all the different number of places
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they can be is it what is the biggest
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advantage of digital over traditional
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static out of home advertising it's a
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good question uh there is a a steady
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conversion of traditional faces the
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print faces to digital screens in
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certain locations uh but traditional
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won't be going away Brands still love
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traditional out of home for the 247
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awareness play they just get to own that
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space and there are certain um ways to
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use traditional like a wallscape for
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example where you'll see like a big
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Kelvin Klein ad on the side of a
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building in SoHo it just has that impact
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that will remain um a a marketer
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favorite but with digital the advantage
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there really becomes the flexibility you
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and I both met when we were working at
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Yahoo and um having programmatic
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capabilities and automation applied to
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the out of home space has really been a
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game Cher in being able to bring in um
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more more flexible marketing dollars and
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introduce the space to some smaller
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companies too that really need to get
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their name out there and who maybe
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didn't think it was possible before when
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you had to have these massive type
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campaigns so digital just make things a
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lot more flexible you can start and stop
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campaigns when you want switch up the
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creative and um once I was at an agency
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this is years ago but they didn't
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realize that like you can have weather
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triggers for example so if it's raining
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throw in an ad that's different than if
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it's sunny and this can um you know
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happen pretty much instantly right
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because there's a feed with that local
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weather station to the screen right so
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um anything that you can do in digital
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that's more conditions based or triggers
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based you can apply to digital out of
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home as well when we think about how um
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ads get shared through the space What
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are the usual models at the moment
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because if I'm driving down a freeway I
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might see ads being rotated every few
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seconds I can imagine that there might
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be still some areas that might even be a
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takeover for one Advertiser to rotate
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their own creative through and I could
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imagine that there are different models
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as you said just triggers that would
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would cause the rotation so is you're
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thinking about that and I'm particularly
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getting to what are there standards
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around these kinds of things in the same
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way that other Industries have move to
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like a 30 second creative or 15sec what
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are the standards right now so with out
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of home um particularly digital it used
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to be a loop based model to your point
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earlier where let's say for a billboard
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it was every six to n seconds say the ad
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would change and that was just a fixed
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Loop now with Automation and
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programmatic and AD serving capabilities
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in the digital aut of home space it's
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much more Dynamic and again you can buy
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out of home screens for their location
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it's definitely a good way to do things
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we talk a lot about context in the
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overall advertising lands you can pick a
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location based context and that's
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perfect but with this new way of AD
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serving you can also pick your audiences
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and the ad will play based on who is
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most likely to see the ad at that time
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so we've we've now brought data into the
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out of home space and we can judge by um
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the audiences as well and I would say
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too um in terms of the standards of of
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AD slots or or times it's totally going
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to depend based on um again the location
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and the dwell time of that audience so
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what we've done for brands in certain
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instances we can do a fulltime Square
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takeover all those digital assets can be
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at one time for a certain brand it's a
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beautiful visual experience so that's an
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option but also if um if your target
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audience is in like a restaurant or bar
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situation where they're going to be
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there for a while and 've got screens
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running content but also ads that's
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digital out of home it's a kind of fuzzy
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line because maybe you also would think
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of it as connected television uh but
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that's digital out of home and Those ads
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can be longer and in certain places
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video ads and out of home can even
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include
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audio Yeah so so talk to me about the
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different dimensions that advertisers
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care about because the way as you've
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been describing this I mean digital is
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complex enough as it is with all the
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different mation and ways you can cut
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the problem you just been introduced a
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few New Dimensions things like dwell
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time in the different audience
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composition when you are getting
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questions from new advertisers who are
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thinking about the space What are the
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sort of different dimensions that
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they're focused on or might have
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concerns about as they're moving from
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more traditional media so you know
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what's funny is I feel like there is a
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bit of a double standard when it comes
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to out of home because marketers that
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are new to the channel will often say
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things like but how do you know that
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someone actually saw the ad and to me
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you can just flip that right back at
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them it's like how do you know somebody
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saw your TV commercial was that not used
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as a bathroom break or you know running
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into the kitchen for a snack um I love
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ads of all kinds so I'm going to want to
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watch the TV commercials but I work in
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the industry so maybe it's an anomaly uh
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and and what Billups has done is one of
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the reasons why I was so excited to join
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the company is we've applied a lot of
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technology to the outof home space And
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so there's some proprietary and patented
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technology to help understand um
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viewability and visibility uh and
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attention so that kind of goes through
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viewability was a huge thing in
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advertising a couple years ago
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attention's now the Hot Topic we can
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look at both and we do so in measuring
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view sheds so we can look at if
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someone's driving down a freeway we can
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have an understanding of if there there
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might be some Street Furniture like a
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bus shelter with an ad on the side um or
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some of those Billboards and we have an
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understanding of is there anything
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obstructing The View like a a tree for
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example what's in the way and also based
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on people's likelihood to um where
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they're going to be looking we can see
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what parts of the boards or the screens
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they're actually going to be able to see
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or be drawn to so there's a lot of
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science that you can apply when it comes
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to selecting what inventory is right for
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a campaign so just to make sure I
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understand that correctly does that mean
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that essentially every time you're
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trying to serve on a new screen it needs
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to get mapped in some way in terms of
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its geolocation the potential obstacles
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the potential audience so for I mean
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that's that feels um time intensive
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intensive is it it is I mean that's why
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we've applied this technology to help
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the media planners on our teams do
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things more efficiently um but certainly
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there's a big chunk of in our data
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Sciences team there's data cleaning that
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goes on with the inventory that we bring
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on board um and you know it goes back to
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why Specialists won't be going away any
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time soon even with the introduction of
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Technology because people still really
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need to understand the landscape of
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things to make sure that these ads are
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appearing on boards and screens that
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will be seen by consumers got it well
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when you think about the
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advertisers who are most excited or the
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biggest opportunity for digital out of
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home is it the traditional sort of out
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of home advertisers who are now excited
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about the move to more options to be
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able to rotate and have different
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visuals or is it that um traditional you
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know web-based advertisers are now
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seeing that they can move their assets
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into the out- of Home landscape help me
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think about those tradeoffs it's such a
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good question um where we see a lot of
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excitement is again most people don't
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realize that out of home is as
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measurable as it actually is and even
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with um device IDs and cookies going
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away you know Billups has measurement
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methodologies that can accommodate full
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funnel so whether it's brand awareness
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or brand studies all the way through
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website conversions or app downloads
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we've been running this for years uh to
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accommodate gdpr and our clients in
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Europe and even in the states so um what
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I would say about that is performance
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marketers who might have said a little
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while ago I'm not interested in out of
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home that's a brand play they're
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starting to invest more money because a
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they realize that there does need to be
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a brand play in their holis marketing
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approach it can't just be lower funnel
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because then you're not growing your
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consumer base um but also that at of
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Home has that dual function you get the
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big creative that gets noticed but then
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you can also measure it so definitely an
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increase in interest by performance
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marketers who've been educated on what
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the channel can do and then if you look
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at just the biggest marketers in general
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McDonald's huge fan of out of home and
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they get really creative they can have
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fun with it because they're brand is so
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well known um there was a campaign that
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ran in Toronto in parts of Canada and I
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believe it wenton a can line a couple
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years ago where McDonald's would just
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have parts of the arch um in the
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billboard to advise drivers of like
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where they should be turning to get to a
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McDonald's location so they just it was
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really smart um Apple's a really big
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user of out of home it's all these big
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marketers that people aspire to be they
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probably over index in terms of their
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out of home spend interesting okay okay
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um we've already talked about the
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complexity of digital advertising which
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I'm always amazed at uh I think the
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number of AD formats the complexity of
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auctions there's always some major
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challenge that needs to be addressed to
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move things forward and when I think
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about digital out of home it's still
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relatively nent and and I would assume
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that some of the standards
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are still evolving when you look at sort
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of the biggest areas that are excuse me
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challenges that need to be addressed or
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where standards need to be established
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what would that area be it's a really
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great question because out of home is
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not you can't really standardize the
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format the same way you would a mobile
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ad um or an ad that appears on a a
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connected television or in your laptop
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for example so because we cannot
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standardize the creative assets we can
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just look at ways to make it easier um
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so if we're looking at programmatic for
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example maybe it's helping the client
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choose similar aspect ratios so that we
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don't have to make so many different
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types of content um but that's also the
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thrill of it creative agencies get
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really excited when they know that out
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of home is part of the plan and they can
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develop specifically for some
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spectacular sites right or um you know
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depending on the location they can just
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get specific and blend in with the space
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in a way that people really enjoy which
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I think is one of the reasons
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why people respond out of home in a more
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favorable way compared to other AD types
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it doesn't feel like it's interrupting
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the consumption of content uh it's
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usually like a little bit of
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entertainment or information while
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you're waiting for something to happen
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you know while you're on the subway or
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or in the airport
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so people respond favorably and then
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there's usually some positive
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implications to the brand because of
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that I um you've already talked I think
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you said people aren't aware of how well
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targeted it's possible to have digital
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out of home be and one of the P
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historical perceptions has been that it
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is less targeted than some traditional
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digital marketing where the user might
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have a cookie or a unique ID but we've
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seen seen fantasy versions or futuristic
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versions portrayed in movies where
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someone walks by a screen this facial
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recognition uh or maybe it's a signal
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from a device that they're using where
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they could get a targeted ad do you see
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evolution in that direction or do you
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see the privacy concerns being being too
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strong I always know when someone's new
15:20
to the industry because they'll be doing
15:22
a presentation and they'll bring up that
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clip for Minority Report where Tom Cruz
15:26
is you know greeted personally in the
15:29
store and uh I think that that
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technology exists to a certain extent
15:36
right so sometimes there are going to be
15:38
um cameras with the screens to
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understand you know the gender the age
15:43
the emotion uh the dwell time and
15:45
attention time to the screen you can
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glean all of that information from a
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camera um whether or not people like
15:53
this you know kind of remains to be
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determined but the fact is it's totally
15:57
privacy comp client nobody nothing's
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being stored in that sense and you're
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not identifying the specific person so I
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think even if you could get there why
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would the industry want to um and there
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are certain examples where people can
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engage I've seen um you know people
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might want to see their faces on screens
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in Time Square and sometimes Brands
16:22
enable them to engage with content so
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that that can happen um but that is very
16:27
much with their consent and so I I I
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can't see that becoming an issue what
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could become an issue is what's
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affecting the rest of the industry and
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again that's just cookie loss and uh
16:40
device ID loss because out of home to
16:42
date has has relied so heavily on mobile
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forms of of measurement uh talk to me
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about that because I hadn't thought
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about I I could imagine why device ID or
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mobile identifier would impact digital
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out of home I wouldn't have thought
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cookie loss would so can you talk me
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through maybe just start with what are
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the identifiers that are currently used
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yeah I mean even in terms of okay how
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would you determine if that led to a
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website conversion so right yep so that
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um is a is a means where cookie loss
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comes into play and um that's where
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again BPS has a Sciences team that has
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been working to understand methodologies
17:24
that can strip away the device ID uh and
17:27
are not Reliant lot of it a lot of it
17:29
can be like causal modeling for example
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and it's funny when I talk to our CTO uh
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about what he and his team have created
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because it blows my mind and I'm so
17:39
excited for clients to try it out and
17:41
see what happens I always ask how
17:44
details I can get in terms of explaining
17:46
how we do it and he's never fussed he's
17:49
like this isn't the secret sauce the
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secret sauce comes into the
17:53
actual understanding of statistics and
17:56
making sure that the team is telling the
17:58
truth because as we know and you you
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know you didn't mention this but you
18:02
also have a doctorate and so we've spent
18:04
some time with Statistics and uh you can
18:07
make a lot of stories based on the
18:09
numbers that come in um and Billups and
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and the CTO team are just very adamant
18:15
that we just tell what the story is and
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that's how you learn so um that's
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something I'm very proud of about the
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company okay um tell me digital out of
18:28
home and Retail media networks so you
18:32
know we've seen some examples Marriot
18:35
Springs to mind where they've been
18:37
putting screens in and at the same time
18:39
trying to build out their own retail
18:41
media network uh do you see that the
18:44
sort of traditional hotels Airlines
18:47
retailers Etc moving into digital app
18:50
home and building retail media networks
18:53
is a trend or are we just seeing some
18:54
outliers at the moment oh I mean the
18:57
term Firm retail media is a little bit
19:00
trendy when I started off U my career I
19:02
was at News America which is part of
19:04
News Corp and um at that time inore
19:10
advertising was called trade and then
19:12
eventually it's Shopper marketing and
19:14
now you know we've hit the retail media
19:17
I hope what the attention to um the buzz
19:21
is doing is helping everybody look at
19:23
the marketing dollars more holistically
19:25
because when we think about it yeah
19:27
there are Sho or marketing dollars in
19:30
one bucket and advertising dollars in
19:32
another and if we can look at them
19:35
together all the better right we have a
19:37
better understanding of of the the
19:40
shopping process and that path to
19:42
purchase um and when it comes to the
19:44
blend between out of home I am very much
19:47
enjoying watching it all take shape uh
19:50
because we have retailers who are
19:52
implementing you know screens and the
19:54
like in store this is nothing new Tesco
19:57
through Deco has been doing this in the
19:59
UK and that's just one example for a a
20:03
long time years um and you know making
20:06
sure that ads are are updated based on
20:09
time of day day of week promotions these
20:11
little things that make sense so that is
20:15
increasing and then what we're also
20:17
seeing is our retailers and Brands being
20:20
more attuned to that the path to the
20:23
store right so whether it's a gas
20:25
station screen um you know maybe you'll
20:28
be enticed to pop into the convenience
20:30
store and pick something up that you
20:31
just saw or um electric vehicle charging
20:35
stations have become really popular for
20:36
this too when they're placed by malls
20:39
and by retailers there's a lot of out of
20:42
home adjacency to retail
20:45
media very interesting thank you um
20:48
you're obviously a huge believer in in
20:51
the power of digital out of home uh what
20:55
do you believe about the power or the
20:58
potential of digital out of home that
21:00
you wish that others could
21:03
see I think again it would just go back
21:06
to Consumer reaction to it
21:10
so I I really and I'm looking I have a
21:13
the ogal Von advertising book on my
21:15
coffee table the fun for advertising for
21:18
me is really that consumer experience
21:22
and making actually yeah making someone
21:25
fall in love with your brand right and
21:28
of Home has such a special way to do
21:29
this not only because the creative
21:31
possibilities are pretty much endless um
21:34
but because people it exists in the real
21:38
world and people trust it as a result of
21:41
that uh the Publishers like there's a a
21:44
person that still has to manually
21:46
approve creative um unlike much of the
21:50
other rest of the realm of of
21:52
advertising where it's become more
21:54
automated so somebody really has to go
21:56
in and put some thought into what's
21:57
going to run
21:58
and I just call me a dreamer I just
22:00
think this is such a it's a beautiful
22:02
experience you can have so much fun with
22:04
it and when people trust the medium
22:06
they're more likely to trust your brand
22:08
in your
22:09
message brilliant um as we come to
22:13
closing are there any last thoughts that
22:15
you'd like to share be interested to
22:17
hear a little bit more about your
22:18
thoughts on out of
22:20
home um I'm in the category of I'm first
22:24
of all thank you for taking the time
22:25
because I learn a lot every time I do
22:27
one of these
22:28
and I think I'm probably like a lot of
22:31
people a little overwhelmed by the
22:33
complexity and trying to understand
22:36
where the real opportunities are given
22:38
that clearly there are opportunities but
22:41
you almost have to learn a new language
22:43
around the dwell time around the screens
22:46
the positioning of the screens and the
22:49
ability or not to buy into them
22:52
programmatically because some could be
22:53
set up where they you know have a
22:56
relatively weak connection to the
22:57
internet and as you say just run a loop
23:00
and so all of these things add yet more
23:03
complexity and I think I'm trying to
23:06
understand when things get to scale like
23:09
when is the sort of breakout moment
23:11
where it becomes an absolute no-brainer
23:14
for advertisers to move there rather
23:16
than um some of the advertisers you
23:19
described I describe as early adopted
23:21
you know they're trying creative things
23:23
in different environments and they know
23:25
they're out trailblazing but I don't
23:27
know that we've reach the okay it's like
23:29
TV I can just buy a slot and behind the
23:31
scenes everything magically happens I'm
23:35
totally with you and I I that's probably
23:38
why I've been in the industry for as
23:40
long as I have is it's just an underdog
23:43
Channel and I like to root for the
23:45
underdog and I'll be Satisfied when
23:48
eventually it it gets that you know
23:51
spend that it deserves I think but um
23:54
because of the complexity that is again
23:57
why you can just bring in a specialist
24:00
you know not every marketer needs to
24:02
understand exactly how everything works
24:06
but you do need to have a trusted
24:07
partner that it is actually it's never
24:10
going to be easy but it's more simple
24:12
for a media planner and out of home to
24:13
put something together than someone who
24:16
you know is is primed in in search right
24:21
it absolutely Absol hey I've enjoyed
24:23
this conversation so much I want to
24:26
thank you for taking the time and really
24:28
wish you the best of luck and all of
24:30
your endeavors in the space so thank you
24:32
so much thank you