Clear Channel Outdoor’s global division has this week announced the launch of the first out-of-home programmatic buying tool in Europe.
Clear Channel International (CCI) launched the automated solution in Belgium last week, while today announcing a roll-out of its programmatic capabilities in the UK for March.
The buying tool focuses on trading inventory on an automated guaranteed basis, giving media buyers the ability to reserve a fixed volume of inventory at a fixed price.
Customers in Brussels can now access and buy audience-based packages across Clear Channel’s digital out-of-home (DOOH) network, via programmatic channels that include the demand side platform (DSP), Adform, and a proprietary Clear Channel platform.
In March Clear Channel will roll a similar system in the UK giving buyers access to the business’s premium digital out-of-home estate, Storm. This will be followed by the addition of its digital retail portfolio across shopping centres and supermarkets and Adshel Live, the roadside out-of-home ad network.
“Programmatic buying has revolutionised the buying process in many key media sectors and we believe it will do the same for out-of-home,” said William Eccleshare, chairman and CEO of Clear Channel International.
“We are making our media simpler to plan, buy, optimise and measure through familiar buying technologies offering data-fuelled audience-based solutions in real time. We thus offer new and existing customers the measurability, creativity and flexibility they demand.
“The launch of our programmatic buying solution represents a pivotal moment not just for Clear Channel International, but in the evolution of out-of-home, which has truly completed its transformation into a 21st Century digital media.”
Since the Belgian platform went live on 9 January, media buyers – which so far include Blue 449, Kinetic, Zenith, Space, Posterscope, Outsight and Outdoor Service – have bought digital-out-of-home campaigns programmatically for major advertisers such as Beobank, Deliveroo and Mercedez-Benz.
Clear Channel’s UK CEO, Justin Cochrane, said: “In the UK, Clear Channel’s vision is to Create the Future of Media, Out of Home. Launching a programmatic solution is the next logical step in our market, which has been undergoing an unprecedented digital transformation over the past twelve months.
“We have already seen advertisers embrace the creative possibilities of digital to activate deliver flexible, contextually relevant campaigns that connect brands with people. Now we are investing in automation to further increase advertiser benefits. Success for us is to offer a huge array of possibilities for advertisers while making out-of-home simpler and even more effective with increased flexibility, creativity and measurability.”
