Programmatic Campaign Archives

With pandemic restrictions now easing out, brands have been reevaluating their marketing strategies and exploring new avenues to engage with consumers. One approach that has gained significant traction is the utilisation of outdoor campaigns. With people eager to venture out and reconnect with the world, outdoor advertising provides a unique opportunity for brands to capture attention, build brand awareness, and foster meaningful connections.

Moreover, these outdoor campaigns have made brands recognise the value of reconnecting with consumers in the physical realm. By immersing consumers in their brand story and providing opportunities for participation, brands can forge emotional connections that extend beyond a mere advertising message.

This is especially true for campaigns related to tourism, more relevant with regions easing up borders to boost local tourism. And for low-cost airline AirAsia, it tapped into the wide reach of programmatic DOOH to promote its 7 million free seats campaign, launched in celebration 700 million passengers flown in conjunction with the airline’s 21-year anniversary.

In partnership with Moving Walls, AirAsia has forged its strategy and direction for this DOOH endeavour and successfully placed itself in front of consumers – at the right place and time.

The Challenge

As a low-cost airline, AirAsia wants to entice itching travellers to grab seats to local, ASEAN and further destinations around the world. The challenge was how should AirAsia rise to the challenge of creating awareness about its 7 million free seats promo to its specific target audiences.

The Objective

AirAsia aimed to launch an innovative programmatic DOOH campaign to drive awareness and drive bookings for its 7 million free seats promo. The objective was to engage audiences uniquely and leave a lasting impression that would lead to a significant increase in bookings for the promotion.

The Solution

AirAsia leveraged a programmatic DOOH campaign to promote its 7 Million free seats promotion, by targeting high-traffic locations frequented by its key audience segments. The campaign utilized dynamic countdown creatives that displayed the number of remaining free seats for the promotion, creating a sense of urgency and encouraging viewers to take immediate action.

The dynamic countdown creatives were designed in a visually appealing manner to attract viewers’ attention and encourage them to engage with the ad. The creatives were optimised for each location, taking into account the audience’s demographics and behaviours in that particular area.

The programmatic DOOH platform used real-time data to target audiences at the right time and place, ensuring maximum impact and relevance.

The Results

The mega sale campaign by AirAsia delivered exceptional results, leaving a significant impact on the company’s bottom line. The campaign reached over 4.10 Million people and exceeded our initial expectations with a unique reach of 500K. Real-time optimization helped us achieve a lower cost per thousand impressions of RM36, making the campaign both cost-effective and high-value.

By leveraging the programmatic DOOH campaign through Moving Wall’s Moving Audiences platform, they delivered the right content to the right audience at the right place and time. This dynamic creative strategy has helped AirAsia stand out in a cluttered and competitive market and generated high levels of engagement. As a result, the free seats offered were snapped up in just a few days, making AirAsia top of mind for travellers planning their year-end holiday.

The campaign’s effectiveness not only increased bookings and revenue but also demonstrated the power of combining creativity and DOOH for strong outcomes in a short period. The success of this strategic approach showcases the importance of leveraging Programmatic DOOH to create dynamic and effective advertising campaigns.

Singapore – Out-of-home (OOH) media company Asiaray and independent programmatic digital out-of-home (pDOOH) adtech company Hivestack has launched a pDOOH campaign for mobile on-demand services platform Gojek alongside Singapore’s Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) rail network via The Trade Desk’s demand side platform (DSP).

The campaign is launched on the Thomson-East Coast Line (TEL). To launch the pDOOH campaign, Asiaray used proximity geofencing to activate Gojek’s ‘GOTOMALLS’ campaign on DOOH screens along the TEL line.

In the coming months, Asiaray will expand its digital inventory to additional TEL stations including digital floor, wall and ceiling mounted screens. This premium inventory is on for approximately 16 hours a day and is available for advertisers to reach their audiences with precise targeting during their daily travel.

Vincent Lam, chairman and executive director at Asiaray, said, “We are glad to have partnered with Hivestack again to support Gojek on the ‘GOTOMALLS’ campaign. This is another implementation of Asiaray’s unique ‘Outdoor and Online (O&O)’ new media strategy to provide our hallmark DOOH+ solution delivering fruitful results to both our customers and partners.”

He added, “Looking ahead, Asiaray will continue to build on TEL’s role of ‘National Gateway’ with innovative advertising solutions that will brighten the passengers’ journey, and thus creating better values for advertisers as well as the brands.”

Meanwhile, Matt Bushby, managing director at Hivestack ANZ and SEA, commented, “We are thrilled to have launched the first ever programmatic DOOH campaign along Singapore’s latest Thomson East-Coast Line (TEL) following the announcement of our partnership with Asiaray in March. It’s an exciting time in Singapore as the streets are busy again and audiences are on the move, posing an unmissable opportunity for brands, agencies and omnichannel DSPs to activate DOOH with precision and scale.”

Auckland, New Zealand – Out-of-home (OOH) media company JCDecaux announces the run of its first digital roadside programmatic campaign with TVNZ, New Zealand’s state-owned commercially funded broadcaster. The campaign is running via dentsu, Hivestack and VIOOH.

TVNZ’s launch campaign is running for three weeks in six main metro markets: Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, Dunedin, Hamilton and Bay of Plenty; across 35 Digital Large Format sites to promote the new series of BAFTA and EMMY award-winning TV drama ‘Killing Eve’.

Kurt Malcolm, trading and innovations director at JCDecaux, said, “Since announcing the availability of programmatic trading across our entire Digital Large Format portfolio in February, we’ve received significant interest from brands and their agencies who are keen to leverage the flexibility and measurability programmatic trading affords. We’re delighted that the iconic TVNZ has become the first brand in New Zealand to formally launch JCDecaux’s valuable new programmatic offer.”

Targeting was applied to direct the buy to index higher with ‘Female TV Drama’ and ‘Fashionista’s’ via Hivestack’s Lifesight audience segments as these traits were identified by TVNZ as their core viewership for the show.

James Brook, senior programmatic account manager at dentsu commented, “JCDecaux’s roadside availability of programmatic Out-of-Home is a massive value-add for us and our adoption of the format. It brings more premium inventory and scale to this rapidly growing channel. We are looking forward to utilising the roadside on briefs moving forward.”

Meanwhile, Ash Houghton, sales director at Hivestack New Zealand, added, “We are excited to help launch JCDecaux’s roadside programmatic offer to our buyers on the Hivestack DSP. The ability to target audiences on the most established roadside network at the click of a button is truly exciting. This represents a great step forward for programmatic outdoor.”

JCDecaux previously launched its roadside programmatic DOOH offering, with clients including Air New Zealand.

Singapore – Global media and tech company Yahoo has delivered its first ever digital out-of-home (DOOH) omnichannel campaign for global asset and wealth management company Schroders. This marks the first time both brands have tapped into programmatic DOOH for their omnichannel campaign in Singapore and Southeast Asia.

The campaign, called ‘Beyond Profit’, leverages programmatic DOOH complemented by mobile retargeting capabilities over Yahoo’s omnichannel demand-side platform (DSP) to increase brand awareness, engage the right audiences, and influence consumer behaviors.

The campaign was launched across digital screens in Orchard and the Central Business District (CBD). Leveraging Yahoo’s omnichannel DSP and programmatic tools, the campaign sought to increase exposure and awareness for Schroders’ sustainable investment products and capabilities.

“Programmatic DOOH is shaping the future of OOH, bringing the benefits of digital channels to the traditionally place-based medium and significantly lowering costs and barriers to entry typically associated with OOH media buys. Now, advertisers can combine the high impact of DOOH, in high-footfall locations, into omnichannel campaigns that are agile and scale quickly, reaching their audiences in hyper-targeted ways that seamlessly complement their daily habits,” shared Carol Tay, senior director sales for Southeast Asia at Yahoo.

Tay also added that as people in Singapore venture out and movement patterns evolve, advertisers are looking for the ability to buy across multiple channels, formats, and screens, to reach and connect with the right audiences effectively. She also said that they look forward to working with advertisers on omnichannel, data-driven, hyper-targeted, measurable, and flexible campaigns that leverage the power of DOOH.

Meanwhile, Jerry Low, head of marketing for Southeast Asia at Schroders, commented, “At Schroders, we are always looking for fresh and innovative ways to connect with our audiences as we seek to make an impact through sustainable investing. Working with Yahoo on our first DOOH-led omnichannel campaign has allowed us to connect with our target audience effectively and impactfully – ensuring that they hear our message. The omnichannel campaign from DOOH to mobile provided quality and meaningful connections, through an integrated experience, that was easily scalable for growth.”

The omnichannel campaign utilized mobile retargeting to close the loop and drive click-throughs to Schroders’ website where audiences could find out more about their sustainability products and capabilities. Audiences at 38 DOOH screens across key locations in Singapore that would have seen Schroders’ DOOH ads were also served native and display ads through Yahoo’s DSP.

Australia – Australia-based cinema and outdoor advertising firm Val Morgan Outdoor (VMO) has evolved its audience measurement platform DART to determine hourly audience data at a screen level, across the locations at which it runs ads such as in retail, health club, and petro-convenience environments. The enhancement is in collaboration with independent marketing effectiveness consultancy Data2Decisions

VMO has already integrated promising features on the previous version of DART such as being able to track those viewing content based on age and gender and the ability to highlight facial features and determine moods. Dubbed as DART R&F, the newly improved platform combines VMO’s facial analytics data with third-party consumer data and machine learning, with its tech building impression scores as well.

“DART represents an enormous wealth of human interaction data that, when calibrated against third-party and independent data sources, it provides a highly accurate and scalable view of true audiences at VMO locations,” said Paul Butler, managing director at VMO.

Meanwhile, the partnership with Data2Decisions will see the consultancy building and verifying the platform’s audience reach methodology, which from today will apply to all campaigns.

Managing Partner of Data2Decisions John Price said, “Using the latest machine learning techniques to combine datasets, we were able to create a prediction model of specific audiences by the hour at an individual screen level. This has helped us, in partnership with VMO, to create reach and frequency calculations that provide the most robust measure of OOH audiences to date.”

Bangkok, Thailand – Bidmath, a global programmatic consultancy, has opened an academy for the special training of Display & Video 360 (DV360), Google’s unified platform for programmatic buying.

DV360 is an end-to-end campaign management tool, which aside from media planning and buying, enables advertisers to manage creative development and run measurement for campaigns across display, video, TV, and audio.

The training academy was put up with an aim to increase the adoption of programmatic industry knowledge in the country. According to Bidmath, despite the substantial growth of programmatic advertising in Thailand, there is a lack of deep technical knowledge.

A study by ad tech firm Rubicon Project reflects such observation, having found that 43% of advertisers in Asia are either extremely or somewhat hesitant to switch from the traditional way of media buying through an insertion order (IO) to the more automated mode of programmatic buying. The study also suggested that the single biggest challenge hindering further growth of programmatic advertising budgets is a lack of understanding and appropriate skills to effectively plan and execute programmatic ad campaigns.

Three courses will be initially offered, with each focusing on a specific topic within DV360: private marketplace buying, optimization best practices, and the fundamentals. Courses will be offered in Thai, Vietnamese, and English, and will be available both virtually and in-person.

Director of Bidmath Asia KK Sharma said that the lack of understanding and technical skills are slowing advertisers down when considering the adoption of programmatic guaranteed spends and the potential upside for local publishers such as Viu for example.

“By introducing courses in local languages, we hope to see increased adoption of programmatic advertising across Asia, but there is still a long way to go. Courses in Thai and Vietnamese were launched to accelerate growth and reach,” Sharma said.

Singapore – Pizza Hut Delivery (PHD) Indonesia has designated GroupM-owned companies, global media network MediaCom, and programmatic business Xaxis to handle all of its future programmatic campaigns.

According to a press release by Xaxis, PHD Indonesia pivoted to run more programmatic campaigns to ensure that its marketing efforts reached only the most relevant audiences.

Xaxis said that one of the weak links it targeted to fix for PHD is its disconnected online and offline customer data, which makes for a lack of visibility into the overlap and differences between its in-store and digital customers.

With such pain point, Mediacom will be taking over to consolidate audience insights with the use of Xaxis’ audience analysis solution Beyond.

Alfitrahmat Saputro, brand digital manager of PHD shared that unlike traditional panel-based market research, Beyond provided them with an audience analysis based entirely on the real-world behavior of their actual customers on both the website and physical stores.

Meanwhile, Yunnita Avreda, country head for Xaxis Indonesia said, “We were excited to work with a client so open to trying new innovations. With customers who can interact with the brand online through their delivery website, in-store, or through pick-up and take-out, Pizza Hut Delivery Indonesia was a perfect fit for Beyond and its capability to bridge online and offline consumer data.”

Xaxis Beyond will be made available across the APAC region.