Dive Brief:

• Outfront Media, an outdoor advertising company, launched a new platform called ON Smart Media with features designed to appeal to digital marketers.
• The ON Smart Media platform includes data about audiences that pass by signs – something marketers are used to getting for digital ads – and tools that let marketers send mobile messages to people near an outdoor ad. It also makes it easier for marketers to buy its outdoor ads digitally.
• The final feature is similar to Google’s rollout last month of testing programmatic billboard sales via DoubleClick.

Dive Insight:

Traditional marketing channels – such as TV, print, radio and outdoor ads – have to adapt to a new marketing world that is increasingly digital. In fact, Interpublic’s MAGNA Global recently released a forecast report that found digital advertising surpassing TV, the longtime and venerable leader, by 2017. MAGNA Global did find that in-cinema and out-of-home advertising were the only two traditional channels that didn’t shrink in 2015, in part because both were channels that could reliable reach mass audiences that can't skip ads.

To combat this trend toward digital and make outdoor advertising even more enticing for marketers, Outfront Media released ON Smart Media. Andy Sriubas, Outfront Media’s executive vice president of strategic planning and development, told the Wall Street Journal the goal of the new platform was to “allow people to buy our assets with a digital focus.”

One example of ON Smart Media’s more digital-like experience is the platform will allow marketers to target specific audiences likely to pass by particular outdoor ads.