A Smooth-ie Move: Mediacom Develops First-Ever Automated Trading Desk for Innocent

Media agency MediaCom is set to release a world-first automated trading desk which is set to transform the way agencies purchase advertising digitally out-of-home.

Smoothie drinks brand innocent will be the first company to use the new technology, which is set to go live on 8th January in a campaign that will span London, Manchester and other key cities for a month. The new campaign celebrates the launch of a brand new product – innocent’s new ‘Super Juice’ – and is set to brighten up January, capturing the playful nature of innocent’s brand with a bright vibrant creative, lighting up DOOH screens across the UK.

The campaign has data at its core; the data informs the optimum times to be live across each screen, with each having a unique schedule by day and by hour, ensuring the target audience has been reached in the most efficient manner. Data-fuelled creative will also fill the screens, using bespoke messaging by city and even specific locations in some instances.

Historically, DOOH buyers have purchased advertising manually, with the ability to buy ads off the 27,000 strong data set route. With this new automated technology, however, brands will be able to reach an audience much more flexibly, taking insights from circa 55 million data points using the latest in geo-location targeting supplied by mobile data specialists Mobsta.

The trading desk tool created by MediaCom is set to hugely increase the efficiency with which agencies can target audiences using enhanced data sets based on geo-location.

Arran Javed, Head of OOH Trading at MediaCom, said: “We’re thrilled to be able to work with innocent using our new trading desk tool which I believe is going to see much more effective advertising across the digital OOH space. We’re now able to offer brands such as innocent more accurate advertising within a broadcast medium, and we’re fully taking advantage of the DOOH market place, which has grown exponentially over recent years. With this we are heading toward being able to deliver attribution and insights based on highly-targeted data, and this data-led buying leads to more data points we can learn from to inform future campaigns ensuring we are able to reach the relevant person at the right time. Our new desk will mean it’s now more about people than panels!”

Bara Hrdlickova at innocent said: “We’re chuffed to bits to be the first brand to take advantage of this new technology. We’ve always tried to talk to the right people in the most interesting, personal way that we can, and we can’t wait to see how this tool helps us do that for our new super juice campaign.”

This investment by MediaCom in technology to bring true programmatic buying to OOH is part of a wider programme looking at integrating programmatic buying techniques across all traditional media, being led by MediaCom’s John-Paul Major.