Talon, a full-service OOH agency, solves advertising challenges with the help of technology. Jonathan Conway, Talon’s Chief Strategy Officer, recently told Digital Signage Pulse about the agency and its data-centric approach.
Please tell us about what Talon does.
Talon is an independent, full-service out-of-home agency focused on delivering smarter, creative, data-led and integrated OOH communications. We pride ourselves on our high standards of media planning, buying, creative excellence and technology-led foundations.
Our combined approach allows our clients to use data to make smarter, more informed media decisions and create award-winning campaigns. We are agile and entrepreneurial and our work revolves around a ‘Smarter as Standard’ philosophy which means delivering more relevant ads to relevant audiences.
You mention “technology-led integrated OOH communications” as part of your description. Can you please elaborate on that?
When we speak about ‘technology-led,’ it’s about using the best available tools to solve OOH advertising challenges. We use a range of technology solutions to transform raw data into audience intelligence to achieve more effective targeting and quantifiable measurement of campaigns.
Talon automates business and media buying processes so we could activate clients’ campaigns more quickly and efficiently.
The ‘integration’ aspect refers to making it easier to go from online to offline, activating creative assets and extending targeting and measurement strategies in a format that digital advertisers recognize.
Talon has two proprietary ad tech platforms that allow us to do this at scale: Plato and Ada. They simplify the fragmented and complex medium that OOH has become and bridge the gap between advertisers’ needs and the existing capability in the OOH marketplace.
Over the past year or so, Talon Outdoor acquired Grand Design, QDOT and Grand Visual. What’s the strategy behind these acquisitions, and are there more on the horizon?
These acquisitions have been important for accelerating our growth in the U.S. and adding new creative services and tools to our offering. This represents a big opportunity for our clients to execute smart media and creative strategies from one simple point of access.
Our CEO, Barry Cupples, has set out a clear growth strategy for Talon Outdoor which includes building on a very successful 2019 into 2020. Talon plans to bring its ‘Smarter as Standard’ approach to the U.S. market and grow our media planning and buying, ad tech and creative services.
Who are some of Talon Outdoor’s brand clients?
From Starbucks to McDonald’s to YouTube Music, Talon represents a wide range of the most recognized blue-chip brands on both sides of the Atlantic. All of our advertisers are using OOH to reach and engage their respective target audiences in unique and innovative ways.
Can you provide an actual example of how Talon created and executed a successful DOOH campaign for a brand?
We provide our clients with tools that help create impactful and successful OOH campaigns, which we define as those that change the way people think about brands or the way brands generate new customers.
One client in particular, McDonald’s, has seen great results through its use of Ada, our intelligent audience targeting tool designed especially for OOH. Using Ada, we are able to provide McDonald’s with real insights around actual movement behaviors of quick service restaurant customers which are factored into their OOH media buying strategies. As a result, McDonald’s is now seeing large uplifts in both on-target audience delivery as well as restaurant visits.
What type of attribution metrics do you provide?
Doing attribution well starts with being precise about identifying who has really been exposed to a campaign, which messages they saw and how often. That’s really hard to do well – and we know because we’ve been through a few iterations. But now that we’ve cracked it for OOH, it means we can produce really accurate attribution reports for our clients or even provide them with the right type of data to do attribution well for themselves.
For some advertisers, that’s really important. Some clients like us to handle the analysis, but others want the raw data inputs to their models so they can measure the outcomes for themselves. Now we can support that.
Learn more about Talon Outdoor by clicking here.
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