František Farenzena, director of Lurity, talks about the development of a startup focused on digital out of home (DOOH) advertising, which has evolved into one of the key communication media over the last three years.
Out of home advertising is the oldest form of promotion. The illuminated advertising spaces in Times Square in New York or Piccadilly Circus in London are famous all over the world.
Despite its ubiquity, DOOH advertising is a difficult medium to measure, and so has declined in popularity in competition with the online world. Developments have brought new forms of advertising and one of the most advanced is one in which online technology is applied to digital OOH and brought into a relevant environment where large numbers of people are moving around. The DOOH form of advertising reaches x times more customers with each play than just one behind a monitor or phone screen.
Lurity's advertising is now visible in fifty shopping centres, post offices and health care facilities. With five hundred screens, it now operates in three markets and reaches customers in the ideal frame of mind, just when they are ready to buy and only a few metres away from the opportunity to buy.
One of our innovations is the Live feed campaign, in a short time we will add the possibility to show different ads within one campaign depending on the time, outside temperature or weather.
You have been the director of Lurity Slovakia and Czech Republic for some time. Before that you worked in the media. How do you perceive the qualitative difference in the preferences of print and digital OOH readers?
Every medium has its position in the media mix, but not every medium can fully adapt to market developments. Digitalisation and the internet have changed consumer and market behaviour. Print content is mostly found faster on the web, DOOH is moving away from paper billboards and the number of digital spaces is growing. Times are fast and the time it takes to produce posters is no longer keeping up with market dynamics. With DOOH print dropping out, ad distribution has been reduced from hours to seconds by connecting spaces online to our scheduling portal. The entire process is time and cost efficient.
Our planning and sales portal, lurity.com, is where clients easily create, manage and control their campaign. When creating it, our goal was clear: keep it easy to use - planning a campaign couldn't be more complicated than ordering a pizza. Several thousand completed campaigns is a good calling card and motivation to improve DOOH. One of our innovations is the Live feed campaign, in a short time we will add the possibility to show different ads within one campaign depending on the time, outside temperature or weather.
Statistics say that DOOH's effectiveness rivals both online and TV ads. Is this true?
Shopping centres are unique in terms of the number of visitors. Such a massive concentration of customers in one place, regardless of the size of the agglomeration in which the shopping centre is located, is not exhibited by any other type of advertising space. That is why this target group is the most preferred by the advertisers.
We also have big ambitions abroad. For the last two years we have focused on fine-tuning the product, but now we are ready to enter new markets.
Lurity has hundreds of sites in three countries, reaching more than fifteen million people a month. According to current data, this is a realistic figure based on the average footfall of the centres and the declared movement of consumers in the vicinity of our areas. Data on consumer movement within the footprint of the areas is generally the Achilles heel of DOOH. However, we are improving measurement capabilities here as well. We plan to provide regularly updated data to clients in the near future.
How is the DOOH segment doing in Slovakia and the Czech Republic? Its popularity is rising significantly, due to a decent hit. What does the future hold?
Lurity has been operating in the DOOH advertising segment for six years. The growing trend in the markets where we operate has clearly played in favour of DOOH over this period. The number of carriers, clients and the number of campaigns is growing. We currently have as many as fifty malls in three markets and several hundred other outdoor and indoor spaces in the mall digital segment. In terms of distribution by market, the majority is allocated to the Slovak and Czech markets. We have a lot to offer our clients. The trend shows that interest in this type of media will continue to grow. We are also expanding the possibilities of using our planning portal for monetization of other areas.
Lurity is established in three European countries. What are your next plans?
We also have big ambitions abroad. For the last two years we have focused on fine-tuning the product, but now we are ready to enter new markets.
Source: https://www.forbes.sk/frantisek-farenzena-expandujeme-lebo-s-klientmi-h…