DailyDOOH

Ayuda Media Systems, makers of the world’s most sophisticated media operations platform for Outdoor and D/OOH networks, has unveiled a revolutionary media planning and optimization tool specifically designed for Outdoor operators to maximize occupancy rates, during the planning, proposal, and booking phases of the media sales workflow.

Cerebro is a mathematical optimization engine that takes prioritized goal inputs such as reach, frequency, Target Rating Points, panel amount goals, and geographical location goals and delivers a plan that optimizes over those targets. Cerebro uses various mathematical optimization and meta heuristic techniques to combine these disparate goals and output an optimal plan.

Because the Cerebro planning optimization engine is exposed as web services, it can plug into any contemporary sales, proposal, or charting tool that is typically used today by the Outdoor operator, including homegrown software. It also seamlessly integrates with the Ayuda Platform, for those operators already using Ayuda to run their outdoor operations.

Andreas Soupliotis, CEO of Ayuda told us last week at the #NECshowcase “People have asked us why not just use the existing TAB web services to obtain TRPs and Reach and Frequency data. That’s fine, until you want to add geographical constraints or optimize over specific geographic coverage, in which case the mathematics quickly become non-linear and complex. You can use TAB web services to create a 200 TRP plan in a specific DMA, but what if you want those 200 TRPs to come from specific targeted locations? That’s quite difficult, which is why you need the brain of a media planner. Cerebro is the brain that automates this process, no matter how many plan objectives you throw at it, returning a media plan that optimizes over all of the potentially unlimited objectives you feed it. This non-linear optimization is the core of Cerebro’s power, and the math behind it is what Ayuda does so incredibly well. We recognize that not everyone in the outdoor community runs Ayuda’s line-of-business platform, and that they may already use their own proprietary systems for proposal generation, charting, POP and operations. So, by making Cerebro available as a set of web services separate from our core platform, we can help the entire industry maximize their occupancy rates while leveraging TAB OOH ratings, all proposed from their own available inventory. ”

Ayuda’s Cerebro is an algorithmic engine that ingests TAB audited audience data in real-time using the TAB’s web services. The data is then referenced against a set of objectives and parameters from the operator in order to create an optimized plan across all campaign goals. Cerebro inputs an unlimited number of parameters and objectives, including audience demographics, multiple specific geographic constraints, and the operator’s own business rules. Cerebro then outputs a set of candidate media plans that match the campaign objectives, ranked in order of maximum amount of objectives achieved, while also using the operator’s own business logic to ensure that the same “favorite” panels are not always selected. By crunching all these objectives against the operator’s own actual inventory while using their business rules as guidance, Cerebro assists the operator’s sales executives and chartists to propose and pick inventory that maximizes occupancy.

Cerebro is being unveiled this week and is available to any outdoor operator as web services that plug into the operator’s existing set of inventory management tools, or as an optional add-on to Ayuda’s own platform which manages all elements of the media sales, operations, and execution workflow.

Ayuda Media Systems has announced at the 2013 OAAA National Convention that Lamar Advertising is paving the way for TAB OOH ratings based media plans, by being the first out-of-home company to implement the Ayuda Cerebro media planning optimization engine.

Cerebro helps automate how proposals and plans are generated from Lamar’s internally built sales and charting applications. Lamar Advertising is North America’s largest OOH advertising company, with the nation’s largest overall coverage of regional markets.

Ayuda’s Cerebro is a mathematical, algorithmic engine that ingests TAB audited audience data in real-time using the TAB’s web services. The data is then referenced against a set of objectives and parameters from the operator in order to create an optimized plan across all campaign goals.

Cerebro inputs an unlimited number of parameters and objectives, including audience demographics, multiple specific geographic constraints, and the operator’s own business rules. Cerebro then outputs a set of candidate media plans that match the campaign objectives, ranked in order of maximum amount of objectives achieved, while also using the operator’s own business logic to ensure that the same “favorite” panels are not always selected. By crunching all these objectives against the operator’s own actual inventory while using their business rules as guidance, Cerebro assists the operator’s sales executives and chartists to propose and pick inventory that maximizes occupancy.

Tommy Teepell, Lamar’s Chief Marketing Officer told us “The Lamar experience is about an outstanding relationship with our clients, and our service offering to them. To keep up that level of service, we wanted to fully embrace and support the TAB’s OOH Ratings. We wanted our own proposal and charting applications to speak the language of demographic audience. Bringing our idea of a decision engine, that would tie ratings to our in-house systems, to Ayuda helped us accomplish this goal. We want to pave the way for smarter proposal creation, optimize and automate the way our team sells. ”

Cerebro is unveiled this week AND is now available to any outdoor operator as a set of APIs that plug into the operator’s existing set of inventory management tools, or as an optional add-on to Ayuda’s own platform which manages all elements of the media sales, operations, and execution workflow.

NCM Media Networks, the largest national cinema network reaching moviegoers on-screen, on-site, online and on the go, showed brands ‘The Bigger Picture’ in advertising Wednesday at its second annual Upfront presentation at New York City’s AMC Loews Lincoln Square movie theater.

“The Bigger Picture in cinema has always been about content, scale and engagement, but we’re now expanding it beyond the theater to include the world of mobile and social — helping brands reach audiences at every step of the movie-going process,” Cliff Marks, president of sales and marketing with NCM Media Networks, told the audience of nearly 700. “Coming off of the biggest year ever at the box office, NCM is a viable option for national TV and video upfront dollars, especially considering the enormous weekend reach of the NCM network and the continued fragmentation that is affecting both viewership and engagement in other media.”

National CineMedia’s network reaches over 1,500 theaters and approximately 19,300 screens with 3 million+ seats in 183 DMAs (49 of the top 50) in the U.S., with an annual audience of approximately 710 million moviegoers. NCM is America’s No. 1 weekend network, consistently ranking higher in reach than any other network on Fridays and Saturdays.

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NRA Show 2013 (no, not the gun people) opens today in Chicago and runs May 18-21.

We quote their publicity “Every year, over the course of four days, more than 1,800 suppliers and tens of thousands of buyers come together to make lasting connections that drive business profitability and shape the future of the restaurant, foodservice and hospitality industry”.

The Galactic Empire is expected to have a big presence.

I know from forceful experience (I am speaking of course, of this respected institution’s editor in chief, who hammered home to all speakers EXACTLY what was required from them when presenting last week), that one of the aims of Video Walls Unplugged (and indeed all Thought Leadership Summits going forward) was to foster creative thinking, innovation and be a source of inspiration in the industry.

After the event, it was an incredibly nice surprise that all the speakers were given a copy of the highly sought after hardback edition of the The Book of Shapes: International Design Inspirations Featuring Christie MicroTiles^† courtesy of Christie (thanks Brant, Joe and Kathryn).

What better way for the day’s speakers to walk away and themselves be (more) inspired. The speaker goodie bag was in itself (a) inspired and (b) an incredibly nice thought – typical if I may say so of both Russ Curry (Ministry of New Media) and DailyDOOH’s editor in chief.

On behalf of all the speakers, let me say thank you.

^†The online version of the Book of Shapes is available in the iTunes store (which also includes Adrian Cotterill’s and Andrew Neale’s Bluebook, ‘How Microtiles Helped Make An Impact At The London Stock Exchange‘. You can read my review of that Bluebook here.

Spotted this last week was a global RFP from London for Clear Channel, who are looking for a Digital Signage Content Management System.

Thanks to Amy Jane Finnerty, director of PR & communications, NCM Media Networks, right, and Yesenia Reinoso, PR Assistant, all worked swimmingly at our first visit to an NCM Upfront.

We got there a bit early due to Air Canada‘s scheduling, (better to be early than late) so had a chance to chat with Paul Lindstrom, senior vice-president custom research, Nielsen Media Research, also early due to commuter train scheduling, who was waiting outside the big AMC Lowes Lincoln Square Movie Theatre.

Once inside, the one thing we thought peculiar was that press members had to wait to actually enter while other attendees were allowed in. A representative from Fox Broadcast told us that he’s seen this before, so maybe it’s a New York thing. We also thought it strange that few people seemed to be exchanging business cards.

All in all, though, it was fun to see a great presentation, and, having in the past attended numerous TV Upfronts, we can say that NCM’s Upfront was right up there with the best of them.

This month in our CEO Spotlight we welcome Access Sports Media’s CEO, a certain, super smart guy called Dennis Roche.

It’s going to be a good one!

You can view, in our archive, all of our previous CEO SPOTLIGHTs by clicking here.

“There’s no rest for the wicked” as my Dad used to say (actually, the Book of Isaiah verses 48:22 and 57:20-21) and even though we just finished up yesterday, all that was brilliant at the #NECshowcase; this afternoon, we now have a Banqueting House production meeting in preparation for The DailyDOOH Gala Awards.

The DailyDOOH Gala Awards take place (usual date, the last Thursday in every November) on the 28th November 2013 in London.

VUKUNET are once again our GOLD Sponsor and Scala Inc. are back for more, sponsoring both the evening drinks reception (as they did so well last year) and also becoming a SILVER sponsor.

We are nearly all set to officially announce the awards categories, and all the sponsors; we have as many as five SILVER sponsors this year; including BARCO, BroadSign, DISE (and as we said, Scala and subject to signing the contract, at least one other).

We have two new award categories this year and a new international jury member so watch this space.

Eye, the first out-of-home operator to take mobile to market with the Amplify solution that it launched last year, is now running two concurrent mobile campaigns on its network.

The two campaigns by Microsoft and the publisher, Simon & Schuster, have deployed Amplify to extend the reach of their campaigns and incite customer engagement.

• Microsoft is using Amplify to promote its new Microsoft Office 365 software package. The campaign enables consumers to interact with the media via NFC* or QR to learn more about the product, and the mobile element will allow Microsoft to capture customer data. It is running at Gatwick and Manchester airports on Eye’s business first network and has been planned through out-of-home specialist agency, Rapport.
• The Simon and Schuster campaign uses Amplify to promote their new psychological thriller novel, Close My Eyes, by Sophie McKenzie. The campaign drives traffic through to a mobile site promoting the novel and enables consumers to engage with the author. The campaign was booked through Posterscope and Total Media.

Sarah Parkes, Managing Director of Eye, told us “We know that consumers will interact with outdoor media and that our mobile solution offers highly effective brand-consumer connectivity. So, our sophisticated media offering and innovative mobile platform will deliver a real opportunity for Microsoft and Simon & Schuster respectively to drive awareness, facilitate customer engagement and capture customer data.”