Retail
DOOH powers up legal cannabis advertising
When it comes to advertising products such as cannabis, companies often struggle with regulations. DOOH companies are working to make this process easier.
July 21, 2020 by Bradley Cooper — Editor, ATM Marketplace & Food Truck Operator
When it comes to advertising products such as cannabis, companies often struggle with regulations. Every region has different requirements for where, when and how companies such as dispensaries, breweries and other regulated products can advertise. This is also true for DOOH, since a company might purchase space on a digital display only to learn the display is too close to a school.
However, some companies are working on programmatic solutions that can automatically detect regulations and direct cannabis, alcohol and other advertisements to the right displays. Digital Signage Today spoke with Jonathan Conway, COO, Talon Outdoor, to learn more about how companies can successfully advertise without breaking the rules using tools such as its OOH planning and buying platform, Plato.
Q.What are some of the major issues when it comes to OOH advertising with cannabis, alcohol, etc?
A.There are tremendous opportunities today for companies operating in industries such as cannabis, alcohol, gambling, etc. to leverage the power of OOH to safely and legally reach and engage target audiences. The key to executing successful OOH campaign for these companies is awareness of and compliance with the multitude of laws and regulations that govern both the locations where advertising can be placed and the content of the ads themselves. These laws often vary from one state, county and municipality to the next and are constantly changing. Talon works with brands across each of these categories to navigate the regulatory environment and execute effective and compliant OOH campaigns which help to grow our clients' businesses.
Q.How does Plato help these companies navigate regulations?
A.Plato is Talon's proprietary OOH campaign planning and execution platform, and it has been optimized to provide precision targeting for marketers operating in industries where advertising activities are regulated and controlled. To enable this, Plato ingests and manages a variety of data sets including locations of Out of Home advertising units and environments as well as more than 5.5 million points of interest and places of business. Plato's algorithms reveal the precise distances between any given OOH ad unit and sensitive locations — such as schools, houses of worship, daycare centers, etc.. Our campaign planning processes also take into account each brand's special compliance requirements and the requirements involved in targeting adults of legal age.
Q.How can it help maximize ROI for those companies?
A. Talon uses Plato to quickly and easily identify suitable OOH locations, avoid prohibited zones, select and secure premium inventory and legally plan and execute any OOH campaigns with confidence. But Plato is just one of the systems that drive Talon's campaign planning process, which also leverages data-driven audience insights, our award-winning digital creative team, Grand Visual, and capabilities to measure the brand and business outcomes of campaign. The latter is crucial for producing learnings and optimizations which feed continuous campaign performance improvements. All of these services contribute to maximizing ROI for our clients.
Q. Can users look at areas based on maximum versus minimum regulations?
A. Plato continuously processes regulated category data so that users can instantaneously identify which states, counties or ad units provide the right opportunities for these marketers. It's possible to use this information in many different ways. For example, we can identify the media partners who offer the largest volumes of compliant inventory, or the areas where there is most or least opportunity for brands in a specific regulated category, such as cannabis. On a recent project, Plato analyzed a single DMA in the Midwest and found that cannabis OOH ads would be prohibited in approximately 12.5% of its land mass. These types of insights are powerful for making strategic decisions about where and how to deploy campaigns.
Q.What other solutions do you have in the works for these companies?
A. We are always innovating and exploring ways to leverage data and technology to enhance the OOH planning and buying process and engage with audiences throughout their daily journey with the right message at the right time.
We continue to invest in all of our AdTech solutions and services. We're especially focused on leveraging new forms of audience data to optimize targeting and to enable accurate outcome-based measurement and cross-platform execution.
These capabilities are powered by Ada, Talon's intelligent data management platform, which is proven to be a highly effective tool for OOH advertisers. By combining data-driven targeting with Plato's regulated categories planning process, our partners will achieve greater returns on their OOH investments.
We will continue to develop OOH solutions that deliver business-impacting OOH campaigns for all Talon clients, including regulated category companies.
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