Partner Spotlight: GroupM Korea

Why was it important to integrate programmatic DOOH into your overall business strategy?

With the end of the pandemic, we believed that OOH would re-emerge as an important touchpoint for our clients to reach consumers. However, our clients were frustrated that the traditional method has the limited ability to quantify and measure the effectiveness of campaigns. Hivestack had the advantage of being able to measure the ad effectiveness of programmatic DOOH in numbers and qualitatively analyze it. Also, being able to control different vendors and different types of screens within a single DSP was a bonus. When we pitched this to advertisers, their response was overwhelmingly positive, and we were able to get them to use the platform to run their ads. We believe that pDOOH has been a key factor in terms of momentum and our new growth. 

Please briefly introduce some success stories you’ve achieved using programmatic DOOH

We recently ran an ad campaign for a world-famous sports apparel company. The advertiser was targeting young people who were interested in running and encouraged them to participate in a marathon. We were able to identify the audience the client wanted to target with the audience geofencing tool around major universities in Seoul. We also used demographic segments to find audiences in a specific age group and deliver the ad directly to them. As the marathon was taking place across the city of Seoul, we wanted to ensure that our audience could see the ads on as many screens as possible, so we activated the campaign on billboards, subway stations and bus shelters in areas frequently visited by our audience.

Please share your experience using the Hivestack DSP. How has programmatic DOOH driven growth across your business?

Prior to launching the campaign, we received three rounds of onboarding sessions from Hivestack's support team. Not only did we receive training, but they answered any inquiries we had in real-time. So even though it was a very new platform, we were able to run the campaign without any difficulties. 

In addition, various FAQs were available on the Hivestack Client Portal, so whenever I had any questions during the set-up or throughout the campaign flight, I was able to check them immediately. We were also able to open a ticket through the portal to get quick support from our assigned representative. While other DSPs may not be able to provide such close support, Hivestack's collaborative network between the sales and support teams allowed us to adapt to the platform quickly. 

Initially, planners, buyers, and marketers were not actively interested in DOOH due to the lack of media supply in Korea. However, as the media supply grew and we could measure programmatic DOOH’s ad effectiveness, it began to gain a lot of attention. We're very excited to discover opportunities to showcase a campaign to clients who are now looking for new media and to potential customers post-pandemic. We believe that Hivestack, as a programmatic platform that offers new opportunities like this, is helping both us and our advertisers discover new audiences and grow business outcomes.

What do you think is the best way for advertisers to collaborate with adtech providers?

As a programmatic trader, I thought Hivestack was only a DSP. However, when I was running an advertising campaign, I realized that Hivestack is a full stack platform, powering the buy and sell side of programmatic digital out of home (DOOH) advertising. Hivestack has integrated a multitude of domestic media owners into their SSP within a short period of time, allowing us to run a large-scale campaign. 

However, there are still a lot of different media inventories that need to be brought into the open marketplace and I don't think an ad company like us can do it alone. I would like to create new momentum by convincing suppliers from the buy side to gradually increase the number of programmatically accessible OOH advertising screens in Korea with Hivestack.

Testimonial

“Programmatic media buying integrates various technologies and data, allowing advertisers or agencies to actively improve the performance of advertising campaigns, achieving multiple KPIs. GroupM and clients of GroupM are buying various media programmatically and seeing great results. Out of home (OOH) advertising in Korea was not previously established as a popular channel for advertisers, but now, thanks to the digitization of screens and technological advancements such as programmatic buying, advertisers can run campaigns with more efficiency, scale and precision. After collaborating with Hivestack for nearly a year, we’ve secured parameters of target audiences exclusively for our client and we have already successfully activated a number of campaigns. We believe that Hivestack will drive great progress for pDOOH in Korea this year.”

 - Junsu Bae, Head of  Digital Investment, GroupM