Out-of-home (OOH) media are ubiquitous, surrounding us on street corners, roadsides, and in transit, venues, and many other locations. In the United States alone, OOH advertising represents a $7+ billion industry and is projected to grow to more than $8 billion over the next five years (see Figure 15-1). As beacons are deployed across verticals, the environments in which consumers shop, work, and play¹ are becoming “beaconized²”. The combination of mobile, OOH, and beacons—called MOHBE ³—represents a unique opportunity for advertisers, OOH media, and mobile partners.

Beacons are already being integrated into a wide range of OOH media, in airports, transit (subway stations, bus shelters, trains, and buses), kiosks, and other “street furniture,” and other locations. With MOHBE , businesses are engaging consumers with timely, relevant, and even personalized ads, messages, and offers. In addition to enhancing consumers’ experience, MOHBE allows advertisers to target audiences with greater precision, to capture richer data, and to better measure their results.

“Over the last twelve months iBeacons/BLE beacons have caught the zeitgeist and emerged as a key anchor technology in the retail space. However, there are many other markets that will generate even bigger volumes of BLE beacon shipments over the next five years, creating a 60 million unit market in 2019.”

ABI Research , July 2014

Outlining the significance of MOHBE for advertisers, mobile app publishers, and OOH media properties, this chapter discusses the following topics:

National, regional, and local businesses across a wide range of product and service categories rely on OOH to reach consumers. OOH’s popularity is due to its reach, visibility, dwell time, and other features shown in Figure 15-2.

Beacons are a relatively new phenomenon. They can be affixed to surfaces (walls, shelves, etc.) or embedded in objects (such as ATMs, vending machines, fixtures, access points, even products and packaging). In fact, Gimbal recently announced that it is licensing its beacon firmware to enable almost any device with Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) to act as a beacon.

The primary purpose of a beacon is to send a signal via Bluetooth that can be detected by mobile devices in the vicinity of the beacon. When a mobile app programmed to recognize the beacon’s signal comes within a specified distance (e.g., from within inches to up to 50-75 meters), the app “wakes up,” detects the beacon’s presence, registers the event, and (typically) displays a message, ad, offer or other communication on the user’s device.

OOH and mobile are effective channels in their own right. However, the combination of the two is much more effective than either of the channels by themselves. When beacons and BLE (Bluetooth)-enabled devices are introduced into the mix, the effectiveness of mobile as well as OOH is multiplied. Various capabilities enabled by mobile and beacons are being integrated with OOH, as explained next and illustrated in Figure 15-4.

Industry leaders are bullish on the prospects of MOHBE, as reflected in the following comments from immr interviews with industry thought leaders.

“OOH can capture consumers’ attention during those ‘moments of pause’ when they’re away from home. Beacons allow us to understand who’s passing by and who’s pausing, and potentially the next opportunity to engage… they are also cost effective and unobtrusive.” David Krupp, CEO, Kinetic U.S.

“Mobile allows consumers to experience the world in connected ways. It’s also changing what we know about audiences… ’Did consumers actually see my message? What actions did they take?’ Mobile reveals this and more, in real time.” Josh Kruter, SVP, Digital, Clear Channel Outdoor

“Beacons engage mobile users and provide a method of attribution to show that OOH works. With other traditional media channels continuing to fall out of favor, OOH should benefit from those trends and grow its share of the market.” Mark Boidman, Managing Director, Peter J. Solomon Company

“The movements of people in the real world are incredibly valuable… beacons allow us to present ads and information that are contextual and immediately relevant. But the user experience has to be easy and can’t be interruptive.” Mike Gamaroff, Managing Director, Kinetic U.S.

“OOH has always been great to target where, but now mobile data allows us to target the when as well. Beacon-enabled campaigns have been off the charts in terms of engagement… With beacons you also get an almost real-time ROI attribution model.” Ryan Laul, Director, [d] theory (OMG)

“[With beacons] OOH can engage consumers on their life’s journey during the day in a very contextual, relevant way … delivering the right message at the right time and place to the right person, and then measuring it.” Ray Rotolo, SVP, OOH Assets, Gimbal

“Beacons allow brands to understand a user’s journey from beginning to end and serve personalized messages—based on location and proximity—that feel less like ads and more like helpful content to consumers.” Regis Maher, President and Co-founder, do it outdoors media

The following sections provide some recommendations for advertisers, mobile apps, and OOH media.

While mobile and beacon solutions present a unique opportunity for the OOH industry and its partners—OOH agencies, proximity marketing firms, beacon solution providers and app publishers—in order to capitalize on the opportunity, the industry and individual companies must address a number of important challenges.

Consumer Experience —Consistently delivering a positive experience for consumers may well be the single most important challenge. OOH and partners must determine which apps on a consumer’s phone are given permission to detect and use a beacon signal; how many beacon-triggered messages can be presented to a consumer during a period of time; how to distinguish and address first-time versus repeat visitors; and others. The OOH industry must work together with leading partners to collectively share best practices and proactively establish standards and certification for participants.

Securing Beacon Networks— Much like a web site, mobile app, or any other digital platform, access to beacon networks must be managed carefully. While technically different, intrusions have the same chilling effect as ad fraud, spam, Wi-Fi sniffing, and other malicious activities. To prevent unauthorized access by apps, advertisers or any other party that has not been given explicit permission, enterprise-grade security is a critical feature in beacon management platforms. OOH media owners must take proactive measures to secure their beacon networks and mitigate these risks.

Managing and Protecting Data—Combined with OOH, beacon-enabled solutions generate an enormous amount of data on “events” as well as consumer responses (or their absence) to campaigns. Examples include data on foot traffic past an OOH site; dwell time by users; and others, all by time of day. In addition to security, additional complexities must be considered—for example, which data to capture; where the data are stored; who has access to the data; how exposure to OOH ads is combined with store visits, spend, and other data from first- and third-party sources; and more. These questions require careful consideration, coordination, and compliance across the MOHBE ecosystem.

Beacons and Privacy —As noted, beacons do not capture or store data; they simply transmit signals that apps can detect and respond to. In addition, consumers must turn on Bluetooth on their mobile devices to receive beacon signals and opt-in to give an app permission to send messages, present offers, etc. Nonetheless, when paired with beacons, mobile apps are in a position to observe new types of user behaviors. To protect consumers’ privacy the OOH industry and its app partners must adopt and adhere to best practices like those listed in Table 15-1. The Federal Trade Commission has also issued reports recommending ways that key players in mobile inform consumers about their data and privacy practices.

Beacons represent an enormous opportunity for the OOH industry and its partners. By integrating beacons, OOH media owners gain a new digital network that complements their physical assets, increasing the value of OOH properties and enhancing the effectiveness of OOH advertising. Advertisers gain a deeper understanding of mobile consumers, the ability to target specific OOH audiences, and measure the impact of their OOH ads. For mobile app partners, beacons provide a bridge between the digital and physical, yielding insights that can be used to improve functionality and the user’s experience. These insights translate into more precise targeting, higher eCPMs and, with more relevant, value-added content, more satisfied users. Finally, consumers stand to gain by receiving content (messages, ads, and so on), offers, and services that more closely match their needs and interests, in places and at times when they can use them.

To capitalize on the MOHBE opportunity, key players—including OOH media, agency and tech partners, advertisers, and mobile app publishers—must work closely together to develop, share, and adopt best practices. Provided the consortium integrates these capabilities in a systematic, consumer-centric fashion, the prospects are bright for the OOH industry, advertisers, and consumers.