What’s with this Newsletter?
When the AFR announced Seedooh’s launch as a ‘new start-up’ in July 2017 it could be said that Seedooh was an early innovator, if not first, to address this market requirement at scale. Either way – that was 5 years ago and with OOH Verification now a hot topic in many developed markets, to celebrate this milestone our 5th birthday newsletter takes a quick look back on how it all began, what has happened since – along with sharing some thoughts from a few of our partners. Happy Birthday Seedooh!
A quick history: The Seedooh Journey so far
Despite the official launch in 2017, in actual fact the Seedooh journey had started 6 years earlier – in 2011 – so let’s start there…
A lean Seedooh team, in the genuine spirit of collaboration, initiated a process of consulting with progessive OOH thought leaders within the buy and sell side, about the requirement for OOH verification.
With a vision to create a solution fit for the global sector, for every format type, in every market, these conversations were extensive and wide ranging.
After taking on board critical end user, operational, technical and system requirements, Seedooh began building technology and an assurance process to deliver the first iterations of the Seedooh Platform in 2013.
The early MVP version of Seedooh performed the simple but critical function of demonstrating, in real time, to both media owner and advertisers which static poster design appeared at which fixed location (and how long it stayed there).
Of course, verification of six second Digital Out-of-Home (DOOH) copy changes has a significantly higher compliance measurement requirement than copy that is changed on a 7, 14, or 28 day rotation. Our philosophy for the platform system architecture was – and still is – that for either format, what is being verified has the same structure – time, place, message are the foundational data points.
The ‘place’ and ‘time’ data required for every sign, as a starting point – and every ‘event’ that happens on each sign – is only available at scale from the systems that Publishers (or Media Owners) use to run the networks. Only these systems contain the information and data on the precise dimensions, format, installer work-order, screen IDs, player IDs and many other site attributes required to establish the first layer of factual information.
Following the MVP release, the rapid digitisation of the premium locations in Australia created a market opportunity which in turn enabled Seedooh to scale our initial simple idea to address a fast emerging sector reality.
In 2016, oOh!media, Australia’s largest OOH media owner, was the first to agree to enable Seedooh to bring connected accountability and efficient, independent, verified reporting to Australia, across their huge, complex multi-format digital and static network.
2017 was the start of the great verification debate, which consumed the sector for about 4 and a half years. What did I buy? What did you sell me? Why are they different? What is the source of truth for those things… and also… what’s the source of truth for what actually happened in the real world?
By 2020, the market requirement for OOH verification began its transition from ‘nice to have’ to a mandatory requirement attached to a media brief. This surge in demand for transparency in delivery reporting was especially prevalent in DOOH.
Throughout this period, Seedooh has continued to provide real time verification confirming whether static and digital ads are displayed as booked across any OOH format in Australia and New Zealand – using best-practice techniques to independently assure the completeness and accuracy of data, directly from the systems which have recently been established source of truth.
And as a fully automated, hosted and supported technology, there is no noticeable impact on the demand or supply participants – except a remarkable increase in reporting efficiency.
Despite the recent arrival of start ups to this fast growth market opportunity, our view since the early years has been that the best methodology to perform scaled verification of D/OOH, must be both accurate and scalable to suit the unique, real world of DOOH. Seedooh has demonstrably proven both of these capabilities in Australia and New Zealand.
Undoubtedly the OOH sector is poised at the cusp of transition – as trading models and currencies that facilitate OOH transactions evolve from fixed time and location, to audience based metrics.
Within this future, Seedooh’s ongoing success will ultimately be defined by our partners’ success. Specifically this value will be realised in the ability to effortlessly meet the rapidly emerging requirement of transparency in verified delivery reporting – with accuracy, confidence and efficiency at scale.
Being the first OOH verification business to collaboratively achieve fully automated confidence at market scale is a pleasing milestone. The reality is, however this journey is only just beginning. And while the first 5 years have been exhilarating, we remain just as excited about the opportunity to continue to deliver our highly scalable, accurate and valuable technology to buyers and their supply side partners as this requirement continues to gain traction in OOH markets across the globe.
Beyond technology, to succeed in becoming transparent, the sector needs to be ready for change. It has now been proven a maturing sector can reach this step-change collaboratively, without the need for disruptive, divisive and painful mandates for change. When the OOH sector reaches this inflexion point in other developed and developing markets, Seedooh is ready to help all participants achieve value as an outcome of this maturity.
Did You See…
Here are some recent case studies and testimonials from our customers.
Campos Coffee
Campos Coffee
Campos Coffee have been making the most of OOH for their recent Brand campaign, starting with Large format DOOH billboards to introduce the ‘Day Made’ positioning, then going interactive with QR codes on Classic OOH – with specific placement for every single site, ensuring a pleasing value exchange for every interaction.
Campos’ objective: launch the new brand positioning and creative ‘Day Made’ through high reaching and contextually relevant environments, whilst also supporting cafes and selected grocery, through hyper targeted OOH.
The campaign was planned and bought by Kaimera, in collaboration with oOh!media, JCDecaux and QMS.
Sarah Ansell, Head of Marketing at Campos:
We loved this OOH campaign idea from the outset and have been really pleased with the execution and engagement. Our ability to work collectively as a diligent and agile team has been key to this campaign’s success.
Laura Addison Planner / Buyer at Kaimera:
We worked closely with our media partners to bring this idea to life. The detail in the planning and execution was critical, to make the most of the location based message engagement, and to support the Campos Café Network. Seedooh’s always on verification throughout the campaign, including the installation period for the Classic postings, enabled complete, timely visibility of how the campaign was being delivered on the streets – and any issues were immediately notified and rectified quickly.
Stan. Entertainment
Stan. Entertainment is one of Australia’s largest and most consistent users of Digital and Classic Out-of-Home, promoting an impressive stream of exclusive and premium content on a weekly basis.
In fact, much of the DOOH messaging is updated daily, counting down to series launches, or sporting events – and often, multiple campaigns are active simultaneously, across hundreds of locations.
The time and location of each message is carefully planned and often executed at short notice, using all available data to reach the most valuable audiences, at the right times, with very specific booking parameters for each placement.
Janice Rauter, Media Manager at Stan.:
OOH is one of our key channels and we expect it to work hard for us in driving awareness, engagement, viewing and subscriptions, alongside our other media investments. We have a dedicated team of specialists to manage the always on delivery, to ensure we make the most of the opportunity.
Naturally, there are complexities in the very real world of OOH, which mean that things don’t always go exactly to plan, but Seedooh’s always on verification and campaign support service means that we catch and rectify any challenges as they happen, increasing our confidence that our investment, and planning effort will return the best possible contribution.
What do Publishers think?
oOh!media is the out of home market leader with 35,000 Out of Home locations across nine products with a mixture of digital and classic inventory in all states and regions across ANZ. oOh! believes that it is the right for all our customers to independently measure the delivery of a media campaign through accurate third party verification.
oOh! was the first Australian Out of Home media owner to securely integrate the processes for proof of posting and proof of play data with the Seedooh independent verification platform back in 2017.
Since then, oOh! has maintained a strong and open relationship with Seedooh and the primary success factors in this relationship have been; the independent reporting of the truth, and secondly a scalable solution that can operate efficiently and accurately as the number of verified campaigns increase.
Along with the new Industry standards implemented earlier this year, we believe Seedooh is strongly placed to deliver a credible and reliable independent 3rd party verification service against the required industry metrics, using the POP data directly from the media players as the primary source of truth for DOOH.
Happy 5th birthday Seedooh – keep up the good work.
Stephen Luck
Group Commercial & Operations Director
oOh!media
Thanks..!
Heading into our sixth year and beyond, we are deeply appreciative to all our current partners, investors, industry stakeholders and transparency believers. Thank you.
Thanks also to our growing, dedicated team of experts – many of whom have been with us since the early days.