Paris, FRANCE - 16th June 2022 - JCDecaux, the number one outdoor advertising company worldwide, announced today that its UK subsidiary JCDecaux UK has added programmatic buying capabilities to its advertising locations at London’s Heathrow airport. The offering will connect advertisers and media buyers to advertising inventory via VIOOH, the leading premium global digital Out-of-Home supply-side platform. Advertisers will be able to blend the precision targeting and flexibility of programmatic buying with the effectiveness of high-impact digital Out-of-Home (DOOH), the media with the second highest growth after mobile advertising, at Heathrow, the UK’s busiest airport and a leading international travel hub.

In a partnership with Heathrow that spans more than 20 years, JCDecaux will introduce the new programmatic capabilities across all Heathrow terminals and Heathrow Express – over 700 digital screens. Programmatic buying enables advertisers a new way to reach millions¹ of passengers at Heathrow using anonymised data to optimise campaigns in near-real time. Advertisers can integrate their own or third-party data triggers into campaigns and use passenger numbers by terminal, unique passenger profiles and information about how passengers move around the airport to reach the premium airport audience.

Programmatic DOOH as a share of all Out-of-Home (OOH) is growing rapidly. In the UK JCDecaux has accelerated its transition to programmatic, making more than 7 billion impressions (eyeballs) a month available to buyers across roadside, retail, rail and now airport, via multiple demand-side platforms (DSPs).

JCDecaux is the number 1 in airport advertising worldwide, operating advertising in 154 airports in 38 countries and in 7 of the top 10 airport hubs worldwide. Airports continue to be a key environment for brands. The Group has introduced programmatic sales across JCDecaux's media space in airports including Heathrow, Singapore, Frankfurt, Milan, Turin, Sydney, Boston, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, Pittsburgh, Hong Kong, Paris CDG and Orly as well as 12 French regional airports. For 2022, the objective is to extend programmatic sales to the other American airports where JCDecaux operates the advertising concession. Airports continue to be a key environment for brands. A recent 'Perceived Value of Media’ global study' conducted for JCDecaux by Researchbods revealed that globally, airport advertising confers the highest perceived value for brands compared with other media such as online display, social media, TV and press advertising.

Fraser Brown, Retail and Property Director, Heathrow, said: "We're proud of the state-of-the-art digital advertising portfolio at Heathrow, and programmatic will provide a great opportunity to open up access to an even broader range of brands. This in turn should make the screens more engaging for our passengers, improving their airport experience."

Jean-Christophe Conti, CEO at VIOOH, said: “We're delighted to be launching our programmatic digital Out-of-Home offering at Heathrow Airport in partnership with JCDecaux. Combining JCDecaux's premium airport inventory with VIOOH's programmatic capabilities will enable brands to create highly targeted, flexible and measurable DOOH campaigns across Heathrow Airport. This offering also enables more brands to tap into the airport audience - who have a high dwell time and are ready to spend - making this audience extremely desirable from a programmatic perspective due to these highly sought after audience segments."

Chris Collins, co-CEO, JCDecaux UK, said: “Today, programmatic DOOH is an essential part of a brand’s omnichannel marketing strategy. Ever since we’ve been running programmatic campaigns we’ve noticed two key trends. Firstly, brands that have previously invested in traditional Out-of-Home or non-programmatic DOOH are adding incremental budgets to complement long-term campaigns with strategic bursts of activity around key moments in time. Secondly, there has been an influx of new brands into Out-of-Home advertising owing to the medium’s connections into the digital online ecosystem through our programmatic platforms. So this introduction of further buying capabilities at Heathrow will open up this fantastic environment to even more brands.”

¹As one of the world’s leading international Airports, pre-pandemic Heathrow Airport reached 80 million passengers each year. As travel continues to return, Heathrow Airport has revised its passenger forecasts for 2022 to 53 million, an increase of 16% on previous forecasts.