Outdoor advertising in downtown urban center with Branded Cities logo in the centre of image

Branded Cities Canada is one of the nation’s premier out-of-home (OOH) media providers. Its exclusive, coast-to-coast network enables advertisers to place media in sought-after Canadian markets, including high-end shopping centres that collectively accommodate more than 86 million customers annually.


"We used to sell boards manually, but now we can profile our boards using a data-based system. Our whole approach shifted to where we tell our clients, ‘it’s not about where you want to be but who you want to reach.'"

—Natalia Lafforgue, Director of Marketing | Branded Cities


Challenge

OOH advertising is an increasingly popular and cost-effective channel that connects brands with millions of consumers. But how can advertisers know that ads placed in specific locations will reach their target audience? Branded Cities sought a better way to help its clients use OOH media—not as a mass-marketing medium, but as a targeted advertising channel capable of reaching specific consumers in the right environment and state of mind.


Solution

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    The first step is discovery


    The Insights team here at Environics Analytics demonstrated how personas could help Branded Cities' clients target their OOH ads to increase their visibility with their desired audience. 

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    Step two is collaboration


    Using PRIZM, our comprehensive segmentation system, Branded Cities identified 12 key personas that had the greatest appeal to advertisers. The PRIZM segments became the basis for tagging all assets with 12 key “street personalities,” such as Tech Savvy, Dual Income/No Kids and Fashionistas.

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    Step three is finding insights


    Next, we used our ENVISION micromarketing platform to construct trade areas around Branded Cities' OOH transit shelter media. By combining its target segments with our BusinessProfiles database, our analysis helped Branded Cities determine the dominant lifestyle segments of people who live, work and play in the area around its OOH media and discover who was most likely to be exposed to an ad. 



Results

After analyzing all 1,782 transit shelters in its network, Branded Cities created a comprehensive database of its shelters and their associated street personalities. Now when Branded Cities gets a client brief, analysts can identify the client’s target audiences and the tool generates a list of all the shelters with the corresponding street personalities. Since its deployment, the Street Furniture Planning Tool has been called a “game changer” at Branded Cities.

At a time when the OOH market has been flat, Branded Cities has seen year-over-year revenue from its street furniture segment rise by 32 percent. By offering clients a new, data-driven perspective on OOH advertising—it’s not about where you want to be but who you want to reach—the company has firmly established its reputation as an industry innovator.

 

 

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