MediaPost: Gas Station TV Saw You Coming, Can Guess Where You're Going
GSTV, the company that puts TVs (and ads) at gas station pumps in 200 markets nationwide, has upped its analytics in ways it says give advertisers a carload of data about who is pumping that gas and what they’re up to.
GSTV screens are in some 18,000 gas stations, and for most of the people who stop to fuel up, where they’re going next is more or less a given: They’re headed home, to work -- or maybe best of all, to go shopping.
Concerning the latter activity, GSTV says its viewers spend 1.7X more in the hours right after pumping their car. And putting a message before consumers right before they are about to consume is a pretty good place for an advertiser to be, they claim.
Drive-thru restaurants like Wendy’s are good clients. So are Pepsi, General Motors, Capital One, AT&T, Comcast, Citibank and State Farm.
The company just unveiled Octane, an analytical concoction that analyses transactional, geospatial and digital behavioral data. It purports to know that gas station visitor backward and forward.
That’s a stew the customer has already provided the ingredients to create, right down to their cell phone’s GPS. The company teamed with analytics and research providers Acxiom, Placed, Dstillery, IRi and Nielsen to create an extensive package of data.
“When credit card transactions occur at our locations, we’re able to work with our data partners to understand, in aggregate, what kinds of transactions customers make before or after they buy,” explains Eric Sherman, a former Twitter and NBC Universal executive who is the senior vice president for insights and analytics.
“The fuel transaction at the GSTV location provides the link. From consumers who have opted in to location-sharing on their mobile devices, we can understand how such consumers behave before or after visiting a station by analyzing mobility patterns associated with these devices.” (The data is anonymized.)
Though one brand of gasoline is pretty much like the other, not all gas stations are equal. “I was at a gas station the other day and it hit me -- there was a BMW, a Range Rover and Mercedes there with me,” says Sean McCaffrey, the GSTV CEO. Stations, by location and proximity to certain kinds of shopping places, can draw a disproportionate share of well-heeled drivers.
Sherman knows those car nameplates mean something. “At a GSTV location, are the viewers in front of our screens more likely to have visited a Lexus dealership in the past 30 days? A Lululemon store? A DollarTree? Understanding this data on a location-by-location basis helps us advise clients.”
McCaffrey, with a background at IHeartMedia and Clear Channel Outdoor, arrived at GSTV (in a nice car, presumably) last year when GSTV and gas station TV competitor Verifone entered into a joint venture combining the assets of each. The analytic and deal-making ramp-up began shortly after.
Like other out-of-home services, GSTV fights to be taken as equal to more traditional media, and it’s increased efforts to make GSTV more responsive.
It recently hired Scott Pawlowski, formerly national vertical sales leader for Quantcast, as an executive vice president of client services. It also has a new content deal with Cheddar news and Chive TV, among others like The Stadium, CNN Headline News, Bloomberg TV and AccuWeather.
The gas pump TV company claims to reach 75 million unique viewers every month, and that includes one in three adults over 18.
And like TV and the Internet, it deals with criticism that its viewers aren’t really paying attention. Sherman says 87% of its gas-pumping viewers watch or listen to the GSTV telecast, and its recall is about twice what linear TV gets from its viewers.
“While some people may step away from the pump during fueling,” he says, “compare that to during traditional TV commercial breaks.” TV viewers flee to kitchens, bathrooms or use remotes to skip the ads altogether when commercials appear, he claims. “That doesn’t happen on GSTV.”
The Wrap: Chive TV to Stream to 18,000+ Gas Stations Via Partnership With GSTV
Chive TV, a digital media company under the Chive Media Group, will have its content streamed to more than 18,000 gas stations as the result of a new partnership with GSTV, a national video network that works with fuel retailers.
Under the partnership, Chive will create a small block of programming that will loop on select gas station pumps with TV screens across the nation. The programming block will include a mix of family-friendly and brand-safe, action, sports, stunts and comedic bloopers.
The partnership with GSTV is part of Chive’s growing out-of-home media efforts, which are focused on bringing its content to TVs outside of consumer households like bars, casinos, and gas stations. Chive TV‘s owned-and-operated OTT channel currently brings video content (along with ads) to more than 20,000 screens in 3,000 restaurants, bars and other retail establishments across the U.S. The company has also signed a distribution deal with the Royal Caribbean, an international cruise line brand, that brings its content to the pool deck of all 25 ships in the Royal Caribbean fleet.
“Everyone intuitively understands that the content-first approach is the future of out-of-home media because it draws eyes to the screens and primes viewers for an ad message,” Leo Resig, CEO and co-founder of Chive Media Group. “However, content is easier said than done. We have a decade of industry leadership in content, so we have been able to create mutually beneficial agreements with partners where they get top-notch content that engages people wherever they are on their daily journey. In turn, we continue to grow our distribution.”
Resig says that, combined, Chive’s content partnerships with GSTV, Ziosk, Cedar Fair, and Royal Caribbean, Chive TV reach 230 million people in the US every month, representing a “vast majority of the total addressable market for advertisers.”
Cheddar: GSTV CEO Says Network Reaches More People Than Spotify
GSTV, which delivers content across thousands of fuel retailers in the U.S., reaches 75 million unique visitors and hopes to reach one in two adults in the next few years. Sean McCaffrey, president and CEO of GSTV, said that the scale of the company is increasing daily.
MediaPost: Cheddar's Next Platform Is The Gas Station Pump
Cheddar, the “post-cable” news network, is making the jump to the gas pump. The company will now provide content to GSTV, which programs content to screens at more than 18,000 gas station pumps across the country.
Under the terms of the deal, Cheddar will provide new segments to GSTV. The segments will be about 20 seconds long and focus on topics like technology and entrepreneurship. They will rotate in and out a couple of times per day to keep them fresh.
“We have always had a bit of a news, sports, weather, editorial angle, and with great respect to some legacy publisher brands, they aren’t built for today’s consumers or today’s models,” Sean McCaffrey, president and CEO of GSTV, tells Digital News Daily, explaining why the company wanted to work with Cheddar.
“It’s a nice story of everything old being new again,” Cheddar CEO Jon Steinberg says. “This is a platform that used to have traditional content, and now they are working with someone like us that has new content.
"We are sort of an internet-first brand that traditionally you would only associate with digital platforms. Yet, we are able to work with a great firm with a tremendous footprint. It is an incomprehensible number, of quantity, of public space.”
Cheddar has grown its audience in part by trying to make itself as ubiquitous as possible. Cheddar and its general-interest news network Cheddar Big News are available on most streaming video bundles, such as Sling TV and YouTube TV, and even a number of traditional cable packages.
The company has also embarked in a strategy to make itself available outside of traditional video bundles and social networks. It acquired MTV Networks On Campus and rebranded it as CheddarU earlier this summer, bringing Cheddar’s content to some 600 university campuses.
“We are trying to mimic what traditional cable networks like CNN or CNBC have done,” Steinberg says. “CNBC, it has magazine shops at airports. I don’t even know what the CNBC shops are. CNN has the Airport Network. We are trying to follow that model, our content is ideal to be watched in the background, as well.
“We preserve the authentication value in that the only way [consumers] get the full feed is through the authentication package, like Sling or Hulu or YouTube TV.”
The deal actually started with an offhand comment by a journalist, asking why Cheddar wasn’t on the gas station TVs yet. McCaffrey replied to Steinberg on Twitter, offering to speed that process along.
“It was a classic example of right place, right time,” McCaffrey says, adding the millennial audience of Cheddar aligned nicely with GSTV’s target audience.
“More millennials stop at a GSTV station in a given month than Starbucks. It is a captive few minutes where we want to entertain somebody,” he says, noting people often refuel their cars while out shopping, and spend 1.7X more than they typically do following a fuel transaction.
QSR Brands: Digital Video Can Work Harder to Reach Your Customers
By Sean McCaffrey, President and CEO of GSTV
As hungry consumers hit the road this summer, QSR brands are spending big on digital video, particularly mobile, with high expectations of heavy foot traffic to match their spend.
According to a recent study by IAB, 59% of marketers’ digital ad budgets are allocated to digital video already and more than half of buyers plan to increase spending by 53% during the next year.
I’m amazed at how often I hear brands discuss with confidence their strategic media plans for reaching travelers. Often, they over-index on digital video, particularly via mobile, as the solution.
Millions of dollars later, the question remains: Are consumers seeing your videos in the context that best serves your restaurants? There’s a good chance they won’t be in the right place at the right time— or in the right mindset— to make your ROAS the best it could be.
Consider that some 70% of mobile device usage now takes place in the home, and those that do watch on-the-go are 17% more likely to skip mobile video ads (source: Pew; Magna and IPG Media Lab).
Though we may be experiencing the so-called Golden Age of Television, Millennials — who spend more money eating out than any other generation — aren’t watching when it needs to count for your QSR. Reporting from Restaurant Marketing Labs shows that trend will only balloon as the mobile-first, short(er) attention span Generation Z will surpass Millennials to become the most influential market by 2020.
So, where does that leave mobile video in terms of reaching on-the-go consumers? Rather than try to motivate a consumer to get off their couch for your new green juice or breakfast sandwich, it’s easier to tempt them on-the-go. But not necessarily always on their phones.
We set out to understand the habits of these consumers through a third-party study by MasterCard and Placed examining the consumer journey following a fuel transaction. Analysis found that within an hour of filling up, fuel customers transact 54% more and spend 46% more at QSR (vs. non-fuel buyers). QSR campaigns on GSTV have driven double-digit incremental lift in store visitation.
Digital video is clearly still popular with consumers, it just isn’t increasing the total time your consumer spends engaged with your brand. Location-targeted ads are the single most effective display advertising strategy for QSRs across online and mobile, according to Mobile Marketer. That study showed consumers were three times more likely to visit an advertiser’s store when they were served a geo-fenced ad nearby.
I always enjoyed marketing expert and author Tom Goodwin’s take on mobile, which is that it’s a behavior, not a channel. Behaviors are highly complex and difficult to track, making mobile video anything but the panacea many believe it to be. It’s an ever-evolving advertising puzzle for QSR. The key is to stay as nimble as your consumers.
QSRs need a more focused model for reaching an increasingly elusive and frenetic target audience. In my view, the best digital video campaigns for the industry will reach key consumers when they’re active, more likely to spend and — most importantly — when they are hungry.
MediaPost: When Is Using A Cellphone Not Mobile Usage?
By Sean McCaffrey | MediaPost
As the penetration of mobile devices reaches near saturation in America, quantitative data alone becomes an inadequate guide as to how to target consumers when and where they have intent to purchase. Advertisers seek newer media formats for reaching consumers, with a renewed emphasis on qualitative data.
With sea change about in data use and media decisions, reaching the right consumer in the right context at the right time is still paramount to driving real business growth.
Some of those new media have actually been hiding in plain sight, among them video advertising at fuel stations and, particularly so, in summer.
According to Pew, some 70% of mobile device usage now takes place in the home with 99% of consumers using devices there every week. Additionally, the two next most frequent places of weekly use are “in transit” (82%) and at work (69%), neither of which may involve a “ready to purchase” context.
These are not surprising research findings, but they highlight the need for more creative and lateral thinking from marketers. That’s particularly so when you realize mobile video consumers are most often watching at home, according to recent research by the Streaming Video Alliance — and those that do watch on the go are 17+% more likely to skip mobile video ads, per Magna and IPG Media Lab. This all makes it even harder for traditional advertising media to reach consumers during the summer months when we’re leading even more active lives.
For advertisers, the situation will get worse next quarter thanks to external factors. Chief among them is the continuing demise in the audience numbers watching more traditional television, which is subject to an even more dramatic seasonal decline in summer.
There is also real pressure on air-time as we contemplate a fall season full of political advertising ahead of the November midterms. Given the requirement for media outlets to squeeze in as much on-air political balance as possible, the cost of other airtime soars, creating a very real trickle-down effect into the summer months. Non-political advertisers will seek better value ahead of September and October.
Increased demand inevitably leads to higher costs — particularly in digital budgets, where 60% of the spend is now in video, according to IAB. These increases come despite evidence that consumers are not spending more total time with video and that millennial consumption of television continues its inexorable decline. What’s more, it is easier today for consumers to curate their own content without recourse to an advertiser-funded media now that free, owned and subscription media are all stealing the other’s lunch.
Where to find consumers with both the time and, importantly, the disposition to engage with brand content and advertising in the summer months, preferably near a point of purchase? The fuel station is a previously overlooked, but relatively obvious, media location. The weekly or twice-weekly fill-up is often a crucial few moments ahead of a grocery or other shopping trip, or journey to an event, QSR stop, picnic or cookout, the beach or any other summer activity.
Brands need to be prepared for the challenges the summer will inevitably bring, whether they’re political or behavioral, or the host of better-known issues like brand safety, fraud or even GDPR; these things will have an impact. The only question you should be asking is, what are you doing to mitigate them? And where is there previously untapped opportunity to find real impact and engagement amongst all the disruption?
The Drum: Four Unexpected, Data-Driven Media Buys For Quickly Boosting Sales
By Sean McCaffrey | The Drum
Of all the topics that come up in my conversations with brands, agencies, media and data/analytics partners, how to quickly boost sales is always a common one. Even though most brands plan their media spending annually, every marketer should have a deep bench of partners they know have a higher likelihood of driving sales without the long lead. Oh, and that can leverage the most relevant data resources on the market.
For brands wanting to know who they can call today to have a data-enriched campaign running tomorrow (or maybe next week), with a degree of certainty that they’ll see some lift, read on.
To hone the list, I’ve put recency in the crosshairs, which means we’re not talking about TV, mobile, social or any of the usual suspects. Why recency? Recency theory holds that ads are most effective when they air “immediately before the time of decision” per Nielsen. Brands shouldn’t overlook recency when considering where to place media, especially if making the sale is their immediate goal.
Paul Macaluso, chief executive at the fast-growing quick-serve restaurant Krystal, told QSR Magazine last week that recency is one of the most important elements of restaurant marketing.
“We need to be in front of people when they’re thinking about food or when they’re hungry. It’s just not TV anymore,” he says. “Certainly not predominantly TV anymore.”
Sometimes the simple answer is the right one. Here are a few to consider.
Intersection’s Link kiosks
With a monthly reach of 44m (Source: Geopath), anyone walking the streets of New York or London has seen a Link kiosk. It’s the sleek digital obelisks that offer beautifully displayed content, free wifi, phone calls, device charging and tablets for local search. These are savvy technologies that are only growing in number.
And given that almost every major retailer, QSR/fast-casual, finance, travel - and so many other business categories - sell in New York and London, Link is a recency goldmine. In these urban markets, you can combine recency with proximity - consider a promotion for financial services. Link makes sense for consumers who are directly outside or blocks away from the institution.
Cinema
Cinemas present a unique option among this list because moviegoers are a captive audience, unable to opt-out. They’re sitting down, noshing, and relaxed because all they’re doing for the next 90 minutes is watching a flick. It’s an opportunity for a brand to say hello and ask for their consideration.
With the evolution of the movie theater to include reclining chairs and alcoholic beverages, consumers may be more likely to arrive on time, snacks and all. And for theaters located inside shopping malls, viability goes up further. Monthly reach is 25m and 15.1m for National CineMedia and Screenvision, respectively (Source: Nielsen Media Impact, Sept 2017).
Walmart’s WMX and Kroger’s ClickList Ad Platforms
You’re on Kroger’s ClickList website, or walmart.com searching for cereal, and a sponsored ad shows up for something you’ve bought in the past with a deal if you buy two. Recency doesn’t get any more recent, and advertising here should be a no-brainer for brands selling, or thinking of selling, in either store.
Why is this media buy “unexpected?” Amazon’s AMS/AMG are so well known at this point; I want to call out Walmart’s WMX and Kroger’s ClickList, newer platforms that have the same kind of advertising options (or will). Various news outlets have reported that Kroger is selling ad units and developing a programmatic platform. WMX, by contrast, came around just after AMS and AMG.
There is sure to be a lot of upside for brands that get in early and develop relationships with these platforms, invest, and learn how to take advantage of them early. Hint for media and advertising agencies: if you can help brands do this, you’ll win. The substantial growth brands have seen on Amazon, and the cottage industry of agencies and media companies developing Amazon-specific service offerings is a clear sign the same is sure to happen for WMX and Kroger.
A significant player in the space, Walmart’s WMX sees a unique monthly reach of 103.3m thanks to Walmart.com traffic (Source: comScore, Feb 2018). Kroger's reach data is not yet available.
GSTV
Self-promotion alert, but here’s why it matters. GSTV is the new name for Gas Station TV, a data-driven, national video network delivering targeted audiences at scale across tens of thousands of fuel retailers (BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Exxon-Mobil, Kwik Trip, Speedway and more). This format reaches one in three Americans monthly, and know from research that people who are fueling up are very often on their way to buy something else. I could go on, but know there are plenty more reasons to consider GSTV.
All of these businesses have access to best-in-class third-party data resources. They offer all the trappings of du jour digital offerings, without the risk that an off the cuff remark from a celebrity will send stock prices plunging.
And, most importantly, they reach consumers at natural times when a purchase is a likely outcome, times when audiences are potentially in a buying mindset. While there are plenty of media formats disrupting consumers at all other times of day, doesn’t it make sense to reconsider the options that aren’t as disruptive?
Thoughtful application of these unique media offerings could mean a big difference for brands who leverage them appropriately. And in a marketplace rife with fraud, brand safety, and so many other issues, it pays to have tools like these at your disposal.
Sean McCaffrey, is chief executive officer at GSTV
MediaPost: PlaceIQ Launches LandMark Location-Data Offering
PlaceIQ, an ad-tech company focused on location data, announced on Wednesday the official release of its LandMark data offering.
LandMark offers access to PlaceIQ’s audience, behavior and visitation data, informing marketing decisions across platforms and industries.
PlaceIQ’s dataset is built through the understanding of billions of location-enabled device movements on a daily basis.
Clients using LandMark gain additional understanding of the real-world customer journey that can inform a host of marketing decisions, including media activation, cross-channel strategy, competitive positioning, retail site selection optimization and financial investments.
“PlaceIQ has always been passionate that the ultimate end goal for location data should be to allow brands to understand consumers in new ways,” Duncan McCall, the company’s CEO and co-founder, told Real-Time Daily via email. “LandMark is the culmination of that vision and something we’ve been building and refining since we started the company.”
“It’s a dynamic offering that allows you to answer questions about what’s happening in the marketplace, like what share-of-visit for a brand looks like, how overall visitation is ebbing and flowing, and how brand health can be measured market-to-market,” stated Kelly Lundquist, manager, data strategy, Havas Media.
Other companies that used Landmark for successful client engagements include Gas Station TV and The Media Kitchen.
Philip Rosenstein, MediaPost