JCDecaux UK launches programmatic digital-Out-of-Home at London’s Heathrow airport

JCDecaux SA (Euronext Paris: DEC), 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.

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. 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 stateof-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."

Jean-François Decaux, Co-CEO of JCDecaux, said: “As travel opens up again, the airport continues to define prestige and luxury, underlining the importance of Heathrow as a key partner and as an environment for our international advertising clients and their agencies. As we have already seen in 17 of our markets globally, programmatic buying gives our clients greater flexibility in their digital Out-of-Home campaigns in terms of targeting, measurement, optimisation and near real-time playout triggered by data. By - 2 - bringing Out-of-Home into the digital programmatic eco-system and facilitating omnichannel campaigns, JCDecaux is playing a vital role in the digital transformation of Out-of-Home worldwide.”

^{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.}