Earlier this month Lyft made Adkom the single source for agencies to buy its New York City car-top digital ad screen inventory, which represents the majority of NYC’s live digital taxi-top inventory. Here’s a 24-second video launch video:
Insider talked with Adkom VP of marketing Daniel Fleischer about the deal.
What’s important about the Lyft deal?
Lyft Media is building the biggest single set of taxi-top inventory that agencies can buy from one source. Lyft has assigned Adkom to be the sole representative of that inventory to specialist agencies as an alternative to building those relationships directly. This is due to Adkom’s extensive relationships with the major OOH specialists agencies in the USA.
Explain what Adkom is, and what is meant by “independent out-of-home media inventory”?
Independent OOH media owners operate in every market across the USA, but by themselves they are often not large enough to attract interest from national buyers. There are several hundred independent OOH media companies in the USA, representing significant untapped potential. Enter Adkom. Adkom is now the largest aggregated network of independent out-of-home media inventory in the United States. Adkom automates the buying and execution of national campaigns across its aggregated ad space. This inventory is integrated into the planning systems of the major OOH specialist agencies through Adkom. New nationwide inventory is thus made available to specialist agencies to offer to their brand customers. I’d like to repeat that this niche OOH ad space was previously practically inaccessible to national buyers because those small or local media owners had never been aggregated into a single network before. Adkom eliminates this fragmentation.
You say the deal is exclusive. Tell us more.
Adkom represents all of its inventory under the Adkom brand so that agency planning systems can see it as one big network, and becomes the exclusive representative of the inventory to specialist OOH agencies. This allows Adkom to include all previously disconnected local inventories into its offering when responding to RFPs.
How is Adkom connected with Blip?
Adkom launched in January. It is Blip’s sister company. Cedric Bernard, ex co-CEO of Kinetic, shared Blip’s vision of making OOH easier to access for anyone. To Cedric, that meant helping his specialist agency peers gain access to a highly fragmented independent OOH community in which Blip was already firmly established. Together, we formed Adkom to focus exclusively on facilitating specialist agency access to Blip’s independent billboard owner partners.
What kind of revenue can Adkom bring to independent OOH media owners?
Adkom’s brings national, OOH specialist agency-driven revenue. Adkom’s buyers are specialist OOH agencies, delivering traditional national campaigns across Adkom’s inventory of static, digital, and mobile formats. Space is booked in advance for specific inventory units, at fixed cost and duration, such as for a week or month. The agency gets new inventory in the USA against which to plan and execute, while the independent media owner obtains a new source of agency business that is guaranteed in advance, complementing their existing sales channels.
Can a media owner decide to only use Adkom or Blip individually?
Yes. A Blip billboard supplier need not necessarily opt-in to the Adkom network if they are satisfied with the volume of their agency-driven business. Similarly, a media owner that needs Adkom’s help to win more agency business does not need to opt-in to Blip’s hyperlocal self-serve marketplace. Together, both brands offer complementary ways of obtaining new revenues.
Has the demand for Blip begun to recover from Covid? How has Covid affected launching Adkom?
Advertiser demand started picking up consistently after about 2-3 weeks from the initial Covid cliff in March, and has not slowed down apart from some minor seasonal fluctuations. This is due to Blip’s no-contract, any-budget model. Adkom’s launch around the pandemic onslaught allowed Adkom to present an entirely new, statistically significant volume of OOH inventory to agencies with the kind of flexibility, optionality, accountability and transparency that will accelerate the return of national brand dollars to OOH.
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