Media Impact pulls up at Shell gas stations with FRAMEN

Already published (Horizont) 10 May · 07:21 – horizont.net –Axel Springer

The market for digitalout-of-home advertising continues to grow at an above-average rate — and moreand more players want a piece of it. The industry’s established giants, led byStröer, Goldbach, and Wall Decaux, are pushing hard on the digitalisation of adsurfaces and the underlying tech infrastructure. But the metrics by which DOOHoperates are simultaneously opening up new opportunities and space forcompanies with deep experience in ad servers and programmatic advertising. AxelSpringer has now recognised this too.

By Katrin Ansorge

Just over a year ago, the mediagroup acquired a majority stake in Berlin-based start-up FRAMEN. Since 2018,the team led by co-founder and CEO Dimitri Gärtner has been running a platformthat places addressable, contextual advertising on screens in gyms, coworkingspaces, and hotels, among other venues. A few weeks ago, an exclusivepartnership with Shell petrol stations was added to the mix, bringing access to850 large-format outdoor sites. Co-founder Magdalena Pusch says FRAMEN can nowreach over 51,700 screens across 4,500 cities.

Access to inventory remainsessential in out-of-home advertising — technological connectivity andprogrammatic delivery notwithstanding — and it’s far from a given. Who gets toadvertise in any given city is governed by long-term municipal contracts, andad space at train stations and airports is typically locked up for years at atime. But niches remain. “There are many millions of screens that aren’t beingused for advertising,” says FRAMEN CEO Gärtner. “That’s the opportunity we wantto unlock.”

The network is already growingexponentially — thousands of screens are being added per quarter. In parallel,FRAMEN is looking to win on a classically digital promise: precise audiencetargeting. At petrol stations, that means clips aimed at families anddecision-makers; at WeWork spaces, content for entrepreneurs and youngprofessionals. Through this approach, FRAMEN guarantees advertisers up to 600million impressions per month, with Gärtner promising that by year’s end theplatform will reach “50% of the population within under seven days.”

To keep audiences looking atscreens long enough to actually engage with ads, commercial content alone isn’tenough. That’s where partner Axel Springer comes in: the group contributesexclusive content from its media brands Bild and Welt, as well as 60-secondBundesliga highlights — at least until 2025. “DOOH had been on our radar for awhile, because it bridges classic digital business with traditional posteradvertising. Once we acquired the Bundesliga rights, it was clear that digitalout-of-home made sense for us both in monetisation and content distribution,”recalls Stefan Mölling, Chief Sales Officer at Media Impact, on the early daysof the FRAMEN partnership. The technological connectivity angle is what hefinds most compelling. “We can reach many different screens through a singleinterface. That makes our business much faster and more flexible. Booking weeksin advance with no ability to react to current events — that’s simply not howthings work anymore.”

The programmatic connectionalso theoretically gives Springer a 360-degree monetisation play across all ofthe group’s media. In practice, Mölling says cross-media campaigns includingDOOH currently account for only around 10% of the total — but that slicealready represents over 25% of revenue. The potential is clearly there — and itextends internationally: FRAMEN is currently piloting content from Springer’sUS property Insider in select UK gyms, and WeWork locations can be targetedacross Europe.

The Ads Manager — built in themould of the major internet platforms — is designed to make it easy foradvertisers to shift even smaller budgets into DOOH. Advertisers simply entertheir key brand details online, set their targeting preferences, budget, andtiming, and select their creatives. Campaign framework, done. “We especiallywant to bring clients who’ve had no prior touchpoints with DOOH into themedium,” says Gärtner — and of course, poach ad spend from other channels. “Werecently ran a major campaign with Porsche. We know that budget wouldpreviously have gone entirely to YouTube. But plenty of start-ups are alreadybig DOOH spenders. We’re going after the Zalandos and Lieferandos of tomorrow.”

For Media Impact’s Mölling, thebiggest source of business for digital out-of-home ultimately lies in clientmindset: “Everyone talks about DOOH, but it takes courage to tear upestablished plans and try something new. There’s still one final step needed toallocate meaningful budgets — a tipping point that will turn this into a truemass medium.” When that moment arrives, Springer will at least be ready for it.

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