The Last Unskippable Ad: DOOH's Programmatic Power Fueling Real-World Results | Dave Kovall

David McBee: Hello, and welcome to Simpli.fi TV, the web series and podcast for agencies, marketers, media buyers, and business owners. I'm David McBee. Our guest today is Dave Koval, GSTV's VP of Digital and Programmatic Partnerships. Dave leads GSTV's Programmatic Strategy, Sales and Operations. He is responsible for digital partnerships and overseeing the company's growing programmatic capabilities. In his role, Dave supports the sales organization and manages third-party technology partners that enable the GSTV programmatic business. Before joining GSTV, Dave previously led sales and innovation at Zoom Media, where he also built their programmatic business. Dave, welcome to Simpli.fi TV. David Kovall: Thank you so much. It's so great to be here. Really love that intro. Thank you. David McBee: Well, you wrote it very well, so I think it came across. David Kovall: I'll thank our marketing team later. David McBee: Okay, perfect. So let's start out with just a brief explanation. For those who don't know about GSTV, what's the elevator pitch? David Kovall: Yeah, that's a great question. So GSTV is on-the-go video network. We are a national platform, and we engage about 115 million unique consumers every month when they're fueling up their vehicles. So if you're a consumer going to your fuel retailer, you start fueling up, you'll notice that there's a broadcast that is embedded in the fuel dispenser, and we play a show. The show is designed to entertain consumers during their fuel-up. And then interspersed with our programming, we have advertising that runs full-motion video, sound on. You can't skip it. So it's really a one-to-one consumer experience, and that's basically how we're set up. Massive reach. David McBee: I remember seeing my very first video while I was pumping gas, and I thought, "This is so smart," because we're so addicted to our screens. We're not technically supposed to be on our phones while we're pumping gas. I guess there's some kind of dangerous situation there. I'm sure lots of people do that. But yeah, it's something to look at while you're sitting there spending money. So it's definitely not a skippable ad. It's not something you're going to scroll past. They're quite noticeable, quite engaging, so- David Kovall: It's interesting you mentioned that, because we actually... We've known that we have high attention, but we wanted to measure that, and so we worked with a partner called Lumen, and they did a study where they were able to do eyeball tracking. And so we sent consumers with the special eyeglasses on to go fuel up their vehicle, and we didn't tell them who we were or what to look at. We just said, "Hey, put these glasses on and go fuel up your vehicle at one of these fuel retailers." And we found that 95% of ads had eyes on screen, and only 5% looked away. So what that indicated is most people don't have their phone with them when they're fueling up, so there isn't really dual viewing. So you really have a very attentive audience, which is something that's hard to come by these days. When I watch regular television at home, I'm constantly distracted by my phone. It's a real problem. So it's hard for brands to really stand out, and GSTV is one of those places that works. David McBee: Let's talk about programmatic digital out-of-home as a whole. How do you feel like the programmatic industry has had an impact on all digital out-of-home screens? David Kovall: Yeah, it's been really exciting. So programmatic has accelerated the shift from buying out-of-home as real estate to buying audiences and outcomes. I think what a lot of people don't realize is that digital out-of-home is digital media, and so a lot of the same audiences that you use for targeting, a lot of the same measurements can be applied to digital out-of-home. And programmatic, I think, really has helped us get us there a little bit faster. David McBee: So what's that going to look like in the full-funnel omni-channel solution? Where does digital out-of-home fit? David Kovall: Yeah. When I think about the funnel, I think a lot of people probably mistakenly think that out-of-home is just billboards, but it's really so much more. There's so many different contextual environments to consider. And it's not just signage, it's video. At least in the case of GSTV, we're running video. So when I think about the funnel, I think digital out-of-home can really address the full funnel. You can certainly do a measurement on brand equity to look at how people are viewing your brand, but there are a lot of terrific examples where digital out-of-home operators are able to drive incremental foot traffic and incremental sales lift, and that's what really delivers a business change. I'll give you a couple examples. At GSTV, we know that when you fuel up, it's usually part of shopping day. Fuel-up day and shopping day are one and the same. And so if you, let's say, are a restaurant, and you want to drive more people to your store, advertise on GSTV, reach hungry consumers. Actually, the number one place that people go after fueling up is to dine out, and so it's the last video impression before you're choosing where are you going to go and eat, and so we can drive incremental foot traffic to those restaurants. Same thing applies with CPG. If a brand wants to sell more sodas, we're a great place to engage people who are thirsty. There's a lot of choices right at the convenience store. And actually, it makes me think about our commerce platform. A lot of people are talking about commerce media these days, and GSTV is an aggregated commerce network as well. David McBee: Tell me more about that. David Kovall: Yeah, well, every GSTV location has a convenience store on property, so this includes large retailers that you've probably heard of like a 7-Eleven or a Circle K or a Speedway, but the beauty of GSTV is that we're able to aggregate a lot of independents. The majority of the fuel and convenience space is actually made up of independent-owned stores, and so it's a huge channel for sales, but hard to access without somebody aggregating it, so we can drive a tremendous amount of sales right at the convenience store. And then also companies like GSTV and other out-of-home can be used to drive sales at nearby stores. As I was saying earlier, we know that fueling day and shopping day are one and the same. In general, what we found is that spending goes up about four to five X right after fueling up. So we did this study with Affinity Solutions that looks at credit card data, and they were able to look at what happens with a consumer after they fuel up. And they looked at all different retailers, and across the board, fuelers spend four to five times more within three hours after fueling up versus non-fuelers. So the recency of that ad message can be really powerful, because you don't have to work as hard to get somebody to take action, because they're already inclined to go to a retailer, so now you just have to get them to add your item to the shopping cart. David McBee: Those are pretty cool stats. All right, so let's shift gears a little bit. What do you think is going to happen in the future with programmatic digital out-of-home, and how is GSTV preparing for what's next? David Kovall: Yeah, so I am really excited about the future, and in particular I'm really excited about Simpli.fi's step into this space. This is really very cool. So thank you, Simpli.fi, for embracing digital out-of-home. I can't wait to work with some of your clients. So I think digital out-of-home takes digital into the real world. And I think that when we think about the future, we think about expanding our footprint, expanding reach. We think about getting into some other channels. There might be new products. We might expand into other markets. So in order to get the marketplace there, I think we need to do more education like this, because so many buyers don't realize the diversity of digital out-of-home, different environments, different contexts, different media formats from static to video. And I think that what I'm excited about is seeing buyers take advantage of the context of each out-of-home environment, so that way they can do something that's custom and relevant for that environment. One of the things that I've noticed, unfortunately, is that sometimes brands will submit ads through the programmatic pipes and not necessarily think about where is that ad going to be seen, and that's sometimes a missed opportunity. So I think that that's something that I'm excited to work on and see evolve. David McBee: I agree. It should be interesting as advertisers start to learn exactly how powerful digital out-of-home can be. So my next question is really, with Simpli.fi now being able to activate digital out-of-home campaigns, what kinds of advertisers should be taking advantage of digital out-of-home to reach consumers in those high-attention environments like GSTV? David Kovall: Yeah, so there's definitely a wide range of advertiser categories that do well with us. Retail, restaurants, automotive, CPG, finance, travel, insurance. It goes on. I think the insight with at least GSTV is that we reach people when they're spending money and when they're about to spend more money, so that's a really valuable insight. So retailers and restaurants and CPG clients, they do really well with us, because we're reaching people at that right moment when it's easier to get them moving. Our Head of Insights talks about Newtonian advertising. Objects in motion stay in motion, and so if you are an on-the-go consumer, it's easier to get you to add that extra item to the shopping cart or to visit one more location if it's a retailer. Whereas if your ad is reaching somebody at home, where you're sitting on the couch or lying down in bed, it's a lot harder to get you moving. It's a lot harder to get you to take action. David McBee: Okay, so let's assume an advertiser is ready to pull the trigger on digital out-of-home, but they've only really done print and standard, if you will, digital media. They're nervous about creative. What would you say to them about how to get it done? What are some of best practices? Things like that. David Kovall: Yeah, well, at GSTV we operate a video network, so it's important to have video assets. And if you don't have a television creative or a video-with-sound asset, we actually have an in-house studio called Ignite, and the Ignite Studio is responsible for producing our show, so they're building custom programming all the time, including GSTV original series, but they also work with some of our top advertisers to build their assets. Major advertisers who have plenty of money to spend on creative actually work with us to help build custom assets, because we know what works in our space. Sometimes advertisers will want to break that fourth wall and talk to consumers in the actual environment. So on one hand, you can just use your television creative, but on the other hand, think about where consumers are. They're fueling up. They're going shopping. How can you speak to them in a way that's different? It could be as simple as adding in a little tag like, "Come inside now to buy your product," or, "Visit a nearby store." And we've found huge success with those add-ons. David McBee: Okay. If you had just 30 seconds to convince an advertiser to consider adding digital out-of-home to their other advertising marketing campaign, what would you say to them? David Kovall: Well, first off, I'd need to ask some questions about what are their objectives and goals. But generally, what I'd say is digital out-of-home is relatively easy to purchase. It can deliver massive reach, and it can deliver on business outcomes. So don't be afraid to use digital out-of-home. Don't have that preconception that it's hard to measure, because it actually is increasingly easy to measure. And I think there's also been some thoughts that maybe digital out-of-home is more expensive than other media. That's not true at all. It's actually very efficient, in particular when you think about the attention we deliver. When we did that study with Lumen, we found that our cost for attention is actually more efficient than all the other media channels that Lumen looked at, including CTV, linear, social, display, and so on. So don't be afraid to lean into digital out-of-home. David McBee: All right, Dave, this has been awesome. I appreciate your time. What is the best way for our viewers to learn more about you? David Kovall: Well, definitely check out GSTV.com. You can find us on the socials. Personally, I'm on LinkedIn, easy to find there. So definitely reach out. And can't wait to hear from people. I love to get some challenging questions and help guide people on their journey to invest in more digital out-of-home. David McBee: Great. Dave, thank you so much for being my guest on Simpli.fi TV. David Kovall: Thank you so much. David McBee: And thank you all for watching Simpli.fi TV. 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