QMS is a leading digital out-of-home (DOOH) media company that offers buyers a variety of premium screens to reach their target audience. Located in Australia, we virtually caught up with David Sutherland, General Manager - Product, at QMS to learn more about their business.
Could you describe your business – the types of screens in your inventory, where you can find QMS screens, regions in which you operate, etc. – and what your network offers brands?
At QMS, we are experts and leaders in premium, high impact digital outdoor. Underpinned by the latest developments in technology and data, our strategic focus is on providing clients and agencies with dynamic and innovative advertising solutions to make brands memorable.
Utilising accurate, robust and world leading mobile data we help clients understand and locate the right audiences so they can connect to them via multiple touchpoints across our portfolio of premium high impact digital billboards, exclusive street furniture and airport opportunities and access to 7-Eleven’s national petro/convenience locations via IMPULSE’s 480 state of the art full motion digital screens.
What sets QMS apart from other digital channels? (audiences you reach, use cases for brands)
QMS lives and breathes digital. It has been in our DNA from the beginning and our vision is to unlock the power of DOOH to advertisers. Our focus is on high impact digital outdoor to reach quality audiences.
As a business, we are committed to understanding audiences better through market leading data whilst remaining nimble, flexible and driven by change and innovation for the benefit of advertisers.
This commitment means QMS sees programmatic DOOH (pDOOH) as an enhancement for clients to deliver more memorable opportunities that influence further down the marketing funnel.
We firmly believe that when pDOOH is seen as an enhancer to OOH, it will play a crucial part of growing our business and moving the industry forward.
Therefore QMS sees pDOOH as a progressive step forward for OOH rather than something to be scared or cautious about.
Where do you see the digital out-of-home industry moving in the next 12 months?
With our investment into our DYNAMiQ audience data and insights platform, we are already beginning to see Australians return to the great outdoors. In fact, in some places audiences are back stronger than ever. So whilst the next 12 months will see an industry recover from COVID-19, we are confident that, as a business, we are set up to grow even further.
This confidence comes in part by our investment into our digital strategy that will see us move further into pDOOH. We are beginning to see the likes of PwC talk about the industry starting to realise the benefits of this enhancement to traditional DOOH and along with a growing list of OOH and non-OOH clients wanting to explore it further. Therefore, it is fair to say that 2021 will really see pDOOH start to evolve and gain some momentum in the market.
What has been Vistar’s most valuable contribution to your business?
As a business we have been on a deliberate test and learn phase with pDOOH to ensure we know how to provide existing and new clients with knowledge and expertise to maximise their campaign results. Working with Vistar has allowed us to work hand in hand with their technical team to further enhance and fine tune our pDOOH capability. This also has allowed us to open up new doors to major digital and programmatic agencies to expand opportunities and enhance our pDOOH strategy.
What Vistar software capabilities do you find most useful?
Vistar’s user interface at the back end has been refreshing. Dealing with large volumes requires bulk uploads of venue details which Vistar’s platform excels in. Rather than relying on antiquated and multiple spreadsheets, our operations team can easily place all of the necessary site details into an ‘uploader file’ that is automatically pulled quickly, simply and securely into the Vistar platform.
What is the one thing that you wish more digital buyers knew about out-of-home?
Without a doubt the education of media, creative and clients themselves on the fact that not all screens are created equal. Be it size, location and in particular impact! We have long been believers in the power of being unique, and our recent Neuroscience study was a major step forward in helping clients understand how powerful a message can be when taking into consideration the unique qualities of digital locations. So much so that our study found that dynamic creative on digital large format billboards delivered a 40% greater neuro impact than static billboards.
The creative possibilities that digital lends itself to are simply not being realised at the moment and recently at Mumbrella’s M360:Reconnected conference, Chief Creative Officer & Partner - Special Group, Julian Schrieber called for a shift in the way the industry looks at DOOH:
“DOOH is seen as a digital version of OOH versus an Outdoor version of Digital. And that is the paradigm shift. Put the digital as the starting point and not the outdoor… it opens your mind to all the creative opportunities.”
Why did you choose Vistar as a partner?
With digital in our DNA and as a driving force in the Digital Out of Home evolution in Australia, we were naturally drawn to Vistar’s international credentials, in particular in North America. As we push the OOH industry further towards a bright future here in Australia, we look to like minded partners like Vistar, that see pDOOH as a true enhancement to DOOH.
