OOH Uncut Podcast: Grace Teng
Grace Teng, Partner & Chief Media Officer, Scale by Zambezi, joins Rick Robinson, CEO PJX Media, on OOH Uncut, the podcast featuring leaders in the OOH space.
May 4, 2023
Grace Teng Discussion on OOH Uncut Podcast with Rick Robinson
Rick Robinson: Hi everybody. My name is Rick Robinson with PJX Media and Out of Home Uncut and our guest today is Grace Teng, Partner and Chief Media Officer at Scale by Zambezi. Say hello Grace!
Grace Teng: Hello everyone.
Rick Robinson: We're so glad to have you.
This podcast is about what brands really want from out of home media. So we're gonna ask a question and go for five minutes and call it a wrap and probably leave our audience wanting more so just to kick it off. Grace, what can out of home do that no other medium can do?
Grace Teng: Well, to start, I would say, for out of home, it's just being in that physical space. It's just live and…I think especially after the pandemic, everybody wants to be out, everybody wants to experience life, back to pre-pandemic days and out of home just allows you to be in that area. And also, in terms of out of home, it's just such beautiful art with Wallscapes and I think the frequency that you can build as people are driving, maybe people might be looking at their phones but really shouldn't be doing that while driving. So the fact that we're out of home is like, you can do that. You can reach people both from a reach perspective, in terms of beautiful art, or from a frequency perspective, as people are driving and like, out in life.
Rick Robinson: So now, as a media person, is it interesting or different or important you that you're meeting people concurrently like when out of home is in a public space everyone is seeing it all at once which is neat, like, how does that fit in your head when you're looking at a media plan and a recommendation for a client?
Grace Teng: Yeah, I think that's a great question, you know. I think that's actually one of the things that makes out of home different, right, For social of course, we talk about all the variations you give people. There's those algorithms, there's overall message but you can be more like just niche and targeted. But what's so great about out of home is that like you're saying everybody's seeing the exact same message at the exact same time and I think that is really powerful because it's that experience that everybody is getting. It's not targeted differently in that way. But at the same time it's a great complement to social because with out of home, everybody sees that image and then for social, which people are obviously on as well on the mobile phone, you can be a little bit more varied, right? So it allows you to play together, especially like from a mobile phone perspective in both being physical and digital at the same time.
Rick Robinson: So now, when you position that to your clients, like how do you set that up to say, Hey look, you really need some out of home to complement your social like like what's the rationale there? How do you tell the story?
Grace Teng: Yeah. Yeah, that mean that's that's a great question. I would say for our clients, you know, first and foremost, it's like making sure you reach that target audience, right. So it's like, Okay, first of all we know that your target audience is likely to travel quite a bit like, for you for example we know their CEOs, their business like leaders and so clearly travel is a part of that. So we just know that if you're in the right place for out of home that is just it just makes sense, really? And it's again, different. That it's in their physical presence. Now to match it with social, I feel like that's just a conversation people are having all the time, you know, I feel like people are excited about really out of home and then I think people are just naturally using it so it's almost like a natural evolution in terms of the conversation about how people are using it together in that way.
Rick Robinson: Is that a generally accepted fact, let's call it, for CMOs and brands. Do they accept that or does that point need to be proven?
Grace Teng: I think I think they accept it but I still think it's a good reminder, right? Because I mean like if you're CMO you're thinking about all these different things and to sit and be like Oh right that's right. You know I am doing that. I think it's worth highlighting for sure in a conversation.
Rick Robinson: So what so with that should out of home, try to measure itself like digital because I know that comes up all the time like, hey, I'd buy more, we hear this from brands like Look, I would buy more if you guys prove it. Out of home is kind of scratching its head going. Like Well, we're not, like how do we prove it?
Grace Teng: Yeah, I mean, I understand that at home when we buy it is primarily an awareness brand, right? And so we do use awareness metrics and we just literally had like a presentation to Google Fiber to the executives there and the measurements that we used is awareness, right? So, everybody understands that. But I do think if you can measure yourself, more like digital for search and social, I think it would really help a lot. Now, I recognize it's just not the same, right? Like, you just don't have the backend website like the the tags, you know, the websites etc. But if you can, I think it would help and you know, I know we were getting like with four square, etc. Like, there's all these. Just different ways that you can start seeing if people are seeing the ads and then going within the store, I mean, you know, I think the next evolution of it would be literally as people are driving and being able to just like capture that impression, you know, and then being like see and then and then right after seeing like there's spikes and website, you know, when they get home or you know and then maybe giving yourself a window of like one day to seven days depending on, well seven is long, but really like one day you know, after people see it. So I think if you can add any sort of metric like that I do think it's helpful. Now again, I think maybe even for a client they might actually at the end of day will be presented, just the awareness numbers. We may not even show the backend numbers because its just not going to be as strong in social and a CMO is be like, Well, what's my, we're on that. But the digital managers or I mean I should say the brand managers, they may be looking at the backend metrics because that's what they are also held to. And so for them they look at both and so if you can show those back end metrics I do think it's put into consideration overall. It's just that when we present it is still an awareness bucket but it doesn't hurt at all.
Rick Robinson: All right, so everybody you heard it here from Grace Teng, the awareness part is powerful being out in public space is powerful being concurrent. Everybody sees this at the same time is powerful and with that also, Measure it better… and the more we can and…the more we can get closer to looking feeling smelling a little bit like digital measurement, it'll help us going forward. Grace, thanks for your time and have an awesome day.
Grace Teng: Thank you. This was fun. Thanks.
Rick Robinson: Take care.
