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Co-CEO of World’s Largest Out-of-Home Advertising Firm JC Decaux Describes the Evolution of the Outdoor Ad Market
November 25, 2019
Jean-Francois Decaux spoke to the Harvard Business School Club of New York, as a Quantum Media “Media Guru” on October 20th, offering a global update on the evolution of the very competitive out-of-home advertising market. The event, moderated by Quantum's Ava Seave, was sold out.
Change is occurring through the growth of digital capabilities connected to outdoor ads, programmable video on outdoor ads—with ads that are ideally no longer than five seconds, continuing dramatic growth into new international markets, increased ad “bundling” challenges, and strengthened research capabilities connecting the journey of the customer from seeing an ad to making a purchase in-store.
With revenue of 3.6 billion Euros, JC Decaux is a giant in all three main categories of outdoor advertising:
- Billboards, in high visibility locations along major highways
- Transport, ads on public transport, including trains, buses, railways, airports
- Street Furniture, ads on bus shelters, news kiosks, decorative columns, public toilets, rental bicycles, small stand-alone panels, and more
Decaux highlighted four industry developments.
- Digital space is the fastest growing category for him, now representing 6% of revenue worldwide.
- JC Decaux created the first programmatic international platform buys system, called Viooh. (This is pronounced "vu" and is a play on the abbreviation for Out of Home, OOH.) It is live in five markets in Europe and is currently being rigorously vetted.
- A Facebook test found that adding out-of-home ads to a Facebook media campaign increased the likelihood of purchase by 16-30%. Now new products are being advertised online and with out-of-home before being advertised on TV.
- Significantly in China, internet giants AliBaba and TenCent are working to connect digital to outdoor advertising, as well.
When asked about Sidwalk Labs and their investment in LinkNYC, the public WIFI and charging service in New York, Decaux described what he said has been a real failure by his competitor, Sidewalk Labs. Among other reasons, he said that the screen that they sold for advertisements s are too small for brands create effective advertising and that the capital expenditure requirement is too high no matter how popular the advertising venue would become.
COMPANY BACKGROUND
The company was founded by Decaux’s father, Jean-Claude Decaux, in 1957 to sell ad space on billboards on public highways in France. Jean-Francois, the eldest son, joined the company in 1982, moving to Germany to create and develop the German subsidiary, followed by a relocation to London in 1990 to develop JC Decaux in the U.K. and subsequently in Northern, Central and Eastern Europe, primarily through organic growth. In more recent years, Jean-Francois Decaux has expanded the company’s business internationally, establishing operations in the United States, Canada, Australia, Russia and Central Asia.
Following the acquisition of Havas Communication’s out-of-home media division in 1999 Decaux led the move to take JC Decaux public on Euronext in 2001, paving the way for it to become the largest Out-of-Home media group in the world.
Decaux also takes an active role in the creation of new street furniture designs in collaboration with some of the world’s leading architects and designers and also in the creation of services like the self-service bicycle program, which has become a huge success in 70 cities with more than 500 million bike rentals.
