
Airport Ads®, one of the most innovative airport media companies in the Middle East and Africa Region (MEA) and part of the Provantage family of companies, has announced the launch of The Atrium, its latest digital airport media solution situated within the International Arrivals Atrium at Johannesburg OR Tambo International Airport.
Airport Ads’ large-format Atrium screens are unique and impactful advertising platforms that connect with audiences in the international arrivals area. The installation of four large digital screens – each measuring an impressive 40sqm – ensures that brands can seize the attention of travellers and visitors to the airport from the moment they step into The Atrium.
The Atrium offers brands the space to dominate. With synchronised advertising and 3D capabilities, this large format, multi-screen platform ensures that brands take over The Atrium on screens equivalent to two stories in height. Brands are therefore ideally positioned to seize the opportunity and convey their advertising messages in an innovative and creative way in one of the busiest transit hubs in Africa. This guarantees maximum exposure for brands that harness the screens’ displays for their campaigns.
The Atrium – an iconic site, unique to OR Tambo International Airport – is the most central point at the airport, which serves over 21 million passengers annually, and the ideal platform for large-format digital advertising to reach a positive, engaged audience with impactful creative executions, engaging messaging and disruptive visuals. It is in this space, where among others, South Africa’s global heroes and heroines are met and welcomed back following international success, with the screens also visible to passengers making their way to international departures and the Gautrain, and where dwell times tend to be longer than in any other space in the airport.
This expansive, multiple-screen large format advertising opportunity – the first of its kind in South Africa – allows brands to dominate the airport’s highest-traffic space with bold creative executions, providing unmissable exposure to millions of travellers from all corners of the globe.
Atrium domination allows businesses to innovate freely, creating captivating and memorable campaigns that resonate with travellers. Mzi Deliwe, deputy CEO at Provantage and head of Airport Ads, says: “The Atrium offers brands an unparalleled canvas for creativity, enabling them to make a lasting impact on a higher-income target audience in a high-traffic and high-dwell time environment.
“By dominating The Atrium with their messages, brands can connect with travellers from across the globe and create an indelible impression on their journey through OR Tambo International and beyond. The Atrium is an addition to our impactful airports digital offering, which also includes the large format Visionet™ network and Airport TV® platforms, and we will continue to provide highly desirable site access and advertising solutions within the airport environment.”
To find out more about digital domination in The Atrium and additional limitless solutions Airport Ads can offer brands, visit airport-ads.com.
Visionet™ from Airport Ads® (a Provantage company) is a large-format digital media platform available at key national airports in South Africa. With large-format digital Visionet screens in OR Tambo, Cape Town International, King Shaka International, Lanseria, and more recently, George Airport, reaching an audience of 1,2 million people monthly, the Visionet footprint is growing in the airport advertising arena. This dynamic, expansive environment connects with an affluent, receptive audience with travel time on their hands. This is seeing more big brands capitalising on digital out-of-home (DOOH) advertising in airports.
George Airport
With screens ranging from 10m2 to 70m2 in size, the iconic Visionet platform provides the unmatched quality of digital out of home technology and the opportunity for brands to achieve a high-impact and lasting impression with travellers. Mzi Deliwe, deputy CEO at Provantage and head of Airport Ads says: “Visionet delivers a disruptive and immersive advertising experience.
“Leveraging newly emerged technology, the Visionet network now also has the flexibility to showcase 3D content, with tailored, visually striking creative to suit clients’ specific needs. This capability adds a new dimension (literally) to busy airport terminals and shopping destinations, making a lasting impression as consumers can’t help but stop to look.”
The large-format digital Visionet platform is well suited to creating enormous brand appeal, driving action and engagement by enhancing the traveller’s experience due to their lifestyle and travel choices.
As passenger performance continues to improve, so does the impact that Visionet creates. Deliwe adds: “Airports are on a positive growth trajectory at most terminals. The decline of Covid has inspired a new hunger for travel in South Africans and international travellers alike. This exponential growth allows advertisers to leverage innovative and impactful digital out-of-home (DOOH) advertising solutions to grow their brands with captive audiences in transit.”
OR Tambo Airport
Deliwe adds: “Visionet’s greatest strength is that it offers all the advantages of digital OOH on a large high-impact screen with a particular demographic in view. Another key factor in Visionet’s success is its built-in capacity to adapt content for specific locations. This feature allows brands to deliver contextually relevant messages, enhancing their campaigns’ overall impact and engagement. Mobile integration adds an extra dimension to engagement.”
The expansion of the Visionet network reaffirms Airport Ads’ ongoing drive to provide advertisers with relevant, state-of-the-art digital out-of-home advertising solutions that deliver real results and drive business growth, dominating the airport space by slicing through clutter.
Research from Nielsen and the OAAA (Out of Home Advertising Association of America) shows that 54% of digital ad viewers notice digital airport OOH ‘all or most’ of the time; 68% engaged in at least one action after seeing a digital airport ad; 59% engaged in mobile device actions after seeing a digital airport ad; and DOOH drives four times more online activity per ad dollar spent than TV, radio and print.
Deliwe concludes: “The kinetic nature of the airport environment is the ideal platform for large-format digital advertising on Visionet. With a positive, engaged audience delivered daily, brands are perfectly positioned to target their desired demographic, ensuring maximum brand exposure and recall.”
To find out more about Visionet and additional limitless solutions Airport Ads can offer brands, visit airport-ads.com.
Travel is back on the agenda for many, and this is good news for advertisers looking to attract customers at airports and keep them engaged. Brands that dominated the airport space pre-covid are demanding to own their iconic sites again.
Ciska John, Advertising Manager at Airports Company South Africa (ACSA) says airport advertising enhances the aesthetics and offers entertainment benefits to airport users through activations and creative content. “Mediums such as Airport.TV® also provides valuable information and newsworthy content to both local and international travellers. We strive to introduce new and exciting formats that rival international trends. “
There’s been a recent increase in air travel demand in South Africa. According to Stats SA, South Africa welcomed over 260,000 visitors in the first quarter of this year. The South African Government says the country also saw a 147% increase in tourist arrivals in the first half of this year. Experts agree pre-pandemic international travel levels will only fully recover by 2024, however some are forecasting that by mid-2023 we will be ahead of the pre-covid passenger volumes.
What’s driving this resurgence?
Leisure and business travel is rebounding, driving the resurgence in both domestic and international flights. This is good news for South Africa’s tourism and hospitality industry following the challenges brought about by the covid-19 pandemic. The surge in domestic leisure travel is also reflected in flight passenger volumes, with coastal and inland regional airports returning even more rapidly to their pre-pandemic levels.
It’s predicted that approximately 41% of economically active South Africans with access to the internet are planning an international trip in the next 12 months. So, what are airports doing to keep their travellers engaged? ACSA’s John says operating without restrictions has been phenomenal. “There has been a move towards pop-up facilities to ensure freshness in terms of the offerings. This encourages travellers to arrive well before their departure and increases dwell times. “
How brands can benefit
“The recovery of the industry is underway,” says Mzi Deliwe, head of Airport Ads® and Deputy CEO of Provantage. “This is good news for clients advertising at airports for highly effective branch of out of home advertising – it ranks near the top of several measures, from reach to audience to receptivity.”
Following the pandemic, multiple studies have shown that repeated lockdowns left people with a greater awareness and appreciation of their surroundings. This, along with increased dwell time due to Covid regulations amplified the power of advertising within this space.
Airports offer omnichannel touchpoints: everything from classic billboards and digital media to activations and Airport.TV. Deliwe says the resurgence of travel and the established strengths of airport advertising, are attracting attention not only from brands who have traditionally advertised here, but also from those who haven’t.
“We’ve seen several new brands entering this space, “says Deliwe. “Now is a good time to do so, while there are good deals to be had.”
Johannesburg, October 2021 – Global leading consumer electronics brand Hisense has teamed up with Airport Ads, a division of Provantage Media Group in selecting two key strategic and unique advertising touch points at Johannesburg’s O.R. Tambo International (ORTIA), one of Africa’s busiest airports.
In order to achieve their objectives of targeting and communicating with business travellers, the brand has opted for a combination of digital and large format static Out of Home (OOH) platforms – namely, the Airport Ads ‘Classic Site’ Centre Wall at ORTIA and Airport Ads’ Visionet™ platform.
The wall site looks set to deliver high impact, due to its size and scale – 19m (wide) x 10m (high) – along with its central location. The site is situated in the center façade of the ORTIA building and targets all car rental returns and car park users, whilst it also visible from the Gautrain platform.
Visionet™, meanwhile, is Southern Africa’s largest indoor airport available at key national airports in South Africa. With screens ranging from 10m2 through to 70m2 in size, this platform provides not only the speed and quality of digital Out of Home technology, but the opportunity for brands to achieve a high-impact and lasting impression with travellers.
The Visionet™ screen at ORTIA is strategically situated in the domestic departures hall, visible to all passengers. Here, Hisense has opted for rotating two visual executions operating on a loop, communicating various Hisense product messages at different times.
“This is a well thought out airport campaign, integrating the use of static and digital to deliver on objectives,” says Mzi Deliwe, Deputy CEO of Provantage Media Group. “There’s the high impact of the wall site and a similar result from the Visionet platform, but with a different execution – the latter maximising the speed and high quality visuals of digital Out of Home technology. Both platforms, though, look set to make a lasting impression on travellers, with high levels of brand recall.”
Johannesburg, August 2021 – South African financial services group Sanlam is looking to make a big impact with a niche, targeted audience, with an Airport Ads® campaign that is well-placed to drive increased levels of awareness of the Sanlam brand.
The campaign has been rolled out at Lanseria International Airport to the north-west of Johannesburg, with Sanlam opting for size and scale, in the form of a classic large-format site targeting domestic travellers approaching the high dwell-time security check-in area.
This, as it targets the South African business traveller who makes regular use of Lanseria International Airport which has seen steady monthly domestic passenger growth. The airport has built a reputation as Johannesburg’s business travel-focused ‘hub’, connecting the city with other major business centres in South Africa, in the form of Durban and Cape Town. The latest passenger numbers available from Lanseria International reflect continued month-on-month growth, with May 2021 approaching 60% of the total passenger numbers achieved for the same period in 2019.
“Travel continues to grow, with business travel dominating the airport landscape even more than before, due to the impact of Covid-19, and Sanlam has clearly identified the opportunity to engage directly and effectively with this particular audience – one that sits in the upper-income segment,” says Mzi Deliwe, Deputy CEO of Provantage Media Group. “This sort of targeted approach is what delivers results in the Out of Home advertising space.”
The selected iconic Airport Ads advertising site’s large size delivers impact and high levels of awareness, providing an airport based canvass on which Sanlam is able to drive a consistent message of its financial services products, which include life insurance, funeral cover, retirement annuities, unit trusts, personal loans and online wills.
Johannesburg, March 2021 – Ninety One has been sponsoring the news segment on Airport.TV® for the past five years, and in the process has been able to directly engage a targeted audience on this effective digital Out of Home platform.
Such has been the success of this long-standing sponsorship that Ninety One has elected to renew it for the next 12 months.
“The longevity of this sponsorship speaks to its value and ability to deliver on Ninety One’s sponsorship objectives,” says Kotie Basson, Head of Marketing, Africa Client Group at Ninety One. “Investec Asset Management rebranded to Ninety One in March 2020, but had sponsored the Airport.TV business news segment in its previous guise, and this sponsorship renewal is a powerful vote of confidence in Airport.TV’s ability as an advertising platform.”
Airport.TV® is a place-based TV network situated in South Africa’s airports and provides a unique blend of high-quality traveller-centric content, such as news, sport, and business news, which brands can ‘top and tail’. They also have the option of running a 30-second advert, sponsoring a segment, or providing Airport.TV® with their own unique content.
The high quality of the Airport.TV®content is borne out by the supporting customer feedback statistics, with research conducted by Millward Brown on behalf of Airport Ads producing the following findings:
“It’s a great fit for a premium financial services brand such as Ninety One, as the sponsorship is appropriately aligned with and focused on the Airport.TV® news offering, which obviously attracts the attention of business people,” says Mzi Deliwe, Deputy CEO of Provantage Media Group. “This targeted approach is amplified by the fact that business travel currently dominates the airport landscape even more than before, due to the impact of Covid-19, and there’s a great opportunity for premium brands to engage directly with this particular audience.”
Global technology company Huawei has enlisted the help of Out of Home market leader Airport Ads to make a big splash in South Africa and drive awareness of its ‘Huawei – Enterprise’ campaign.
The campaign is a classic large-format billboard campaign, with Huawei opting for size and scale at four key airport sites – O.R. Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg, Lanseria International Airport, King Shaka International Airport in Durban, and Cape Town International Airport.
The advertising platforms are all massive in size and iconic airport canvasses on which Huawei has been able to paint an attractive picture of its IdeaHub product — a productivity tool for the smart office that bundles together intelligent writing, high-definition video conferencing and wireless sharing, all rolled into one.
“Airports may not be operating at full capacity at the moment, but with business travel still being conducted, there remains the opportunity for brands to engage with a particular audience – one that sits in the upper-income segment,” says Mzi Deliwe, Deputy CEO of Provantage Media Group. “Huawei is a global brand and it clearly understands its target audience, and this bold campaign says volumes about how valuable it views the South African airport environment as an attractive location in which to engage that particular audience.”
Provantage Media Group has taken its digital offering to the next level with the launch of ‘Sonar’, an audience powered mobile geo-location offering that will allow for the extension of campaigns from Out-of-Home (OOH) into the digital realm.
PMG, through its various divisions, will be offering this geo-location service to all its campaigns to create additional reach, fostering a greater integration of OOH and mobile, and offering brands the opportunity to drive more personalised engagement and a closer connection with consumers.
This follows PMG signing an exclusive agreement with Africa Media Alliance that will see it roll out Sonar across all its divisions, with a focus on PMG’s digital platforms, in the form of its digital place-based networks and digital boards.
Africa Media Alliance is the sub-Saharan Africa venture partner of global behavioral and location intelligence technology platform, TAPTAP Digital, having launched the TAPTAP product in South Africa in 2019.
TAPTAP leverages geospatial technology and artificial intelligence for multi-dimensional audience planning, omni-channel media activation, and advanced online and offline measurement.
“This venture is the result of extensive research into finding the right partner (with an advanced technology stack, deep audiences and scale into many markets?) and has been driven by the growing link between OOH and mobile. The link is further enhanced through the ability of pairing geo-locational technology with campaign roll-outs in order to deliver even more effective solutions for brands,” says Jacques du Preez, CEO of Provantage Media Group. “It is well known now that OOH and mobile integration drive brand lift, recall and ROI, and we’re excited to be able to offer our existing and future clients a world-class mobile integration service alongside our various OOH platforms. This will change the OOH landscape in Africa.”
The TAPTAP technology focuses on three key platform utilities:
Applying these principles to PMG’s new Sonar product, it will allow for campaigns delivered within the airport space, for example, to extend their reach using location-powered mobile Out-of-Home.
“By geo-fencing airports, malls, golf courses, billboards, commuter nodes and activation zones we can drive additional awareness and engagement across the various locations, as well as retarget consumers who have been in these locations, via their mobile devices,” says Du Preez. “Based on the brief, we can build custom audience segments using multiple location-enhanced data points, to effectively amplify specific sites/locations.”
What sets Sonar apart from its competitors and other location-based marketing players is its access and large footprint. It is able to run campaigns in 36 African countries and its total reach across the continent is over 200 million users and billions of impressions. What this means is that PMG could provide an integrated OOH and Mobile campaign for a client that runs concurrently in South Africa, the Ivory Coast and the United Arab Emirates (Sharjah) – all countries in which PMG has a presence.
“We are very excited about this partnership – it further entrenches TAPTAP as an omni-channel, scalable location intelligence and technology-rich platform driving business for brands, both big and small,” says Garth Rhoda, Director of Africa Media Alliance. “We were looking for a partner in the OOH space and were attracted to the Provantage heritage, their innovative approach with their products, and their diversity in their offering, covering many demographics in the market. We look forward to assisting more clients in amplifying their messages into the digital space, focusing on extending the reach and driving engagement and performance for brands.”
Out-of-Home and mobile are increasingly being integrated as the platforms complement each other, and, if combined, are able to optimise interaction with an audience and represent an efficient way to maximise reach.
In an October 2018 piece titled ‘Case Studies: OOH + Mobile Integration Drive Lift, Recall, and ROI’, Rainbow Kirby-Stearns and Elizabeth Rave suggest that “Data + Mobile + OOH = Results.”
They go on to cite research shared in Campaign, which showed that mobile click-through rates increased by up to 15% when supported by OOH. Additional research from Outsmart stated that better performing OOH campaigns created a 38% uplift in short-term brand action taken via mobiles, with 66% of all actions being direct to the brand itself.
The days of treating advertising touch points as if each works in isolation is long past and marketers are being forced to ask themselves which combinations of ad exposures work best to influence customers. Specifically, this applies to a consumer segment for which the smartphone has become an ever-present tool.
Marketing Week has predicted that incorporating cell phone connectivity with OOH will “become the norm, not a ‘special’ part of a campaign”, and that’s difficult to dispute.
PMG recognises this and is proud of its market-leading Sonar mobile location technology partnership, which allows it to offer the best in breed to brands to enhance their campaigns. In doing so, it is putting mobile OOH in the hands of consumers and giving brands the opportunity to drive greater engagement and specific, measurable actions.
Airport Ads has significantly strengthened its Visionet™ – Southern Africa’s largest indoor airport screen – network with the addition of a new large format digital Out of Home site at O.R. Tambo International Airport (ORTIA) in Johannesburg.
In doing so, it has responded to market demand and its customers’ growing need for a greater digital presence within the airport environment.
The newly installed screen at O.R. Tambo International measures 4m x 9m and is strategically situated in the main corridor of the domestic departures area in Terminal B.
The Extended Network
With the launch of Visionet at South Africa’s largest and busiest airport, advertisers are now able to engage travellers via a large format digital network in highly desirable airport sites situated within three of the country’s premier economic hubs, including Lanseria International Airport to the north-west of Johannesburg and King Shaka International Airport in Durban.
This makes for a compelling offering and speaks to Airport Ads’ plan to grow the network’s capacity and build a product that allows for advertisers and brands to execute effective, high impact digital campaigns across a bouquet of large format screens at South Africa’s key airport locations.
Central to this is high reach and frequency and the audiences these airport environments are able to deliver.
Network Reach
The numbers back this up, with King Shaka International’s 4m x 9m screen delivering a monthly audience of approximately 470,000. Lanseria International, meanwhile, has a 3m x 9m screen and two 1.5m x 6.9m screens, reaching an audience of approximately 193,500 monthly. The new ORTIA screen, in turn, will be seen by approximately 508,000 travellers a month.
The extended Visionet digital network now offers advertisers the ability to embark on a digital campaign across the three airport locations while communicating their brand messaging to over one million affluent decision makers monthly.
“The addition of Visionet at O.R. Tambo International is notable, as it significantly ramps up our digital offering while adding over 500,000 travellers monthly to the audience the network previously engaged,” says Mzi Deliwe, Deputy CEO of PMG and Head of Airport Ads. “Not only is Visionet able to deliver the speed and quality that digital out of home technology offers, but due to its impressive size, also the opportunity for brands to achieve high impact and make a lasting impression with travellers.”
Audience Data
Key to Visionet’s effectiveness is the quality of the audience the Airport Ads platform is able to deliver.
According to the research cited earlier, it’s an affluent audience, with 39% earning in excess of R500,000 annually. Further, 40% of high LSM consumers travel through airports monthly, whilst roughly 31% are business travellers. Approximately 80% of this audience is aged between 30 and 50, and roughly 58% are frequent flyers.
It’s a valuable audience – with access to larger amounts of disposable spend – and it’s one that spends more time exposed to media than in any other Out of Home environment, with an average minimum dwell period of 75 minutes in the airport environment. Adding to the impact of this platform is the fact that this audience is a captive one in a location that affords brands zero tune-out.
With its size, prime locations, impact and desirable audiences, the Visionet network makes for a desirable solution for brands. Particularly brands that understand that digital mediums and technology-based solutions are becoming paramount in staying connected and relevant to a range of targeted and desirable consumer segments.
Mzukisi Deliwe, Deputy CEO of Provantage Media Group and head of leading airport environment Out-of-Home player Airport Ads, unpacks the most pertinent trends for 2020.
There is no doubt that airport passenger numbers are increasing annually, bringing bigger revenue and foot traffic to destinations worldwide. But what are the biggest trends that will affect OOH advertising within the airport environment on the African continent?
It is an exciting time for Africa. Africa is seen as one of the fastest growing economic regions in the world and holds numerous opportunities for brands. The International Air Transport Association (IATA) projects Africa to be the fastest growing region to 2036 at 5.9% per annum, for a total market of 400 million passengers annually. This will spur a massive growth in Out-of-Home and Digital Out-of-Home in the airport environment.
Increase in Passenger numbers a plus for Advertisers
The first major trend that will directly affect advertising and ROI is increase in passenger numbers and frequency of travel.
While South Africa’s GDP – a key driver of traffic volume growth – has languished around 1% per annum, Airports Company South Africa’s Annual Report for 2019 shows that there has been a growth of 1.3% in departure numbers, up to 21 118 264 (FY2017/18: 20 836 852). International arrivals have increased by 0,8%. Also, Cape Town International Airport grew its international traffic by 7.7% and 1.8% domestically.
This means that more people are passing through South Africa’s airports, providing brands with a bigger audience to influence.
Expansion in Airport Infrastructure will boost passenger numbers and opportunities to engage
Expansion in airport infrastructure is another key trend that will directly affect advertising. Worldwide the areas around airports are becoming designated aerotropolises and airports on the continent are set to follow suit. The trend is for airports to scale towards better air travel and a better experience for travellers. Furthermore, advertising has become integral to airport revenue and as such media installations and products are strategically located to enhance, rather than detract from, the experience.
For airports, this ensures that brands keep using the environment to meet their marketing and sales objectives. For passengers, brand experiences enhance the luxury aspect of travel and affiliation with that brand culture. For advertisers it ensures that millions of consumers within a specific income bracket engage with their messaging in an environment that is captive and conducive to assimilation and purchase influence. It’s a win-win situation for all stakeholders.
DOOH in the airport environment elevates campaigns
Over the past few years, digital has been a significant game-changer in OOH. It has unlocked a plethora of opportunities for OOH to be more engaging and effective, adding to its value and importance within the marketing mix. Is it a growth sector in the airports environment? Most definitely.
Airport Ads has made significant investment in various international airports – including OR Tambo, King Shaka, Cape Town, Lanseria, Sharjah (UAE) and Kenneth Kaunda (Zambia) – in the development of DOOH solutions and experiences that integrate innovative ideas and executions. The aim is to elevate campaigns and passenger engagement to a whole new level.
From the perspective of digital, data and technologies, this will expand the opportunities to connect. Strong social media connections via smart devices, geo-location, and other methods of instantly involving consumers within a brand campaign will drastically change DOOH.
Intelligent campaigns engage all the senses
The airport environment offers the opportunity for brands to be bold in their campaign execution. Large format static creative is able to capture passengers from all sides. Combining moving graphics, 3D installations as well as sound and smell completely draws in consumers. Intelligent campaigns create a striking sensory impact, forging an immediate connection with brand messaging.
Intelligent, compelling creative has the ability to create strong relationships with consumers and start conversations that ultimately influence commerce. Brands that are open to and willing to be bold and different will make a big impact in 2020.
OOH advertising within the airport environment is undergoing huge change. It is an exciting time for innovation and opens up infinite opportunities for brands to talk to consumers.