The Talon Group, the leading global independent Out of Home (OOH) agency, today announced a partnership between its International and German businesses, with Hivestack, a global ad tech leader in programmatic digital OOH (DOOH). The new partnership enables Talon and its international operation Plexus to expand access to DOOH for global advertisers and agencies and provide a single point of access to the rapidly evolving programmatic DOOH sector. It will also allow Talon’s international division Plexus to place international ‘export’ business across borders, positioning international OOH as a digital ‘platform’ business for the first time.
Talon will continue to develop Atlas, its proprietary programmatic technology for the UK market. This new partnership will incorporate Talon’s OOH data management platform Ada in global markets, which will enable Plexus to target global audiences behaviourally using the Hivestack DSP.
All forms of OOH are poised for a sharp rebound this year and, according to
WARC, is forecast to be the second-fastest growing medium in 2021, with global ad spend rising by a fifth to USD $36.3bn (£26.3bn). Moreover, with rising DOOH adoption, DOOH revenues continue to grow globally, currently estimated at USD $11.3bn (£8.2bn).
Barry Cupples, Talon’s global CEO said, “As we accelerate our growth in 2021, we’re delighted to expand our ad tech proposition globally through deeper investments in technology and by collaborating with innovative partners to scale our capabilities for our clients around the world. Hivestack’s global expertise will further strengthen our capabilities in building an unmatched full-service Out of Home agency.”
Adrian Skelton, Managing Partner at The Talon Group and responsible for the Plexus international brand, commented: “This partnership allows us to combine the invaluable expertise of our on-the ground network offices with the group’s proprietary data capabilities like Ada. Hivestack’s platform and technology will enable the Plexus team to smartly plan, buy and execute client campaigns in over 100 markets around the world, cementing our position as the leading independent international OOH Specialist.”
Hivestack’s CRO, Nigel Clarkson added, “Talon has an advanced mindset on how to reach consumers across multiple touchpoints — both outside of the home and inside of the home. We look forward to working with Talon to evolve Hivestack’s capabilities to be able to execute on this cross-channel vision. An additional, important part of the relationship will focus on surfacing Talon’s proprietary audience and measurement solution Ada in the Hivestack DSP.”