Blurring offline and online: Tractor Outdoor becomes first specialist OOH media owner to join IAB SA

With a member base of over 200 company members, the IAB SA represents the interests of South Africa’s leading publishers, brands, agencies, specialists and educational institutions, offering them a platform where they can engage and share insights and learnings with one another.

Paula Hulley

Tractor Outdoor is the first specialist OOH media owner to join IAB SA: a move that demonstrates an increasing ‘blurring’ between the offline and online world. Explains Paula Hulley, CEO at the IAB SA: “The IAB empowers the media and marketing industries to thrive in a digital economy – we do this through our unique ability to identify relevant growth opportunities and deliver cross-purpose solutions by embracing the ‘big tent’ (our membership crosses all marketing, media, platform, ad technology and marketing technology segments), and bringing these segments together to create a common understanding and pursuit to drive value.

“Within this, DOOH is a key growth area for programmatic investment in 2021, and we are thrilled to have Tractor onboard to drive smart, actionable and motivating insights to make better digital marketing decisions in this critical area of expertise.”

Remi du Preez

Remi du Preez, commercial director at Tractor Outdoor, says that the OOH industry has evolved significantly over the past few years; a shift that was accelerated by Covid-19. “We’re excited to work with the IAB SA to grow awareness around DOOH as an exciting new medium for advertisers.

“We’re now able to serve adverts programmatically to geo-fenced and custom audiences via the digital OOH medium, in a similar manner to how traditional digital adverts are purchased.

“The programmatic approach enables a marketer to bid against other competing businesses for the same target audience, effectively buying impressions on a cost per thousand basis via an advertising exchange, with the highest-bidding ad taking precedence over those with lower bids. Thus, the data that we have is on par with that traditionally accessed by digital media planners, buyers and strategists.”

Du Preez highlights that the fact that DOOH can now be purchased programmatically also means that media strategists have more incentive to include OOH as part of their omni-channel campaigns. “We wish to educate the digital community at large about the benefits of a digital medium that can be implemented alongside their current methods of communication, and which can, in fact, enhance their existing offering.”

While digital is a key pillar of the media owner’s development strategy, Tractor Outdoor will continue to grow its network of traditional billboards located at strategic locations nationwide, in parallel to expanding its digital footprint. “We believe that both mediums are essential to a holistic media strategy, and each offers its own unique set of benefits to advertisers.

“IAB SA has been hugely instrumental in advancing the interests of its member base and the broader digital community, creating a plethora of new opportunities and possibilities across the local digital landscape. We’re thrilled to be working closely with the organisation, its strategic partners and members to ensure that the standards and methods that we employ in our digital networks are consistent with international best practice,” concludes du Preez.

About Tractor Outdoor:

Established almost two decades ago, Tractor Outdoor is a national out of home (OOH) media owner, which specialises in connecting brands to consumers through its network of traditional and digital inventory, as well as its transit networks and ambient platforms. Tractor Outdoor owns one of the largest digital OOH networks in South Africa, and is a member of Outdoor Measurement Council (OMC), the Out of Home Media South Africa (OHMSA) and the Interactive Advertising Bureau South Africa (IAB SA).