Broadsign Acquires DOOH Ad Exchange Campsite

May 8, 2019 by Dave Haynes

Broadsign owner and CEO Burr Smith is seemingly the man of the moment in the digital OOH business.

He made some waves by acquiring crosstown rival Ayuda Media Systems in late April, and he’ll no doubt stir things up again with news his company has acquired the digital OOH ad exchange Campsite, which like Broadsign and Ayuda is based in Montreal.

Says a press release on the deal, which has closed:

For DOOH media owners, the combination of Broadsign and Campsite will further automate the buying and selling of media inventory making it easier for agencies and media buyers to find, plan, and book DOOH advertising campaigns. According to eMarketer, programmatic buying represented more than 80% of US digital media transactions in 2018, highlighting the need to modernize buying in the $40 billion global out-of-home industry to drive future growth. 

“Broadsign’s goal is to make buying and selling of out-of-home as easy as possible and adding Campsite’s strengths to our open platform will greatly help with that mission,” says Adam Green, SVP and GM of Broadsign Reach. “We look forward to working with the Campsite team and all of our mutual customers to build on our collective vision for open programmatic DOOH trading around the world.”

Campsite, founded in 2016 by Newad but run as an independent company, has partnerships with many of Canada’s major digital out-of-home companies and agencies, among them Pattison Outdoor, Captivate, IDS Canada and Astral.

“Campsite’s easy to use web-based application has made it an early favorite amongst Canadian media buyers. The combination of our exchange with Broadsign’s extensive network of publishers will be a huge win for media buyers and agencies, who are eager to get started with programmatic DOOH,” says Edith Gagné, vice-president of development at Campsite.

Gagné, along with the entire Campsite team, has joined Broadsign. For the time-being, Campsite will operate as an independent division of Broadsign. However, Campsite’s extensive UX and buy-side experience will be immediately tapped to help develop new offerings and features for Broadsign’s open SSP, Broadsign Reach.

“This transaction was the best avenue to continue Campsite’s national growth and success while ensuring that it had the resources to expand internationally,” says Michael Reha, former President of Campsite.

For out-of-home (OOH) media owners who have an increasingly complex mix of digital and classic inventory, the combined power of Broadsign and Ayuda will enable them to streamline business operations across all of their inventory.

The Campsite acquisition complements Broadsign and Ayuda’s offerings by further building on Broadsign’s existing programmatic foundation and making it easier for media owners and buyers to conduct business. All three companies are headquartered in Montreal.

Future acquisitions will play an important role in Broadsign’s strategic plans, complementing organic growth and further enhancing its position as the market leader in OOH/digital signage software.

The deal comes just days after Newad, which as mentioned launched/spun out Campsite, was acquired by Bell, to be run under its Astral OOH media division. Newad was clear at that time that Campsite was not part of that deal, and now we know why.

The Ayuda spin-out company Hivestack was not part of the Broadsign acquisition of Ayuda. It is also about programmatic.

If you are trying to get your head right about all this programmatic stuff:

Campsite is an automated self-serve programmatic DOOH ad exchange, with a strong presence in Canada. Hivestack, on the other hand, is a “full-stack” platform – which means it has business relationships with both the supply side (media owners) and the demand side (media buyers) of Digital OOH. This means that they offer an SSP (similar to Broadsign Reach) and a DSP (similar to Campsite) for media buyers to purchase listed inventory. Hivestack’s SSP can also work with third-party, omni-channel Demand Side Platforms.

Note the reference in the PR that Broadsign has further acquisitions in mind.

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