Out-of-Home (OOH) advertising business Exterion Media has unveiled a partnership with Telefónica UK, to support the London Underground (LU) Media Estate. The partnership will use Telefónica’s Smart Steps solution to gives Exterion access to rich audience data in order to deliver insights to LU advertisers to help them execute more effective OOH campaigns.

Smart Steps uses anonymous data from across the O2 mobile network of 24m devices. It processes “relevant big data events” created by a selection of these devices then analyses the trends and patterns within the data to help understand more about audience behaviour and the movement of populations at an aggregated level. Insights garnered from this include demographic profiling; where O2 users live, work and visit (inferred journeys); when and how often they visit locations; how they travel; and mobile phone, app and web activity. O2 says the outputs are an excellent representation of the macro movements of the London population. One example output is the ability to highlight certain stations, days, and times by audience affluence and other lifestyle perspectives.

“Transport for London (TfL) has outlined its vision to deliver more imaginative experiences for tube passengers and advertising is at the heart of its plans for innovation,” said Jason Cotterrell, Exterion Media’s UK MD. “Being the sole provider of advertising on the London Underground means Exterion Media has an unrivalled knowledge of its audience and our rich data insights have ensured that the LU is, from an advertising perspective, one of the best monetised metros in the world.

“Through our partnership with Telefónica UK, we are able to deliver on the vision that TfL has outlined by increasing our understanding of the LU audience even further, and setting new benchmarks for other metros around the world to follow. With a view of LU passengers and their movements across the network that cannot be accessed from anywhere else, we are strengthening our understanding of how best to engage consumers with immersive experiences.”

The partnership begins with the creation of analytics and visualisations of Telefónica’s aggregated mobile data, which will be integrated into Exterion’s planning process, building on the insights Exterion has previously collected through its work with TfL and Route, and Exterion’s own insight tool work.shop.play.