Media and entertainment group, Global, is making its digital audio advertising solution, DAX, available to digital out of home (DOOH) advertisers from February 2020.

The move gives advertisers the ability to buy digital outdoor campaigns through demand side platforms (DSPs), as they are already able to do with other programmatic media such as audio and video. DSP launch partners include The Trade Desk, Vistar Media, Mediamath and Hivestack, with more to be announced in the coming months.

As part of the launch, DAX will rebrand from the Digital Audio Exchange to the Digital Ad Exchange, to flag the fact that advertisers can buy both digital audio and digital outdoor together.

The launch will bring together Global’s significant outdoor portfolio alongside its radio and entertainment business and will give advertisers access to Global’s digital outdoor and digital audio inventory, in one programmatic platform. Advertisers can integrate their programmatic audio and outdoor buying in areas such as location targeting.

In addition, in the same way that DAX represents 238 publisher brands within the audio sector – including ITV, Sky and Telegraph Media Group – Global also announced that a group of third-party outdoor media owners will be putting inventory into DAX. Admedia, Elonex and All City Media Solutions, have already signed up as digital outdoor inventory partners on DAX.

Global first entered the outdoor advertising market in late 2018, adding 235,000 screens across its portfolio. Simultaneously, Global continues to grow commercial radio, reaching more than 25m listeners every week and achieving a social media reach of 75m monthly engagements, with its brands including Capital, Heart, Classic FM, Smooth, LBC, Radio X, Capital XTRA and Gold.

“When we entered the outdoor advertising market, we saw a sector which was full of exciting potential and also one that was in need of further investment and innovation,” said Mike Gordon, Global’s chief commercial officer. By uniting our business, Global is able to help brands harness the power of outdoor alongside other digital channels such as digital audio, helping them to create more moments that matter.

“New technology will always create challenges, but the knowledge we have acquired of the programmatic landscape through our first six years of DAX has given us a strong foundation for driving forward digital outdoor advertising. We’re looking forward to working closely with Admedia, Elonex and All City Media Solutions, as well as the outdoor specialists, to shape the next chapter in advertising.”

Pete Markey, CMO of TSB, welcomed the move, saying: “DAX is pioneering technology. The platform is ahead of the game in that no other product in the market gives us access to such a large variety of audio content. The potential to fuse audio with outdoor in a programmatic, highly targeted, way is really compelling. I think we’ll now see media come together more as the formats are planned and bought around the customer experience.”

And Gareth Jones, CMO UK at eBay, said: “DAX has always helped us to reach audiences creatively. It perfectly embodies our intent to use data to make all of our brand investments more personal – selling more through relevant recommendations in traditional programmatic brand channels and trying to be more brand accretive in our performance activity.

“Data is the glue. Prior to DAX we built one 30-second radio spot for many millions of listeners. Now we’ll have up to 65,000 different radio spots running concurrently based on our gleaned listener intent.

“It was really interesting to see Global move into Outdoor and we were anticipating a big move from them. The development of DAX into digital outdoor is an exciting innovation and we’re looking forward to seeing how it will drive forward another medium with huge potential.”