Creatives sets
The project aimed to address a key limitation in VIOOH Trading Manager (VTM), a platform that empowers Media Owners to manage their digital Out of Home inventory. Media Owners were lacking the ability to assign unique creatives to individual frames within a Visual Unit, a group of frames sold together. This constraint was hindering the creative potential of advertising campaigns and limiting revenue opportunities for Media Owners. The "Aha!" moment came during user research with JCDecaux. We uncovered specific use cases in New York and Hong Kong that highlighted the critical need for flexible creative assignment. In New York, advertisers like Dior wanted to use mixed-ratio displays (portrait and landscape) in the billboards located in bus stops, while in Hong Kong, premium brands wanted to create narrative-driven campaigns across multiple frames of the same size. These insights revealed the significant revenue potential—estimated at $5 million for these regions alone—that could be unlocked by enabling Media Owners to offer these more dynamic and engaging advertising options.
company
VIOOH
Deliverables
Product desgin User reserch Prototyping
Year
2024
Role
Product Designer
The Challenge
Media Owners were unable to assign unique creatives to individual frames within a Visual Unit. The challenge was to identify how the screens were placed on the street. This constraint:
My role and design process
Problem Statement
How might we empower Media Owners to assign unique creatives to individual frames within a Visual Unit to unlock new revenue opportunities and enhance campaign effectiveness?
Inability to apply different creatives to individual frames restricts Media Owners from fully capitalising on the creative potential of their inventory and limits the advertising opportunities.
Understanding the User: Empowering Media Owners with Creative Freedom
Our research with key partners revealed specific use cases where this limitation was causing significant pain:
JCDecaux New York:
Need to display different creatives on visual units with mixed aspect ratios, specifically for bus shelters featuring a portrait and a landscape frame. This is driven by demand from major advertisers like Dior, who want to create campaigns using 2 different images in the same bus shelter.
JCDecaux Hong Kong:
Needs a way to submit different images for different frames with the same size. In their case, the main use case would be a street furniture with 4 portrait frames. Most of the main brands wants to book the whole visual unit to display different images an create a narrative in their ads.
Example of Visual Unit in New York
Design Exploration: Designing for Dynamic Creative Assignment
The goal was to design a user-friendly and robust interface within the VIOOH platform that empowers Media Owners to assign unique creatives to individual frames within the same Visual unit, regardless of frame size or orientation. Design principles:
Flexibility: Accommodate both predefined and custom creative ordering
Visualisation: Provide clear visual context for frame placement
Efficiency: Minimise steps for complex creative assignments
Accuracy: Ensure precise mapping between creatives and physical frames
Dynamic Frame Order Interface
Media Owners need an intuitive way to assign and order creatives for each screen within a Visual Unit.
Solution: Interface that provides a visual representation of the OOH display layout, allowing Media Owners to apply creatives onto specific screens.
This interface simplifies the creative assignment process, provides a clear visual overview of the layout, and reduces the potential for errors.
Predefined and Custom Order Options
Customising the order of the screen in the interface would required manual effort during the creative mapping process.
First design explorations allowed user to define manually the order of the screens. However, conversations with users revealed that this was not an option because it would required an effort from the users during the creative mapping process. In some cases the sets are applied to multiple Visual units, so users would have to manually identify the order one by one.
Solution: The platform will offer both predefined and non order options. The system will detect if the VC has provided a predefined order for the screens. If so, it will display the screens in that order and allow MOs to assign creatives accordingly. If not, screens would be randomly displayed on the interface.
In order to provided the order of the screens, each market would have to submit it to our ecosystem by API.
Frame ID and Order Mapping Tool for Visual Units:
Mapping creative assignments to the specific frame IDs in the OOH display are crucial, especially for sequential narratives.
Solution: Our initial design included a tool for manual mapping of frame IDs to their order positions. However, feedback from JCDecaux Hong Kong highlighted the potential for errors and the desire for automation. As a result, we collaborated with the engineering team to implement an API integration that will automatically retrieve frame IDs and their positions from our backend.
This API integration ensures accurate mapping, eliminates the need for manual input, and reduces the risk of unordered creatives, addressing a key technical consideration and improving the user experience significantly.
Bulk Upload and Assignment Feature for Visual Units:
Media Owners need to efficiently upload and assign multiple creatives, especially when dealing with Visual units with many frames.
Solution: We designed a bulk upload feature that allows MOs to select a batch of creatives from a moda. The system includes a drag and drop process to validate the creatives narrative within the visual unit
This feature streamlines the upload and assignment process, saving Media Owners significant time and effort when managing complex creative sets.
Results and Impact
Enhanced Creative Options: Media Owners now offer premium storytelling capabilities
Improved Workflow: Streamlined process for complex creative assignments
Client Satisfaction: Positive feedback from advertisers about creative flexibility
Competitive Advantage: Feature differentiation in the OOH marketplace
Conclusion and Lessons Learned
This project demonstrated the importance of user-centered design and the value of close collaboration with users and engineering teams. By addressing a key limitation in the VTM platform, the new multi-creative functionality empowers Media Owners to deliver more innovative and effective DOOH campaigns. Key learnings include:
User Research Value: Deep understanding of specific use cases led to targeted solutions
Technical Collaboration: Early partnership with engineering ensured feasible implementation
Iterative Testing: Multiple feedback rounds significantly improved the final solution
Business Impact: Directly addressing revenue blockers created measurable value
Next Steps
Based on the success of this feature, we've identified opportunities for:
Enhanced analytics for creative performance across frames
AI-assisted creative recommendations for multi-frame campaigns
Expanded support for dynamic content in sequence-based campaigns