MENA Region’s Revolutionary Out-Of-Home Advertising Measurement Project Utilising ‘Big Data’ Launches in UAE

BackLite Media, the region’s premier out-of-home (OOH) advertising company, has partnered with IQ Data to launch BackLite Intelligence, the MENA region’s innovative wide-scale OOH advertising measurement project to utilise ‘big data’ on a local scale.

The industry-leading technology, deployed across BackLite’s entire OOH network, will add excellent value to advertisers across Dubai and Abu Dhabi, providing them with cutting-edge audience measurement data, centred around behavioural data linked to the millions of people who see BackLite signs daily.

Through the BackLite Intelligence platform, advertisers will benefit from being able to see who is viewing their content more clearly, and find better ways to target the right demographic in a precise fashion. By measuring where people are out and about, combined with demographic information, BackLite Intelligence will show advertisers and brands the right kind of consumer profile to target for their campaigns.

BackLite Intelligence will leverage over 1.2 billion mobile phone location signals per month, generated within the UAE, and map them across their entire outdoor network, to provide advertisers with a tailored, comprehensive suite of data relating to each campaign. The data includes viewership of each location by time of day and night, as well as transparent audience insights including key shopping behaviour and detailed demographic information.

Complementing the smart city vision of the UAE’s leadership, this new technology deployed by BackLite Intelligence will efficiently integrate with the large digital outdoor network which BackLite Media is currently installing on Sheikh Zayed Road, creating a more seamlessly enriched life and advertising experience for all.

Bill Fordyce, CEO of BackLite Media, said, “As the premier OOH media company in the UAE, we are committed to improving accountability and transparency and addressing long held concerns on audience measurement. The launch of BackLite Intelligence with our partner IQ Data represents a significant milestone for the advertising industry in the region and underscores our commitment to providing the best-in-class technology and solutions to drive the greatest value for our advertisers. By linking this technology with our new digital signs on Sheikh Zayed Road, due to be installed ahead of Expo 2020, we believe the solutions provided by BackLite Intelligence will be a game-changer for our clients, enabling them to gather deeper insights that provide increased clarity for sales and marketing strategies and hard data to fuel better business decision-making.”

Dimitri Metaxas, Co-Founder & CEO of IQ data, said, “Our partnership with BackLite marks the MENA region’s first ever Out-of-Home (OOH) advertising measurement project to utilize Big Data at scale. To ensure its ongoing success, we’ve leveraged over 1.2 billion mobile location signals generated per month within the UAE and mapped them across the entire BackLite OOH network in order to bring new levels of audience measurement and transparency into their products offering. We are excited to be working with an industry leader in BackLite who not only share our enthusiasm for innovation but also a commitment to improve OOH accountability to regional advertisers.”

The information collected by BackLite Intelligence is GPDR compliant. The data collected is aggregated via a software development kit (SDK), which collects location signals that are installed across thousands of apps. No personal information (e.g. email or mobile number etc) is passed to BackLite Intelligence or its partners.