Russ Curry, Ministry of New Media
Transport for London (Tfl)’s Lead for Advertising Strategy Commercial Development Directorate, John Pizzamiglio joined the public body back in 2012 and has spent much of the last four years cogitating on and developing the strategy behind all of the recent advertising related contractual events – and what fun he must be having now, with new London Mayor Sadiq Khan continually shaking things up and striving for city greatness.
Most recently, Sadiq Khan made a firm commitment to sell Transport for London’s expertise around the globe – aiming o use income from those deals for further investment in new infrastructure and to freeze TfL fares. We’ve seen this most recently with Cubic Transportation Systems (CTS) licensing Transport for London’s contactless ticketing technology in a GBP 15 million deal.
It’s worth remaining readers what a bold approach the TfL seem to be taking – we are currently trying to work a way that they can can come present at The DailyDOOH Investor Conference in NewYork this October, Ed.
John is an excellent speaker and has presented at many of our events over the past four years. There is probably no better way to remind folks globally just what an interesting and innovative approach they seem to be taking by looking at his presentation from his May presentation at The DailyDOOH Media Summit.
Remember that John joined TfL with a remit to maximise the advertising revenue as part of a new, more commercially astute organisation.
All of their major advertising contracts have been re-assessed, re-aligned and awarded. John is confident that the quantum leap in TfL’s thinking in recent years has put them in the best place possible for taking advantage of whatever challenges and opportunities arise.
There has been a significant shift in TfL’s approach from being dependent on minimum guarantees and by taking on the capital investment, Tfl frees up the media partner to be more creative and innovative, but also gives the landlord greater control on how the installations are used. It of course also gives the landlord access to possibly much higher advertising income.
TfL is a public body with responsibility for delivering an efficient transport system but also comes with a social obligation to improve the quality of Londoners lives AND as we have seen from the new Mayor, a desire to increase revenues in new ways wherever possible – like selling their skills and technology abroad!
Conscious of the significance of an investment of ‘tens of millions of pounds’, John explained that TfL wants to set global standards and deliver a world class estate of digital assets. This will come from refurbishing existing sites, developing new format, opening new sites and other innovations such as replacing the iconic escalator side screens by a continuous digital ribbon.
TfL’s objectives are now to strive to enhance the customer experience, to gather insights via increased supply of data, to create value for Londoners and build on the experience gained by working with advertisers to develop adjacent markets.
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