Global, the Media & Entertainment group, formally changed in January the brand Exterion Media in Spain for Global, grouping its Outdoor advertising portfolio under this brand.
Exterion Media was acquired by Global in 2018, making the latter “one of the leading companies in the Outdoor market in Spain, as well as one of the largest outdoor advertising companies in Europe”. Before taking this last step, they had run their businesses in parallel. In recent years, there has been a significant growth and development in Global’s Outdoor advertising portfolio, including an upcoming expansion in Digital.
Global Spain is defined as “an expert in attracting Outdoor audiences with different formats and settings, including transport, digital and large formats. It is also a leading company in outdoor advertising on buses, managing over 5,700 nationwide, with a total of 17 concessions and over 4,000 Large Formats”.
At the end of January, Global announced this rebranding with a powerful advertising campaign in Ireland, Spain and The Netherlands to raise awareness both of the new name and the new brand. Now, through this interview with Borja Balanzat, CEO of Global Spain, we will delve into everything related to Global, which is leaving behind its phase as Exterion Media, but keeping the same team, professionalism and enthusiasm as always.
Exterion Media is now Global. What is the context of the rebranding?
After more than twenty years of operations in the national market, of which I have led the company for ten, I can say the strength of the medium and the levels of coverage and impact provided by our outdoor mediums, positioned our company at a strategic point in which our Global headquarters considered it was the right time for rebranding. We have kept our essence and knowledge of the medium, advertisers and partners. This change makes us even stronger.
The acquisition of Exterion Media Spain, Ireland and The Netherlands, a company specialising in outdoor advertising, by the British radio giant Global (Heart, Capital, LBC, Classic FM, Smooth, Capital XTRA and Radio X) took place in October 2018, but we had been running our businesses in parallel until now.
After renewing the advertising concessions in the transit segment of the main cities in Spain, we feel we have the maturity and commercial clout necessary to become leaders.
Global Spain is an expert in attracting Outdoor audiences with different formats and settings, including transport, digital and large formats. It is also a leading company in outdoor advertising on buses, managing over 5,700 nationwide, with a total of 17 concessions and over 4,000 Large Formats.
Global Spain is a part of Global, one of the top media and entertainment groups in the world.
For this rebranding, an international campaign was created, Nice to meet you! Your outdoor campaign with Global. Present in Ireland, now in Spain and soon in The Netherlands. Our own campaign to make ourselves known with a new name and brand, but with the same professionalism and enthusiasm as always.
In terms of image and identity, what does the rebranding entail?
Aside from a new name, four tones of blue feature Global Spain’s new image. The meaning of the colour blue is stability, simplicity, effort, pride and respect. Values which are the inspiration for our commitment in this new professional stage with a new name and positioning, always offering the best advice and service to maximise the value of the advertising campaigns and trigger emotions.
Now our image is blue like the sky, the sea, the outdoor, our speciality.
The new logo is very dynamic, organic and current. It uses lowercase, highly featured in the new website texts, where also images of the best campaigns, best practices of the company and industry figures in charts show our credibility, potential and international leadership in the sector and the audiences, which we are now bringing to Global.
At Global Spain we have dressed all our Outdoor mediums in blue. The digital monopoles are brighter than ever, we have placed backlit blue band LED lettering on all of them. The large format billboards have been refurbished and identified with a plate with the Global brand, and buses are also being identified with Global.
The rebranding also includes a new website, global.com/es, with a more appealing, modern and dynamic look.
What contributions, values and differences does being Global involve?
Global is a specialist in digitisation and implementation of technology advances in the industry, which ensures our continued growth and development based on innovation in international, national and local audiences.
At Global we provide intelligence and international best practices, to become even stronger. As a result of its rebranding, the Company is now, more than ever, basing its brand philosophy on emotionally moving their audiences. We are aiming for quantitative impact, but also quality contents on our mediums.
Global’s motto refers to the importance of knowing how to empathise and make the audience feel. The Value of Knowing How to Move Emotions. Its corporate commitment is based on creating experiences that have an impact on an audience, whether local, national or international, and drive a positive change not just for business development, but also for the people.
As a company with expertise in entertaining and informing millions of people on a daily basis, Global assumes the huge responsibility of reaching audiences through their media, with a great positive impact on society. Every year, the British company publishes the Global Goodness Report with the results of their socio-environmental impact initiatives.
Its sustainable development platform is called Global for Good and it aims to support communities through the best use of advertising media. Thus, Global for Good raises awareness and funds for important community causes; it invests on youth talent in the media and music industry; gives visibility to topics related to physical and mental well-being; advocating diversity and inclusion, to represent the society we live in and the audiences we serve; and caring for the environment with our practices through Green@Global. NdelTraductor: AQUÍ EL ORIGINAL EMPIEZA EN 3ª PERSONA Y TERMINA EN 1ª
How would you summarise the current situation at Global Spain?
Being a part of the Global family will benefit advertisers and partners with higher investment in the development of assets and research in Spain. These additional resources and technological advances obtained from belonging to Global, will support our continuous growth and development plans.
Global Spain is a part of Global, one of the top media and entertainment groups in the world. With the strength of over twenty years of exprience in our country, Global Spain’s outdoor advertising portfolio has undergone significant growth and development in the last ten years, including continuous expansion of its outdoor digital network. Global Spain has fourteen branches in the country. It is an expert in attracting Outdoor audiences with different formats and settings, including transport, digital and large formats. It is also a leading company in outdoor advertising on buses, managing over 4,000 Large Formats and 5,700 buses nationwide, with a total of 17 concessions in the main province capitals (Madrid, Valencia, Seville, Zaragoza, San Sebastian, Malaga, Cordoba, Orense, Vigo, Barcelona, Valladolid, Leon, Segovia, among others).
At Global Spain, we continue offering management of Outdoor advertising mediums in Transport, Digital and Large Format, in the main cities and sites of the country. At Global Spain, we see advertising as a means to communicate, uniting art and ingenuity. Design and surprise. Management and empathy. A medium through which we can move audiences. We will continue moving international, national and local audiences, providing value with innovative technology tools, specialising in audience segmentation and measurement, and including an upcoming expansion to an outdoor digital network. We changed our name and identity to become something bigger.
3D technology, mobile, Big Data as well as retargeting, are already a reality in Outdoor. In this regard, what are the trends and improvements advertisers will be seeing?
Today, at Global Spain we can already achieve real-time recognition and identification of specific users out in the streets, find their location through their devices and customise the messages they receive. This is thanks to the existing Technology and Data, together with the integration of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. This new approch helps advertisers focus on multi-channel experiences and provides the outdoor medium with all the variables necessary for audience insight.
Moreover, at Global we already have the product DAX (Digital Ad Exchange), which is a pioneering digital advertising mix that connects brands with audiences through audio and outdoor campaigns. DAX advertisers can reach their audience throught impactful formats, smart targeting and tools with certified effectiveness.
In this sense, what are the implications of the acquisition on the organisation structure in Spain?
Our structure remains stronger than ever. We manage the outdoor advertising mediums in 14 cities, from north to south and east to west of the country.
The Management Team composed of CEO, Finance, Commercial, Business Development, Legal and Marketing, are very motivated with the challenge of this change to become stronger as a team and as an industry-leading company.
