The increasingly strong connections between the digital out-of-home and mobile worlds are highlighted this week in the acquisition of Adcentricity, the operator of a DOOH planning and buying platform, by Bee Media, a mobile shopping specialist.

Bee says it is building a network of Wi-Fi hot spots at retail locations across Canada, the U.S. and Europe that will allow it to deliver hyper-local content to consumers.

The Adcentricity takeover will enable the combined companies to offer a single planning and buying platform for both mobile and DOOH, enhanced by tools such as Adcentricity’s recently-launched Consumer Sync, which allows advertising campaigns to precisely target desired demographic groups by drawing on Nielsen and Environics Analytics data for U.S. and Canadian markets.

The technology fusion between the two Toronto-headquartered firms is also enhanced by Adcentricity’s latest two products: a location-based shopping platform, Admobile, which includes mobile interfaces and payment tools, and Adformat, a tool for automated content generation allowing advertisers to repurpose content for multiple channels including digital signage and mobile.

The combined firm, to be known as Adcentricity, will also continue to offer the old Adcentricity’s existing Adcentral, Advenue and Adtarget planning tools.

Bee’s existing CEO, Doug Woolridge, will remain in that role, while former Adcentricity CEO Rob Gorrie becomes senior strategic adviser to the company.

Also staying with the newly-merged firm are executives from the old Adcentricity including Brad Alles, as senior VP for business development; Jeff Atley, as VP for business development; and Laurie Freudenberg, as chief operating officer.

“The combination of local, shopper marketing, mobile, in-store radio and video networks has created a fractured landscape of thousands of smart, effective companies and media channels with limited ways to get the attention of, and adoption by, brands,” said Gorrie.

“Together with Bee Media, we can now offer an even more powerful platform with the ability to target and distribute addressable content across every digital channel with a location attached to it – including mobile shopping applications, which Bee Media has been quietly building over the past year.”

Added Woolridge: “When you couple Bee Media’s expertise on the consumer mobile applications side with that of Adcentricity on the location-based delivery side, it creates a platform that makes hyper-local mobile campaigns easy and executable for advertisers, brands and retailers.

“Our location-based digital technology hub demystifies the complexities in this new media landscape, enabling connections with on-the-go consumers in active retail environments.  Our mission is to connect the digital world with the physical world with a few clicks and have the ability to measure and report on results in a timely fashion.”

The acquisition, for an undisclosed amount, was backed by venture capitalists Caldwell ICM and Telesystem.

www.adcentricity.com
beemedia.com

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