At Vistar Media, we team up with leading media owners to help brands realize the full possibilities of out-of-home (OOH) advertising. One of our key partners is Captivate, whose premium DOOH network delivers 100% viewable, brand-safe media across 24,000 screens in prime locations where high-value business decision makers and everyday consumers work and live.
To highlight this partnership, we recently connected with Stephen Williams, SVP of Programmatic & Innovation Strategy at Captivate. Continue reading to learn more about Captivate and how they are driving innovation to transform how brands connect with audiences in premium, high-attention environments.
Can you tell us a little more about your network?
Captivate delivers highly engaged viewers in the moments that matter, providing long dwell times and contextually relevant placements that elevate engagement—delivering not just impressions, but impact.
Brands can activate campaigns programmatically with precise targeting, flexible ad lengths and robust measurement and attribution capabilities, making it easy to plan, execute and optimize high-impact DOOH campaigns across Captivate’s premium inventory.
Where are your screens located, and what kinds of audiences do they reach?
The Captivate network spans three premium venue environments: Class A office buildings, luxury residential properties and student housing communities. These environments allow brands to reach professionals during the workday, affluent residents where they live and students in highly engaged off-campus housing settings. By combining these venue types into a single DOOH network, advertisers can reach key audiences throughout their daily routines.
As the DOOH landscape continues to evolve, how is your network adapting?
As DOOH evolves, Captivate is bringing digital grade precision to premium, high attention environments. We have expanded our programmatic guaranteed offering, high impact video formats and contextual alignment opportunities, all to deliver seamlessly through the programmatic channel.
What developments are you most excited to share this year?
Captivate is most excited about the continued expansion of Programmatic Guaranteed (PG) as a true bridge between direct and programmatic. This includes advanced PG capabilities like screen level pacing, venue specific delivery, tight dayparting and guaranteed impressions, giving buyers the control of a direct buy with the efficiency of programmatic activation.
We’re also very excited to be rolling out our Premium Full Screen Ad, a new programmatic offering, exclusively with Vistar Media for the first three months. This full screen ad unlocks our highest impact programmatic format with guaranteed delivery through programmatic workflows, bringing some of the most powerful direct executions into the programmatic environments.
Finally, Captivate is expanding content alignment and sponsorships via programmatic, allowing brands to align messaging against curated editorial content, categories and real world triggers within PG deals. With guaranteed impressions and access to hundreds of premium content segments, this marks a meaningful step forward in how relevance and impact are delivered programmatically via Captivate.
How has your partnership with Vistar Media supported these initiatives?
Our partnership with Vistar Media has been instrumental in bringing these capabilities to market, enabling seamless technology connections and DSP access for our high‑impact formats like programmatic full‑screen video ads. Vistar Media has expanded their support for these advanced capabilities and worked to enhance the end-to-end buyer experience.
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What types of campaigns benefit most from running full-screen creatives?
Full screen ad creative is ideal for brands that want to make a high impact statement and fully own the screen experience and regulated industries requiring compliance conveyance. Research from 550+ client studies verify that higher impact units perform better with our Premium Full Screen ad increasing ad recall by over 30%.
- Creative driven campaigns: Full screen units give brands the canvas they need to stand out in a busy media mix with strong visuals and large, bold storytelling.
- Regulated industries: Finance, healthcare, insurance, legal, pharma and other regulated industries benefit from the extra space. Full screen formats are compliance friendly, offering ample room for required legal language without compromising design or clarity.
- Brands communicating complex ideas: When a message requires more explanation—product education, multi step value props, nuanced positioning—full screen creative provides the breathing room to communicate clearly and effectively.
- High consideration or premium products: Luxury, travel, B2B and tech brands often use full screen creative to elevate perception, showcase detail and create a more immersive moment with professionals in a focused environment.
Which campaigns see the biggest impact from content-aligned messaging?
Content‑aligned messaging drives stronger performance across the board because it makes the ad feel more relevant, timely, and meaningful to the viewer. That said, we’ve seen especially strong results in a few categories:
- Small business campaigns: Brands targeting SMBs consistently see high engagement when aligning with our dedicated Small Business content. It speaks directly to their day‑to‑day needs and challenges, making the message feel tailored rather than generic.
- Travel brands: Travel advertisers have done standout work by pairing dynamic creative with real‑time weather and tapping into our robust travel content. Professionals love planning their next trip, so these alignments naturally capture attention and intent.
- Finance and FinTech: Financial brands benefit from aligning with markets, stock updates, and more granular financial data. A recent crypto campaign tied directly to live crypto data, while others have leveraged quarterly earnings, tech reports and business news to stay top‑of‑mind when viewers are already in a financial mindset.
- Health, CPG and Insurance: Even outside obvious industry ties, health‑related content alignments have performed extremely well for CPG and insurance brands looking to reach viewers when they’re thinking about wellness and daily routines.
- Lifestyle, Sports and Entertainment: Many brands choose to align with our most‑loved content categories simply because they know their audience is deeply engaged. Even without a direct brand connection, aligning with what viewers enjoy—sports, lifestyle, entertainment—makes the ad feel more additive and boosts resonance.
What is the one thing that you wish more digital buyers knew about out-of-home?
We wish more digital buyers understood that OOH isn’t just about reach. It’s about attention. In premium environments like Captivate, the on-screen experience delivers high‑impact, brand‑safe impressions with real dwell time, not passive scrolls. When you combine that with programmatic control and measurement, it becomes one of the most effective channels in a modern media mix.
