News

i-media, the out-of-home media owner operating over 1,000 full-motion screens across the UK’s motorway network, has launched ANPR Audiences – a real-time audience targeting solution built around actual vehicle data.

For years, advertising has relied on audience data derived from survey panels or modelling rather than known real-world behaviour. ANPR Audiences closes that gap, backed by one of OOH's core strengths: unlike online ads, it can't be blocked or skipped.

That strength has never mattered more. Consumers are increasingly avoiding online ads altogether and even paying to remove them entirely, invalidating or making unsafe one in five online ad impressions at a huge cost to the advertiser – an estimated £120bn in wasted ad spend.

ANPR Audiences is powered by i-media's Automatic Number Plate Recognition cameras, which read the number plates of every vehicle entering its motorway service station network. To deliver the system, i-media captures and reconciles over 200 million data points a week, cross-referencing 50+ attributes per vehicle - including make, model and fuel type. This is then matched with partial postcode data, Starcount open banking and behavioural data, and mobile location signals. The result is a deterministic, live view of the type of person behind the wheel: where they live, their demographic profile, purchasing habits and travel behaviour - without collecting or processing any personal data. When enough vehicles from a given audience are observed at a site, i-media can trigger advertising aimed directly at that audience in real time, based on measured data rather than survey or modelled estimates. Whilst this in no way reduces the huge broadcast audience that i-media delivers (6.8m people per week) it ensures that a higher percentage of that audience are relevant.

Lloyds Bank is the first brand to leverage the solution to plan and deliver a campaign using the solution with the My Car campaign running across motorway service areas nationwide from 14 to 28 September. Vehicles across 4 target models were identified and matched against open banking data to build a defined audience, triggering creative that was colour-matched to each vehicle model. The campaign by Publicis Media was designed to win new customers, not simply retain Lloyds’ existing base, while promoting My Car, a feature within the Lloyds app that helps customers stay on top of their car admin. By entering their vehicle registration, customers can access key information and reminders, including MOT, road tax, insurance and servicing dates all in one place.

The solution launches with over 50+ pre-built audience segments available to activate immediately - from Lloyds Bank customers and EV drivers to Impulse Snackers, Tradespeople and HGV Drivers - alongside the ability to build bespoke audiences from more than 3,000 behaviours and demographics. Brands can also run conquesting campaigns that reach verified customers of competitor or category-adjacent brands, identified through Starcount’s open banking data rather than modelled proxies.

The launch of ANPR Audiences also coincides with new data from i-media's motorway network that overturns a long-standing assumption in media planning: that Londoners don't leave London during the week. i-media's UK-wide network reaches an average of one million visitors from the Greater London catchment in an average week. The new data adds a further dimension to ANPR Audiences' proposition: the reach is there. The data now shows exactly when, and how reliably.

Prior to launch, ANPR Audiences has already generated interest across automotive, financial services, travel, entertainment and FMCG advertisers - sectors that represent a meaningful expansion beyond i-media’s traditional revenue base, and budgets that have historically sat outside the OOH conversation entirely.

Jonathan Lewis, CEO, i-media, said: "I've never met a client who wanted to buy an advertising site - what they actually want is the audience it delivers. That's exactly what ANPR Audiences lets us sell for the first time: not a modelled estimate, but a real audience, identified and reached in real time, at scale."

Vedad Obradovic, Head of Homes and Transport Marketing at Lloyds Banking Group, adds: “In a world where consumers are exposed to thousands of messages every day, relevance is what drives impact. As we introduce My Car, our new Lloyds app space that helps customers stay on top of everyday car ownership, we're using i-media's ANPR technology to deliver a more personalised ad experience for drivers. Just as My Car uses vehicle registration details to help customers stay on top of their car's MOT, tax, insurance, and servicing, i-media is able to recognise when a matching vehicle arrives at motorway service stations and serve personalised creative that reflects the vehicle they're driving. By connecting data and creativity in near real time, we're creating more relevant, engaging, and memorable experiences, and we're excited to be the first client to leverage this new capability from i-media to deliver personalisation at scale.”