Bauer Media Outdoor has just won the tender launched by the SNCB for the operation of advertising space in Belgian railway stations. With this 10-year contract, Bauer Media Outdoor becomes the national leader in digital out-of-home (DOOH) with the most balanced offer on the market.

Towards the Smart station

In its response to the specifications, Bauer Media Outdoor presented the initiatives through which it intends to support the SNCB to improve the experience of passengers. In the future, stations will be even more pleasant places with an enhanced customer experience. Bauer Media Outdoor is contributing to this by developing technological innovations and creations that will see the light of day from January 2022: green rest areas, creative and cultural actions, optimised passenger communication are all examples of the ambitious vision of the station of tomorrow.

The station will also become a space for creative communication. Bauer Media Outdoor is investing to equip more stations with modern digital advertising media. This solution will benefit the SNCB and its passengers, while ensuring optimum visibility for advertisers.These same media will also be used by the SNCB to communicate with its customers and provide them with information.

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Flexibility, targeting and creativity at the service of advertisers

This new partnership allows Bauer Media Outdoor advertisers to communicate with the largest pedestrian audience in Belgium, with more than 8 million travellers and visitors every week. Already familiar to Bauer Media Outdoor, the People & Places solution enables advertisers to target their audience very precisely, even beyond railway stations. This offers unprecedented opportunities for national and local advertisers.

Stations are also an unrivalled creative playground. Bauer Media Outdoor wants to use its expertise to stimulate spectacular ideas to address the public in innovative ways.

Undisputed national DOOH leadership

With the award of this contract, Bauer Media Outdoor has the most comprehensive digital offering on the market. Today, Bauer Media Outdoor has digital screens in more than 46 towns and cities in our country, and adds, from the start of the contract on 1 January, the 200 digital screens already present in Belgian stations. And this is just the beginning, as the company plans to increase this to 800 screens in more than 100 stations.

This is a digital development that will be coordinated with the classic, paper-based offering to provide a complete solution. Thanks to data and creativity, both small and large advertisers will have access to greater efficiency and better engagement with consumers.

"We are proud to be working with the SNCB on the stations of the future. Stations are real magnets and living spaces that concentrate hyper-quality audiences. With this new contract, we are able to give clients a national reach, which is unique in the digital field, while giving local clients the opportunity to’reach their customers effectively, which has become more difficult than ever today"

^{says Jan De Moor, Managing Director of Bauer Media Outdoor Belgium.}

"For the SNCB, advertising in stations is part of the passenger experience, explains Patrice Couchard, General Director of Stations. "Particular attention has been paid to the environmental footprint and complementary features that enhance our customers' journey through the station. These included information content, the ability to recharge smartphones and the installation of toolboxes for bicycle parking. The aim was to use advertising devices and events to help make the rail facilities more attractive and user-friendly, in line with the modern image that the SNCB wants to convey to its users.