Top advertising executives launch tech start-up ‘Youdooh’ to shake up digital outdoor

Four renowned senior advertising agency executives have teamed up to launch a tech business that aims to give anyone with a credit card access to digital outdoor advertising.

Dubbed Youdooh, the self-serve advertising platform is the brainchild of Richard Pook and co-founder Bram Stevens, who spotted a gap in the market after years of working for some of the top agencies in the country.

“Youdooh makes the process of buying digital advertising on billboards, bus shelters, train stations, retail screens and more around New Zealand as easy as buying ads with Meta and Google,” says Pook.

“If you’re a business owner or advertiser with a credit card, you can now buy an outdoor ad on over 3,000 screens in NZ.”

The platform, all locally built, sets out the buying process in four simple steps, with the ability to buy by the hour and start or stop the ad campaign at any time.

“The platform also has real-time reporting and the advertiser only pays when the ad plays,” Pook says.

The concept has won the support of Sean McCready and Matt Bale, who founded and grew media agency MBM into a business employing more than 120 staff before successfully exiting to a major international holding company.

Bale and McCready have come on as cornerstone investors, backing the project and supporting the vision of Pook and Stevens to democratise digital outdoor advertising.

“It’s such an intuitive and easy-to-use product with so much potential to change how digital outdoor advertising is bought in New Zealand,” says Bale.

“We’ve all seen first-hand how rapidly the media market is evolving. It won’t be long, maybe five years, before the majority of advertising will be bought through technology platforms. Google and Meta are already doing this for online advertising, and Youdooh sees an opportunity to ensure that the digital outdoor advertising market stays in the hands of a local company.”

Youdooh already has 300 customers signed up and the team has big plans for New Zealand, Australia and beyond.

“We’re on a mission to make digital out-of-home advertising accessible to everyone,” says Pook.