Weischer brings AI targeting to Out-of-Home advertising
Hamburg, 31 August 2026 – How do you reach a target audience defined not by age or income, but by a specific interest? For Cologne Zoo, Weischer.OOH is taking a new approach, using the AI-powered booking platform Adlocaite for the first time. The result is a DOOH campaign that delivers Out-of-Home advertising in a more targeted and cost-efficient way than ever before.
Rather than booking screens across the board, Adlocaite selects only those among Cologne’s 418 potential Public Video screens that have a proven family and leisure context. As a result, 90 per cent of the available inventory is excluded and not booked. This focus increases the target audience match per contact by 18 per cent; 91 per cent of the screens used are located within the zoo’s catchment area, many of them at high-traffic commuter hubs.
“We want to deliver Out-of-Home advertising where it is genuinely relevant, using a range of data sources orchestrated by AI,” explains Jonas Kofahl-Kraatz, CDO at Weischer.OOH. “A ‘specific interest’ becomes plannable when you understand it as a situation: people in a leisure and family context, within the zoo’s catchment area, at the right moment. That is exactly what Adlocaite enables us to deliver.”
Over 20 per cent less wasted reach through AI-powered targeting
Adlocaite is the first AI-powered booking platform for digital Out-of-Home advertising that operates across multiple media owners. In real time, the system triangulates open and proprietary data sources to identify the right screens at the right moment for each campaign. The result: maximum efficiency, with 21 per cent less wasted reach compared with conventional programmatic booking methods.
“For us, AI in Out-of-Home advertising does not mean automation at any cost,” says Michael Zacharski, Co-Founder of Adlocaite. “Above all, it helps us make more precise decisions about when and where a message will have the greatest impact.”
Weather as a trigger
A key element of the campaign is weather-based activation: Adlocaite is configured to automatically switch to the “day out despite the rain” creative when the weather turns bad, based on live weather data and precisely tailored to each location – all without any manual intervention. This dynamic, weather-dependent optimisation during the campaign is not possible with conventional booking methods.
Time-based activation for maximum relevance
Additional time-based targeting focuses contacts on the moments that matter most: from Thursday to Sunday, between 9 am and 7 pm. From weekend planning on Thursday through to the weekend day out itself, the budget is invested exclusively in verified locations.
Data protection as a core principle
Despite the technological innovation, one principle remains paramount: customer data is used exclusively for the specific campaign, is not used to train AI models and is processed on servers in Germany. The platform is fully GDPR-compliant.
“The opening of our spectacular new Dragon House, featuring Southeast Asian Komodo dragons, tree kangaroos and exotic birds, is a very special moment. We want to reach the people who will genuinely be excited by it,” says Julia Sander, Marketing Manager at Cologne Zoo. “The fact that the campaign reaches our visitors in the right context and, when the weather is poor, even encourages them to visit this and our many other heated indoor exhibits is a perfect fit for us.”
