T-Mobile US will acquire Vistar Media for $600 million, just two years after purchasing rideshare ad-tech company Octopus Interactive
T-Mobile US will acquire digital out-of-home (OOH) advertising technology company Vistar Media in a $600 million deal that combines the telco’s customer insights and data with Vistar’s intelligent marketplace and technology solutions. The acquisition, said T-Mobile US, will enable it to provide customers with “more relevant and personalized advertising.”
In a blog post, Vistar Media, which operates a network of digital advertising signs at malls, airports and other similar locations, explains how digital out-of-home (OOH) advertising combines the “dynamic nature of digital screens” — think billboards — with “programmatic targeting.”
Unlike its competitors, which have been systematically divesting their advertising and media assets, T-Mobile US has been investing heavily in this area. Two years ago, for instance, it acquired Octopus Interactive, which managed a network of interactive video screens inside Uber and Lyft vehicles; and last year, it expanded its advertising solutions to include a nationwide in-store Retail Media Network (RMN) comprised of more than 20,000 screens.
In fact, T-Mobile claimed the latest acquisition will stretch its ad business across more than 1.1 million digital screens provided by nearly 370 OOH media owners and serving more than 3,000 brand partner advertisers.
On the other hand, AT&T, as part of its 2021 exit from WarnerMedia, sold its Xandr advertising business to Microsoft the following year, while Verizon finally sold off Yahoo and AOL media to Apollo Global Management in 2021 for $5 billion after a number of asset reconfigurations, iterations and transformations.
“Combining T-Mobile’s customer-centric approach and its expertise as one of the nations most scaled marketers, with Vistar’s leading out-of-home technology means advertisers can easily place their ads where they know their audience will be, improving every step of the customer journey,” commented JP Colaco, the SVP & chief T-Ads officer at T-Mobile. “Together with Vistar, T-Mobile will deliver advertising solutions built by marketers, for marketers.”
The transaction is expected to close in Q1 2025.
