Quebecor Acquires One Of Canada’s Longest-Running DOOH Networks, NEO-OOH

August 27, 2024 by Dave Haynes

One of the longest-running digital OOH and conventional OOH media companies – Montreal-based NEO OOH – has reached a deal to be acquired by the OOH division of Quebecor Media Inc.

The deal gives Quebecor, a BIG player in Quebec media, a bigger footprint in other parts of Canada. NEO has more than 3,000 ad faces at more than 600 sites in 250 communities across nine Canadian provinces. When the deal closes, Quebecor OOH’s footprint will be more than 17,000 ad faces across Canada.

The plan is to roll sales into Quebecor’s integrated sales force, which markets 10 TV channels, 30 websites and apps, twonewspapers, 12 print and digital magazines, a digital radio station that also broadcasts on TV and FM, and various OOH properties, including transit shelters, shopping centres, sports venues, gas stations, convenience stores and mobile.

“We are very pleased to have reached this agreement in principle with NEO, a solid company with which we share values of excellence in both performance and customer service,” says Pierre Karl Péladeau, President and CEO of Quebecor. “By combining NEO’s Canada-wide strength with Quebecor Out-of-Home’s unrivalled depth in Québec, we’ll be able to offer our local and national advertising partners an even more comprehensive suite of impactful solutions. This acquisition will enable Quebecor to pursue its growth across the country and become a major out-of-home player in Canada.”

“It is an honour to pass the torch of NEO’s growth to a company of Quebecor’s stature,” says Ronald Tapiero, President and CEO of Media Group (NEO). “I am confident that Quebecor Out-of-Home will take our NEO Shopping, NEO Fitness, NEO On The Go and NEO Mobile networks to the next level. I am grateful to all the associates who have been part of the NEO adventure, which began 22 years ago. I thank Pierre Karl Péladeau, Michel Drouin of Quebecor Out-of-Home and the entire Quebecor management team for placing their trust in us.”

NEO has been around forever (2002), and is probably best known to Canadian digital signage and DOOH people for its screens in food courts of shopping malls. Originally, NEO was the Canadian part of a pioneering Swiss-based DOOH network, focused on malls. But Neo Advertising sold its mall food court network in 2010 to its mall media partner Traffic, effectively ending the Swiss-based company’s activity in North America (having earlier abandoned once aggressive US expansion plans).

Tapiero was a co-founder at Traffic and took over NEO way back then. He stuck around and in poking around, it was fun to see Trent Martin’s name – a creative guy who has been working in digital signage and DOOH since 2000.