In this article, we will explain what DOOH advertising means for marketers, its components, measurement, advantages and examples.
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Digital Out-Of-Home (DOOH) advertising is defined as a marketing channel where promotional media is dynamically and digitally displayed in outdoor (out of home) public spaces.
Here are some examples of DOOH advertising that you might have experienced in your day-to-day lives:
While out-of-home media is not new (in fact its one of the oldest traditional media worldwide), digitization of outdoor advertising is occuring at a rapid pace and the market is responding – between 2016 and 2024, global digital out-of-home industry is expected to grow from $3.6 Billion to $ 8.4 Billion. When there is digitization, we also see several integrations, apps and SaaS solutions being offered, something that OOH is experiencing as it transforms itself to a smarter,data-driven version called DOOH.
Digital out-of-home (DOOH) advertising plugs many holes that makes traditional outdoor advertising obsolete by post-digitization standards, mainstreamed by online advertising platforms such as Google and Facebook.
While DOOH is rapidly evolving and growing, here are the 6 key areas where DOOH is a much needed upgrade on OOH:
1. Cost effective, dynamic and flexible: DOOH is all about digital displays, which means, multiple ads can be rotated within the physical confines of a single space or banner. This not only optimizes revenue for the owner of the media unit, it also helps marketers save on expensive print costs and share media costs with multiple advertisers. Perhaps more importantly though, the ability to change creatives dynamically based on everything from outdoor weather conditions to flight arrivals is a huge advantage that DOOH brings. This offers a whole new level of flexibility to advertisers when it comes to dynamic creative display and personalization. Because real-time-bidding for DOOH media happens programmatically, media buying can be centralized even for media units spread far and wide geographically, adding to the cost and operational efficiencies of DOOH. Last but not the least, the fact that a single media unit is seen by multiple audiences at the same time leads to what is called as the impressions multiplier effect.
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2. Connecting outdoor to online: as DOOH evolves, one of the trends already at play is moving DOOH data to the cloud. This is already happening in cities like New York where road-side pavements have been installed with kiosks with ad displays that are not only connected to the web, they also serve as free public wifi hotspots. This way, it can track the number of devices connected to each kiosk and measure much more accurate footfall of viewers.
There is also an increasing ability to connect DOOH to mobile and other smart devices- from wearables to smartphones,whatever can connect to the cloud can help with smarter dynamic display on DOOH.
A person using an interactive kiosk with free public wifi, as a beverage ad is displayed on the screen
One use-case of this is that since consumer information is stored on cloud, brands will be able to connect DOOH to their centralized customer data platform to re-target DOOH viewers once they go online.
Another possibility is the use of mobile locational data to connect to dynamic creative served to passersby.
3. More accurate metrics and measurements: Most demand side platforms for DOOH provide analytical dashboards on ad performance, locations of ad displays, play times for each ad, total spends etc. While digital ads offer much more granular details and transparency, DOOH is catching up. One of the biggest issues with DOOH in comparison to web ads is that its still playing catch-up when it comes to programmatic buying and selling. Attribution from DOOH will be much more data-oriented and clear, as more and more digital displays upgrade to cloud-data. A lack of metrics for measuring ad performance has been the bane of the traditional OOH advertising. Today, companies like Snap (owned by Snapchat) are starting to offer innovative tech to correlate individual smartphone data with public display ads. Ofcourse, DOOH still needs a lot better attribution of metrics, however, the digital transformation of outdoor is well underway and the free market will respond to this digitization with apps and software, for exponentially better tracking and measurement. Already DOOH is impacting key advertising metrics including brand lift and correlated in-store footfalls.
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4. Leveraging true rich media: digitization of displays has resulted in more engaging video ad format- that tells a better story than just image banners, as is the case with traditional outdoor media placements. It is well-known that video ads greatly outperform static / print image ads, especially when it comes to grabbing attention of passing crowd. Afterall, unlike online inbound marketing, where a consumer already has an intent to purchase and they discover you as a result, in outdoor media, the main gameplay is the bet that while consumers may not be actively looking for the product / service, they will pay attention if the ad is engaging and interesting enough. This lends itself well to the powerful combination of locational advertising and impulse purchasing behavior. For example, think of a fast food company playing ads about lunch deals to people at a mall. Video formats, and increasingly, new formats like Augmented Reality and Holograms are critical to outdoor advertising success, and DOOH technology is making it all possible.
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5. Better ROI: The complete elimination of ad printing requirements, low labour cost, coupled with stronger metrics and data on ad performance and associated dashboards – marketers free up resources, while having the right information to optimize their advertising plans and deliver ever more seamless brand experiences and interactions, both online and offline. This in turn leads to significantly higher return-on-investment (ROI) margins on overall advertising budget, more so in outdoor ad budget.
6. Weather durable: All modern digital displays are weatherproof and ads can play all year round. Unlike physical display banners that wear and tear the creative (and often the display stand itself) during rain and wind, out of home advertising space are a much secure option. Although of course digital displays are also prone to vandalism, it is possible to install built-in security cameras and alarms for more prompt response.
In simple words, programmatic DOOH is automation of buying and selling of ad inventory (ad spaces) using computer programs. It is real-time, open to all bidders and the highest price is selected, much like how online advertising ecosystem work today.
One of the traditional challenges with OOH was that getting the creative to each location, setting it up and then even taking it down on time was a manual, labour-intensive and cumbersome process. With digitally connected media display units, sending creatives to the media units is as simple as a few clicks, but more importantly, advertisers enjoy a lot of flexibility and cost-effectiveness in changing display ad creatives based on the situation, and this powers in-flight campaign optimization for advertisers. Often marketers like to change creatives based on a specific happening and now DOOH offers the same flexibility to change creatives as digital advertising does. For example, when a baseball team brings home the cup, its easy to change the creatives at the airport to welcome them home and congratulate them. Similarly, mall kiosks can offer deals and coupons based on the weather- when its stormy, switch the creatives to offer a hot cup of coffee, and when the sun comes back out, offer a nice cool drink! In fact now advertisers can change creatives dynamically based on the context, weather, time of day etc.
with the ability to integrate with the larger programmatic adtech ecosystem it is possible for media buyers to view a more holistic plan and ensure that audience targeting gets more effective for each medium in the mix. With the ability to execute a campaign across devices, platforms, screens and media units, it is easier to move budgets around, adjust audience targeting, and change creatives to audience needs for optimal effect and outcomes.
The main reason for sky-high prices of outdoor advertising is the manual pricing strategy used by ad space owners. A minimum price is set and buyers can only bid at this fixed price or higher. There are also middle-men who primarily have the work of negotiating prices in media buying, especially considering the geographical scatter of OOH media units. This effectively leads to the domination of DOOH / OOH by the most cash rich companies, while smaller, mid-sized companies cannot compete, even for empty slots. Ad space owners mostly prefer to leave the space empty than lower prices and spoil their market.
RTB will eliminate all mandatory minimums in the bidding process, as well as the need for brokers and middlemen, allowing free ad spaces to be bid fairly by smaller buyers. Also since the digital format allows for multiple creatives to share the same media unit, media owners can optimize the revenues from a single unit by selling play time to more than one advertiser.
Read more: Top 5 Programmatic Advertising Platforms for 2020 and Beyond
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1. The rise of programmatic DOOH: as weve discussed so far, pDOOH is the way DOOH is going, not just because the technology makes it possible, but because its a very real need for media buyers to integrate every kind of media into a centralized, programmatic console.
2. Stronger links between mobile locational marketing and DOOH: this one is almost a no-brainer since mobile locational data marketing lends itself so well to a continued or extended brand experience with DOOH. FOr example, if a known customer enters a supermarket, its possible that not only will she receive offers and coupons based on her location, time of day, weather etc on her smart device, but also the creatives displayed on OOH media units can be personalized to her context, say in the aisle where she is standing at that moment.
3. Data-driven dynamic creatives: from DOOH display being able to read smart device data on the go to personalize creatives, to facial recognition and contextual advertising, DOOH is getting smarter by the day. With the racing technological advances with video, voice, AR/VR and the 5G revolution on its way, advertisers can expect real-time intelligence to feed DOOH units with the data it needs for campaign optimization on-the-fly.
4. More brands will use DOOH to deliver real omnichannel marketing
More and more brands appreciate the fact that DOOH is the only form of digital advertising that is beyond a consumers personal devices, thereby filling an important gap in brand engagement across multiple channels, devices and platforms. With the emergence of digital signage kiosks that are compatible for use in-door and out-door, this trend is only expected to gain momentum.
For example, the Avengers movies by Marvel were promoted using one of the most omnichannel advertising campaigns in cinema. From online ads on YouTube, social media and search engines (all of which were compatible with any type of size of device) to TV, newspapers and – DOOH! NYCs recently installed public internet hotspots ad screens lit up with Avenger commercials as people on pavements walked by. This is also followed by standard DOOH advertising on digital screens across subway entrances, inside local train screens (wherever available) and popular public squares. In other words, a true omnichannel advertising campaign definitely helped expand the Marvel and Avengers brands beyond their initial popularity and helped encapsulate newer audiences.
Popular DOOH example 1
Popular DOOH example 2
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5. DOOH will compliment online and TV advertising
According to 2012 report by Outdoor Advertising Association of America (OAAA), simply adding OOH advertising to your media mix can potentially increase the effectiveness of TV ads by 18% and of online ads by 316% (especially mobile). Todays DOOH displays are far more immersive , innovative (such as road side kiosks ad displays with free wifi) and effective.
This is because, with 98% audience reach using OOH (which is evolving to DOOH), these ads drive brand searches online. The most impulsive consumer action today is Googling what they find interesting. It should be no surprise that public ads drive up online brand searches, and this has a cumulatively larger impact when combined with online and TV ads.
6. New DOOH platforms will increase ad effectiveness and improve metrics
DOOH platforms are evolving. The 1950s invention of large road-side and public square print ad billboards is far less effective in today in the digital age. As brands aim for more immersive forms of advertising with mobile, VR, large screen HD TVs – DOOH is being pushed for evolution.
Above, we showed how Avenger movie ads utilized public kiosks that are more than just another form of display – its a form of utility because those kiosks provide public hotspots within a range. The display size is also more of a human height, which makes the ad viewing experience more immersive, much like a TV screen. And these ads are actually being used by the government to fund these free public hotspots. Being connected to the internet – these kiosks provide live ad impressions data to their demand-side platforms dashboard for marketers to monitor in real-time.
Both – the technology of DOOH and the monetary model of the business is evolving. Rather than just be a display of commercials, DOOH have the opportunity to add utility to the public – who after all are their target audience.
The offline advertising industry, however, is slowly but steadily catching up and getting on board with technological innovation, introducing technologies like geofencing and beacons to offer tracking and personalization that were deemed impossible in years past.
The domination of online media spend could be about to change thanks to a new take on an old classic: digital out-of-home (DOOH).
What Is Out-of-Home (OOH) Advertising?
Out-of-home (OOH) advertising is traditional (i.e. non-digital and non-programmatic) outdoor advertising. Also known as out-of-home media or outdoor media, OOH advertising is about messaging to consumers when they are in public places, commuting to work, waiting (e.g. in elevators), and in specific commercial locations.
Typical OOH formats include billboards, on-car ads, bus-stop shelters, etc.
Digital out-of-home (DOOH) is basically OOH powered up with AdTech – geofencing, tracking, retargeting, personalizing, attribution and measurement.
From OOH to DOOH
So what could digital-out-of-home allow us to achieve?
Well, imagine a world where billboards dynamically display ads targeted to each individual as they’re walking past them. Imagine ads sold in real-time auctions dynamically, and displayed across the city (or country) in a matter of minutes. Imagine a world where outdoor real-time marketing is really real-time, and billboards change dynamically depending on the time of day or weather condition.
The transition may change the traditional out-of-home ad-buying process; DOOH, as opposed to OOH, reduces human intermediaries and slow, manual insertion orders. We are moving in the fast lane, driving towards a reality where machines are programmed to buy ads.
Here’s what digital OOH has in store for us.
We can help you design and build real-time bidding, and programmatic advertising platforms for all advertising channels — display and native, in-app mobile, video and audio, OTT and CTV, in-game and DOOH.
Learn moreIt’s Already Happening
Considering the current state of advertising technology, the transition from OOH to DOOH is not only possible, but also inevitable from a business perspective. It’s actually already under way and gaining momentum.
International OOH providers like Clear Channel Outdoor, Lamar and Outfront Media are currently heavily investing in new technology to enable DOOH in the streets.
Other examples of DOOH activity include:
These examples and numbers are truly impressive, but many advertisers still know relatively little about what DOOH is and how it works.
What Is Digital Out-of-Home (DOOH) Advertising?
Digital out-of-home (DOOH) advertising is one of the fastest growing forms of advertising today, specifically because it is in many ways very attractive. Case in point: it is completely resilient to some of the typical problems nagging online advertising.
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DOOH offers some of the advantages of the technology used in online display advertising, such as targeting and enhanced traffic data, but at the same time it is completely immune to ad blockers, and OOH ads cannot be skipped by the user.
Also, DOOH requires a certain level of creativity to grab attention – something that has decreased over time with online display ads.
What Media-Buying Processes Are Possible With DOOH?
Admittedly, DOOH may be a little mystifying at first, but it’s really a relatively simple concept. However, to get a better hold of the subject, it’s still worth remembering the various media-buying methods known to the advertising industry:
RTB is an auction-based bidding protocol in which advertisers compete against each other to display ads to specific users. RTB offers a lot of capabilities and use of data as well as vast types of inventory, and is universally considered the most flexible model on the market.
Programmatic direct is a one-to-one media-buying process much akin to the traditional method whereby salespeople met with advertisers in person to strike a deal. It is a very similar model to the private marketplace (see below), with the exception that advertisers and publishers agree on specific inventory based on a fixed CPM.
Programmatic guaranteed (aka private marketplace or PMP) is an invite-only auction process in which just a handful of advertisers bid against one another to buy a publisher’s inventory. This method is typically offered by publishers with more premium (i.e. coveted and expensive) inventory – think major media sites like Forbes, Wall Street Journal or The New York Times).
Non-programmatic guaranteed (direct) is a manual insertion process which requires maximum human effort, understanding client’s needs, negotiating prices and planning the insertion order (IO), with tons of emails running back and forth. Inventory is sold at a fixed CPM rate. The inventory is “guaranteed” or “reserved” for the client. Sometimes, advertisers are required to pay a premium price in return for specific exposure conditions.
Read our previous post to learn more about the differences between these media-buying processes.
Problems With Digital OOH
DOOH media is not priced the same way as online ads
The pricing models and metrics of DOOH and programmatic are slightly different, and there are a few reasons for that.
First of all, to be an integral part of the programmatic ad-buying landscape and provide familiarity to advertisers and agencies, outdoor media sellers would have to convert to the cost-per mille (CPM) pricing model, which complicates things a bit seeing as one DOOH ad can be seen by multiple people.
Other pricing models common in DOOH include share of voice, whereby advertisers pay for a set percentage of the ad inventory of a given network of digital display, and loop frequency, where advertisers purchase multiple spots of a single loop.
DOOH viewability is currently harder to measure than online advertising
In DOOH, each impression can be seen by many pairs of eyes, but we never know the exact numbers, which makes it difficult to compare prices with digital impressions. While it is true that sellers, armed with mobile location data, can estimate traffic near a certain outdoor ad, it’s only a ballpark figure.
The fact that a person was standing next to a board does not mean that they actually saw the ad, and attempts to incorporate facial recognition as a way to identify the gender and age of people has already experienced some fierce backlash.
But as the industry grows, it’s likely that we’ll see DOOH ads that incorporate some sort of facial recognition like the one below from Posterscope USA and partners Quividi, EYE Corp Media and Engage M1:
DOOH is physical (and premium) real estate
Because DOOH is physical media, it is also limited and should be more “premium”. This is one of the reasons why DOOH providers are reluctant to make the transition and put the inventory on an RTB auction where it can go for peanuts.
DOOH inherently has a higher value than online media, which keeps the cost stable. Some fear that opening inventory to RTB will commoditize value and create a race to the bottom like it did in digital media.
Ad targeting, measurement and attribution is somewhat challenging
Again, because OOH ads are physical media operating in a one-to-many environment, there is no way to target individuals nor conduct advanced attribution as is done in the online world with cookies and device IDs.
DOOH ad targeting will likely involve reaching a certain demographic at a certain time based on data collected from the environment, rather than targeting individuals.
Similarly with attribution, marketers could simply look at the number of impressions an OOH ad received and compare it to conversions during all stages of a campaign.
The times of information and data collected for DOOH targeting and analytics varies, but typically include data from:
DOOH campaigns can also be tied to weather and time-of-day data, such as showing an ad for soup on a cold afternoon.
However, as DOOH progresses, there will no doubt be improvements in targeting and attribution to help improve the effectiveness of digital out-of-home ad campaigns.
Under-demand and over-supply
Supply of digital out-of-home media is still much bigger than its demand, which would lead to underselling and underpricing of media.
Again, this is another reason why auctions are difficult to execute. A guaranteed (non-programmatic or programmatic direct) approach makes more sense here until demand grows to match supply.
Even if bigger demand and auctions were possible, they would still be hard to implement in real-time
When serving the ad, some lag time is necessary to pre-cache and load the creative, as creative formats are heavier than digital or mobile banners. This would make it more difficult to precisely target audiences.
What Is Possible With Digital Out-of-Home Today?
So what are the possibilities behind digital OOH?
In spite of all the challenges mentioned above, there are companies actively exploring the programmatic technology and implementing its variations in their digital out-of-home media offerings.
Here is a glimpse into some of its possibilities:
Targeting
While it is not possible to precisely target the ad specifically to just a select audience of a dozen people (and not a 100 random viewers), programmatic at least gives DOOH the possibility to display the ad at times when the target audience is most likely to see it, possibly offering huge efficiency gains and better deals on media.
Measurement
In digital, buyers follow cookies or device IDs to target an individual.
This is not that easy with digital OOH. Location data pulled from opted-in audiences is critical for executing advertising in DOOH – along with its planning, targeting and measurement.
Today, many OOH media sellers, buyers and vendors use mobile location data to measure DOOH media.
Tamoco, a data company that provides location-based advertising solutions, can help companies measure the effectiveness of DOOH ad campaigns by utilising a number of data points and sensors (e.g. GPS, Wi-FI, and bluetooth).
Other providers like Placed (a location-based data company currently owned by Snap, Inc., owner of the social app Snapchat) offer matching of location data of opted-in users with online advertisements and the success rate of these advertisements.
By tapping into their trove of user data, Snap, Inc. can track about 150 million devices’ activity and see how the ads displayed across all their media translate to purchases.
One of Snap’s cross-channel attribution capabilities was an early implementation of DOOH attribution. Its first working example was Snap to Store, which can attribute footfall in retail locations to ads displayed on its platform.
Retargeting
While targeting of ads on an individual basis is not possible with DOOH, it still allows effective mobile retargeting. For example, providers of OOH media can use geofencing, i.e. creating a virtual geographic boundary around a board using GPS or RFID technology (or both) to trigger a response when a mobile device enters or leaves the vicinity of a board.
This way they can send retargeted, personalized messages to each consumer who walked past the board. This is not science fiction – Clear Channel has been retargeting users on mobile through its Radar program since early last year.
Radar uses aggregated and anonymous, mobile data from privacy-compliant, third-party data providers to gain insights about where specific customer segments move around the city and offer the best DOOH locations to reach them.
Higher Ad Engagement
There’s an opportunity for advertisers and agencies to capitalize on the initial opportunities offered by DOOH and use them to boost awareness and drive conversions.
Over the past decade, the engagement with online display ads has been on the decline, leading to click-through rates (CTRs) lower than 1%. This has been caused by a bombardment of online ads and given rise to software such as ad blockers and phenomenons such as banner blindness.
DOOH allows advertisers and agencies to unleash their creativeness and produce ad campaigns that are both unique and engaging. Some examples include:
Real-Life Applications
Outdoor media are working hard to best themselves in DOOH applications, and JCDecaux is one of the most prolific providers in this respect.
Transport for London
TFL promoted London’s cycle hire scheme with a contextual campaign using many screens in the city. The displays offered directions to nearest docking stations, along with information about the number of bikes and spaces available.
DOOH Screen in Elevators
Elevator interactions can be an awkward experience when you are in a restricted space with strangers and don’t know where to look. A DOOH screen can be a great opportunity for the distraction of commuters meanwhile the local businesses have their chance to reach consumers.
British Airways at London Heathrow
British Airways used live data feeds on flight arrivals to deliver a welcome message tailored to each baggage belt in the right language. It also suggested a London activity, based on current weather forecast.
Live Content
As England went football crazy during the Euro 2016 matches, displays mounted on bus shelters had live content with up-to-date information about scores.
Weather Matters
Foodora is a food-delivery service which recently ran a DOOH campaign promoting its pickup option. Depending on various triggers like weather conditions, a relevant creative was displayed, encouraging audiences to pick up food at a nearby restaurant or order delivery when it rained.
What’s the Future of DOOH?
The current implementations are just a glimpse of what will be possible with DOOH in the future. Operators of digital out-of-home advertising will soon try to best one another and offer the most reliable targeting and omni-channel capabilities – all made possible with technological innovation.
We can help you design and build real-time bidding, and programmatic advertising platforms for all advertising channels — display and native, in-app mobile, video and audio, OTT and CTV, in-game and DOOH.
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