THREE WAYS TO INTRODUCE pDOOH INTO YOUR MEDIA MIX

Kantar’s Media Reactions 2023 seeks to find answers to the question of how marketers can arrive at the best media mix amid the continued evolution of digital as well as today’s socio-political events. The report reveals that – in parallel with a decline in viewership – TV advertising has fallen out of favour with marketers dropping from 3rd place last year to 12th place. While marketers’ trust in TV ads is still relatively high, it has fallen 5% since 2021, while many other channels’ are going up. Furthermore, only a net 6% of marketers say they will increase spend in TV in 2024.  

With traditional TV budgets stretching well beyond millions of pounds, the question is which channels will reap the rewards of any decline in ad spend? Mike Jakob, Account Director – Programmatic, JCDecaux UK explores the possibilities. 

 Top ranking media channels are mismatched 

There is a mismatch between consumers’ love of OOH and DOOH and marketers’ as shown in the table below. If unaddressed, this imbalance will result in large swathes of ad budgets being rendered ineffective.  

There is another mismatch when it comes to online video which is towards the bottom of the ad preference rankings for consumers, while the channel remains the most preferred media channel for marketers for the fourth year in a row with a net 74% of marketers say they will increase their spend in the channel in 2024, furthermore 59% say they will increase spend in ‘TV streaming’.  

Kantar concludes that for marketers and consumers alike, ‘digital OOH is the most innovative channel out there’. However, the percentage of marketers looking to increase spend remains lower than online video (46%). 

The programmatic conundrum 

One of the main reasons online video and CTV are booming and growing is because marketers are extremely comfortable activating these channels, and ubiquitous programmatic technology makes it quick and easy to do. But just because something is quick and easy to do doesn’t mean it’s the best thing to do.  

One of the factors driving the high innovation rating in DOOH is the fact that it can now be bought programmatically via the same demand-side platforms (DSPs) that are used to activate online display and video, mobile, and CTV. While programmatic DOOH (pDOOH) is certainly not the answer to every media brief, there are many reasons for marketers to consider adding it to their mix – especially if the current channel strategy is online heavy I.e. success is reliant on channels that consumers are less likely to trust or pay attention to.  

Three ways to introduce pDOOH into your media mix 

1. Use pDOOH to prime your online and CTV audiences 

DOOH has been proven to have a priming effect on online audiences. Add programmatic targeting and optimisation to this mix and marketers can dial up pDOOH activity based on where their online audiences are most receptive, at the times of day when their most engaged audiences are present. This programmatic approach also enables new brands to efficiently dip their toes into the world of DOOH as part of an omnichannel strategy. Furthermore, buying through a single DSP enables marketers to track the performance uplift associated with different channel and targeting combinations.  

2. Go local, hyper-local 

Programmatic DOOH enables marketers to combine hyper-local audience data available through OOH media owners with equally granular first-party data to determine the best best creative and targeting options. For example, OOH media owners have a wealth of insights into hyper-local audience preferences which can be combined with first-party sales data to determine which products are most likely to resonate with audiences on a screen-by-screen level. This powerful combination of data increases the contextual relevance of the creative considering more factors than can ever be possible when analysing say, the content and semantics of a webpage or the genre of a TV programme.  

3. Leverage the power of social 

Kantar’s report shows that marketers will continue to invest heavily in social media content – so why not amplify this by pushing it to DOOH screens using programmatic technology to determine the optimal bids and creative for available impressions based on the content you have available and the relevance to the screen location. This approach enables marketers to tap into local sentiment using social media analytics while also benefitting from expanding social media content from mobile phone screen size to large format, high-quality digital screens.  

Kantar’s Media Reactions concludes by reminding us that “in this ever-chaotic battleground, there are always new powers emerging, but marketers also have more ammunition to successfully navigate the landscape. And don’t forget local; any local ad platforms can capture attention over global ones, so marketers need to strike the right balance for their brands.” This got me thinking, while JCDecaux is a global company, in a way, each of our screens is a local platform in itself and that’s one of the real beauties of OOH – one that’s possibly lost on many digital marketers who have grown used to thinking on the scale of Facebook, Google, Instragram, Amazon etc. Certainly something to think about more!