Programmatic Boosts Digital Out-of-Home During COVID

While the advertising business was thrown off balance by the COVID-19 crisis, the outdoor advertising (OOH) sector gained a significant edge: the growing popularity of programmatic transactions.

"It's encouraging to see that programmatic DOOH [digital OOH] has become the superpower of OOH advertising," said Barry Frey, president and CEO of the #DPAA trade organization. "From the early days of the pandemic, programmatic commerce has demonstrated the necessary agility and flexibility of the DOOH medium. "The 2021 results look brilliant across the industry." "eMarketer is tracking the aggressive growth of programmatic DOOH in the U.S. and predicts it will be $435 million in 2021, nearly double what it was in previous years," said Frey. "Many in the industry believe that figure will far exceed those estimates."

Intersection, an outdoor placement company with a presence in 18 cities and about 6,000 screens, has experienced significant growth in its program offerings. "Our advantage is that we have large-format, premium street and transit media that reach audiences throughout their daily journey," says Sheri Ham, Intersection's vice president of program partnerships and sales. "We help brands identify their target audiences and offer measurement tools to help them understand their business outcomes."

Frey sees a big reason why the rise of programmatic occurred during the pandemic. "During COVID, the industry was able to pause, click and easily move schedules to where the desired audience was," he explained. "Now that people are getting out again, the dynamic targeting and attribution capabilities are helping to increase the share of OOH advertising in the omni-channel media mix. Programmatic is directing digital, mobile, video location and other OOH budgets on a global basis."

The COVID crisis accelerated the OOH programmatic trend because the groundwork had already been laid. Clients realized "the flexibility that programmatic offers and the progress [in planning, executing and measuring] campaigns," Ham said.

She noted that "agencies have shorter planning cycles, and as a result, they are turning to the flexibility of programmatic to help themselves plan and activate campaigns in a shorter time frame than they have in the past." While COVID hasn't gone away, OOH has become more attractive because more people are spending time in physical spaces," she added.

Despite the progress, OOH has its skeptics. "There is a perception that the outdoor advertising channel lacks ROI," Ham said. "The reality is that there have been ubiquitous improvements in measurement and attribution, and those solutions are now available to brands."

Ham is very optimistic about the future of programmatic #DOOH. "We will continue to see the channel expand," she said. "There will be more and more tools showing shoppers exactly how to reach their target audience."

As for the #industry, "Measurement tools will continue to evolve over the next few years, and we will also see further expansion and collaboration between the out-of-home and digital teams," Ham concluded. "There is an exciting opportunity for shifting TV and video budgets as the industry continues to develop a blended attribution model and measurement tools."

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The views and opinions expressed in this piece are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of management.