'I would love to see outdoor being seen as a reach medium'

Abhijit Sengupta, CEO, OAP shares his perspectives on DOOH advertising, with specific reference to traffic facing media. Edited excerpts of his viewpoints:

Traffic facing large format DOOH

“I don’t think it attracts new clients or new users of the outdoor medium. But yes, it’s a novelty factor and the current users are putting in a lot of money, rather shifting to digital. Having said that, we have to be cautious when we make recommendations to our clients – we must do a media mix of digital as well as static.

“I think we need to look at various permutations and combinations of slots to help advertisers. For example, we can reduce the number of ads from 6 to 3 in a minute, but that raises another question – will the clients be willing to pay double the amount as before? A lot of research is required to understand these nuances, so experimentation is essential.”

Conventional large format vs. traffic facing DOOH

“I’d love to say they are complementing, but media owners who haven’t invested in the digital space feel that the formats are competing. As a media planner, I would say they complement each. There’s no shortage of advertising space, and I would love to see outdoor being seen as a reach medium rather than a frequency medium. Therefore, my campaign needs to be exposed to as many people and in every possible nook and corner of the city. And this can’t be achieved only through digital OOH, there needs to be a media mix with traditional assets as well.

“Most digital assets are located in prime locations, and being viewed by primarily the same group of people. Hence, that helps with increasing the frequency but not the reach.”

Media buying patterns

“We have no data to back what we are buying, and our purchase is (client) need-based. Until and unless the buyers and planner can fully understand what digital (OOH) can do for them, I can’t say.”

On impressions-driven media

“Impressions can be acquired in two ways – First, you line up all your assets (digital or static) along one route and expose the same people to your ads, which is frequency-based impressions. But if your brand caters to the mass, you need to have a reach plan. So, it depends on the brand, who it caters to, and the idea behind the campaign.”