93% of US media professionals set to retain or increase investment in pDOOH in next 18 months: VIOOH study

Today, VIOOH, the leading premium global DOOH supply-side platform, released its annual programmatic DOOH research paper. The findings show that the future of pDOOH looks bright with investment increasingly coming from new budgets or being moved from other traditional and digital channels. This increase in demand is due to US buyers continuing to value audience targeting and the efficiency and effectiveness of transactions that programmatic trading provides to DOOH, along with the brand safety afforded by its broadcast nature.

The report, entitled ‘Programmatic DOOH 2022 - State of the Nation’, provides a unique insight into the DOOH industry by combining in-depth interviews with key industry spokespeople, alongside survey data from 1,000 senior agency and advertising executives across the US, UK, Germany, France and Australia.

The findings identified that whilst the COVID-19 pandemic proved the value of the agility that pDOOH offers, many advertisers have continued to take advantage of this flexibility post-pandemic. In the last 18 months, American executives surveyed reported that over half (56%) of campaigns have included pDOOH and this is set to increase to 61% in the next year, with 20% planning to double their investment over the next 18 months.

The planning and buying of pDOOH is increasingly taking place alongside other programmatic activities, demonstrating increasing market maturity to align pDOOH within a multi-channel campaign strategy. Within this context, the majority (96%) of US media executives stated they will continue to invest in areas such as building in-house pDOOH expertise and focusing on educating programmatic, OOH and cross-media planning teams on the advantages of pDOOH to help communicate benefits to brands and teams. 

When looking at the key barriers to adoption, the report found that half (50%) of executives in the US are seeking best practices for using data for activation of pDOOH campaigns, with 44% identifying the provision of real-time audience data as key for future growth and investment. 

Additionally, 49% of media executives in the US want a clearer understanding of how pDOOH fits within a multi-channel campaign and nearly half (45%) of US media professionals surveyed said they would like more information on cross-channel measurement and attribution in order to demonstrate pDOOH’s impact within an omni-channel campaign. 

“As highlighted in this year’s State of the Nation report findings, we are seeing an increase in media spend coming from new budgets or being moved from other traditional and digital channels. Coupled with a widening responsibility for its planning and buying, it’s clear that as markets mature, buyers are keen to fit programmatic DOOH within multi-channel campaign strategies,” said Jean-Christophe Conti, Chief Executive Officer at VIOOH. “For the channel’s full potential to be unlocked, the report also shows a desire for increasing sophistication in data and targeting, and a robust ROI and measurement solution - as the ability to measure DOOH’s impact within multi-channel campaigns is likely to become a key factor in the growth of programmatic DOOH,” added Conti.

Key findings from the report include:

1. Appetite and demand for buying DOOH programmatically has increased over the last few years

• In the last 18 months, over half (56%) of campaigns in the US (+9% pts vs. 2021) have included pDOOH.
• 43% of media professionals in the US said they have planned, bought or placed DOOH programmatically in the last 12 months, and this is set to increase to 46% in the next year.

2. There is also significant growth coming from new budgets and other digital and traditional channels

• 50% of US media professionals say they have added new budgets to pDOOH, 26% have moved budget from other traditional media, and 19% have utilised existing digital budgets.

3. pDOOH delivers a range of benefits for advertisers

• 35% of media executives in the US believe that efficiency is a significant strength of pDOOH - ranking it as the joint top reason for increasing spend in the channel over the next 18 months.
• Executives in the US also value the brand safe environment the channel offers, selecting it as the other top reason for spend increases in the US in the near term.

4. Demand for pDOOH is expected to continue to grow

• Over half (56%) of campaigns in the US  are expected to include pDOOH over the next 18 months, according to US media professionals.
• 20% of executives in the US believe that advertising investment in pDOOH will more than double (101-200%) over the next 18 months.
• 96% of US media executives say that they will invest in building pDOOH expertise in-house over the next 18 months, a year-on-year increase of 10% points.  

5. What is needed to drive further investment

• 50% of US executives feel that best practices in using data for pDOOH would help them to better understand the channel.
• 49% of US executives feel that a clearer understanding of how pDOOH fits within a multi-channel campaign would help them to better understand the channel.
• 48% of US executives feel that more information on how to measure ROI of pDOOH would help them to better understand the channel.