'DOOH to grow with programmatic buying becoming new normal'

WPP’s media investment arm, GroupM has launched a new report on ‘Brand Safety’- the GroupM Playbook for Marketers that ensures consumer trust in the ever-changing world of advertising. The report highlights the future trends for the marketers in digital advertising services, who are always striving to find better ways to engage with users through new channels and media and searching for new solutions to connect with consumers through technology.

The report states that the DOOH is set to grow more advanced and complex as programmatic buying becomes more commonplace. “Out-of-home (OOH) media has long been considered an efficient and reliable brand-building vehicle, designed to turn heads when appearing in strategic places. During the times of a worldwide lockdown, OOH has seen reduced spend. However, as the situation changes and people reclaim their outdoor lives and activities, OOH advertising will pick up in the medium and short-term”, the report claims.

Also, there is a reference of China OOH market in the report, where GroupM China estimates that OOH has a higher daily reach than television among user age group between 25 and 45. It further talks about some of the largest Chinese companies that have been investing in DOOH inventory owners. Companies like Alibaba invested $1.43 billion in Focus Media, Baidu $300 million in Xinchao Media and Tencent, an undisclosed amount in Tikin Media.

As per the report, GroupM’s investment in out-of-home is larger than its combined spending on Amazon and Twitter.

FRAGMENTED SUPPLY: HOW TO CONNECT THE DOT

The primary obstacle of the DOOH medium is fragmentation of supply, which does not allow integrated measurement and optimization.

In order to supply exclusive paths, media owners have either integrated or created their own SSPs, while integration of the leading DSPs is limited to a few supply partners. However, the report clarifies that this development is common for the nascent phase of any medium and DOOH is no exception.

Another challenge is the measurability in DOOH, where the nature of DOOH forces the measurement at the level of one screen to multiple users. This usually dilutes the nature of the target audience exposed to the DOOH ad.

The report explains two main methods, which are used to establish the quality of the audience: location tracking combined with other behavioral data, sourced from users’ personal devices and another one is a panel-based impression multiplier (in the UK through the Joint Industry Currency Panel Route).

FUTURE THINKING

According to the report, many individuals and companies across WPP and GroupM are connecting with the industry to promote more accountability in DOOH and believe that the future of accountability and transparency in DOOH lies in three key principles:

 • International standardization for audience, viewability and fraud measurement

• Global privacy principles to uphold

 • Omnichannel approach