INTERVIEW
OOH's big opportunity
Motorists get great views of Delta’s #SweatLag digital billboard campaign.
Out-of-home (OOH) advertising is developing rapidly, driven by rapid advances in technology. Mark Lane caught up with Lamar Advertising Director Ian Dallimore to find out what to expect in 2019.
Lamar Advertising is one of the largest outdoor advertising companies in the world, with over 348,000 displays across the United States and Canada. The company's advertising inventory includes 24 US airports, and over 205 million passengers are reached through those platforms every year.
Lamar Advertising Director of Innovation and Digital Sales Strategy Ian Dallimore offers some valuable and intriguing insights into what the future holds for OOH.
First he predicts a significant impact from programmatic advertising, whereby the buying, placement and optimisation of media inventory is automated by software through using a bidding system.
“Programmatic advertising has seen significant year-over-year growth in the digital OOH space the past few years,” Dallimore explains. “Leading the charge, Vistar Mediahas been the programmatic leader in the OOH space thus far.
“However 2019 will bring a handful of other players, including Hivestack and Place Exchange, with a lot of momentum." he says. “More importantly, we have seen demand side platforms (DSPs) and digital agencies showing more interest in the programmatic OOH space, thanks to first- and third-party data.”
“Consumers are overwhelmed with advertising from the moment they wake up, scrolling through their Instagram feed throughout the day.”
–Ian Dallimore
He points out that these businesses are redeploying programmatic dollars from mobile and digital budgets to OOH, thanks to the latter’s reach, impact, visibility, retail proximity and fraud-free brand safety.
“Data is maximising OOH spend potential, as it emphasises its relevance and importance in the advertising space,” Dallimore notes. “In my opinion, data is significant in both pre-campaign planning and post-campaign analysis. However, using real-time data to trigger ads with digital OOH is where data has the opportunity to make the most significant impact.
“OOH has the opportunity to be the anti-algorithm and truly delight consumers with right place, right time advertising.”
“Consumers are overwhelmed with advertising from the moment they wake up, scrolling through their Instagram feed throughout the day with online banner ads. All of these ads use data, but not in a creative way. They are largely cookie-based ads that display messages based upon algorithms built on people’s online history.
“OOH has the opportunity to be the anti-algorithm and delight consumers with right place, right time advertising.”
Dallimore believes that OOH can optimise creative delivery based on factors such as, but not limited to, first-party data, or real-time weather and traffic.
“Interestingly we’ve also seen investments in dynamic advertisements on the agency side, including Carat/Posterscope’s investment in the Liveposter technology as well as Grand Visual with Q Media. At the end of the day, utilising data to determine creative delivery allows brands to emerge from the clutter of random advertisements to deliver relevant advertising in real time.”
Adidas partnered with Blue Bite for the adidas AM4MLS and used RFID technology to provide exclusive content.
Finally, Dallimore foresees a coming together of wearables and OOH. Wearables continue to grow in 2019 with brands such as adidas, Under Armour, North Face, Nike and Levi’s integrating technology to better understand products and the people purchasing them.
He cites the example of adidas partnering with Blue Bite for the adidas AM4MLS and using RFID technology to provide customers with exclusive content about the shoe.
He also highlights a Levi’s partnership with Google’s Jacquard Thread and snap tag for the Commuter Trucker Jacket, which allowed the consumer to operate multiple smart functions such as audio control, directions and screening calls through motions on the jacket. “These are just a couple of examples of how apparel brands focused on providing smarter technology in 2018,” Dallimore says.
“Moreover, the combination of RFID technology and Augmented Reality will allow the partnership between wearables and OOH to soar in 2019. For example, if a bus shelter with an RFID reader identifies a consumer nearby wearing an adidas shoe that just ran five miles, the RFID reader could trigger a push notification onto that consumer’s mobile device with exclusive content and relevant advertising.
“In a more innovative example, if a digital bus shelter with an RFID reader recognises that a consumer nearby is wearing a Nike Connect NBA jersey, then the OOH screen can trigger creative specific to that consumer’s jersey in real time. Just as we’ve seen the marriage between mobile and OOH, wearable technology and OOH can accomplish targeting of consumers in a unique, memorable and impactful way.”
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A Moodie Davitt Report publication | Sight Lines April 2019