Retail
How is DOOH handling COVID-19?
Digital out-of-home, or DOOH media took a particularly big hit in the initial COVID-19 wave, although with many restrictions lifting, it is slowly recovering. Digital Signage Today spoke with Norm Chait, director of out-of-home products/sales at Ubimo, a Quotient brand to get a sense for how DOOH is doing and how it is handling COVID-19.
September 8, 2020 by Bradley Cooper — Editor, ATM Marketplace & Food Truck Operator
When COVID-19 forced many businesses to shut down and residents to shelter in place this past spring, every industry was deeply impacted, especially the advertising industry.
DOOH media in particular took a big hit in the initial COVID-19 wave, although with many restrictions lifting, it is slowly recovering.
Digital Signage Today spoke with Norm Chait, director of out-of-home products/sales at Ubimo, a Quotient to get a sense for how DOOH is doing and how it is handling COVID-19.
Q. What are some of the ways COVID-19 has impacted DOOH?
A. COVID-19 has impacted many industries, including Out-of-Home (OOH).
Although digital out-of-home has fared better than traditional OOH in this landscape, it has still experienced many shifts and cancellations when the shelter-in-place orders were issued. While we expect the OOH industry to fully recover and continue to see year-over-year growth, COVID-19 has brought DOOH even more front and center. This is because DOOH is nimble and dynamic — allowing advertisers to be more fluid with when, where and how impressions are delivered.
Each designated market area is uniquely different from one week to the next during these uncertain times, so the ability to navigate these changes in real time underscores the strength of DOOH. We are helping our clients with Programmatic DOOH with our PDOOH Demand-Side Platform.
Q.Can you give some statistics on how DOOH impressions have changed from the beginning of the shutdowns to now?
A. During the initial weeks of (the) shutdown, movement around OOH media dropped as people followed shelter-in-place orders. At the lowest point, movement around OOH media was (down) 40.7% below pre-COVID levels. Since then, movement has been increasing. In the month of July, movement around OOH properties increased by 10% every week, on average.
Q.What are some ways DOOH operators are addressing COVID-19?
A. We're seeing a concerted effort from the operator side to make as much of their DOOH available to DSPs as possible.
Partly due to COVID-19, advertisers are seeing the advantage of activating their campaigns programmatically. PDOOH has become even more highly valued during these unprecedented times since it is rooted in audience-based planning that leverages real-time data and local market intelligence.
If advertiser behavior continues to shift to PDOOH, the publishers will want to meet that increasing demand. Many are actively rolling out more DOOH inventory and updating their technology to enable these transactions. If not, there are already operators who are actively working to get integrations in place with Supply Side Platforms (SSPs) to ensure the buying community can access their DOOH inventory seamlessly. Even before programmatic became as prevalent as it is now, DOOH had been a huge opportunity for operators and was quickly embraced by advertisers and their agencies.
Given the capital expenditure required to convert traditional printed and static inventory into digital displays, DOOH tends to be the highest in demand, have the highest visibility and offer premium inventory. New ways of transacting (such as programmatically) will only fuel its growth.
Q.What impact has DOOH had on sales during COVID-19?
A. This really depends on which angle of the business you're looking from.
Sellers who can demonstrate that their DOOH assets are still reaching shoppers despite quarantined living, I believe, will continue to do well. At Ubimo, we created a dashboard that can show advertisers the week-over-week changes in DOOH movement as shoppers make trips to specific locations like the pharmacy, grocery stores, convenience stores and more.
In fact, during the COVID-19 period, we found that six out of 10 grocery store shoppers were exposed to OOH advertising on their way to the store. This is compared to seven out of 10 grocery store shoppers who saw an OOH message before COVID-19 related shelter-in-place orders took effect.Now, we found that OOH is reaching eight out of 10 customers. This has proven incredibly valuable, not only from a sales standpoint, but also in giving advertisers confidence to invest in DOOH today instead of waiting to see what happens in the back half of the year.
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