OAAA center of excellence aims to make OOH easier to buy, integrate

As any retailer, brand or organization that has tapped digital out of home advertising knows, the process, from start to deployment, is not quick or easy and typically features more than a few challenges.

Initial steps include setting goals and audience for the campaign's focus. Then it's budget and advertising decisions. Then it's time to decide how to buy, direct or programmatic, and determine screens and venues. Then it's onto building the creative and fashioning content.

Clearly, that's very simplistic strategy timeline minus the inherent bumps and hurdles at each project step.

But an industry initiative from the Out of Home Advertising Association of America, a national trade association representing the OOH ad industry, aims to make all that much easier and much quicker.

A center of excellence

The OAAA has launched a programmatic and automation center of excellence that in addition to making DOOH easier to buy aims to align buyers, sellers and technology players when it comes to standards, automation, measurement and integration.

"This is a new initiative for OAAA, but it grew directly out of where the industry is headed and what our members are telling us they need," Patrick Dolan, chief operating officer of OAAA, said in an email interview. " As OOH becomes more automated and increasingly integrated into omnichannel media strategies, there is a real need for the industry to come together around common standards, workflows and measurement."

The center of excellence is all about modernizing the OOH advertising ecosystem and strengthening OOH within the omnichannel media landscape.

"It's an industry-led initiative, with OAAA serving as the convener and bringing together the companies and expertise needed to move this work forward," said Dolan. Founding members are AdQuick, Broadsign, Perion, VIOOH and Vistar Media.

The center will also work in tandem with OAAA's newly formed Technical Advisory Council, which brings together technical leaders from OOH media companies to help address the infrastructure, standards and interoperability needed to make OOH easier to integrate and transact.

"Importantly, we're not starting with a predetermined agenda. Industry input and research will shape the Center's priorities," said Dolan.

Initial initiatives

One of the center's first initiatives was a listening session in New York with IAB Tech Lab that brought together agencies, brands, media owners and technology providers.

"We're also launching an industry benchmark study to better understand programmatic adoption, workflow automation and where gaps remain across standardization and measurement. Together, those insights will help prioritize our working groups and 2027 deliverables," said Dolan.

The center is organized around four pillars:

• Standardization and optimization: Bridging the operational gap between buyers and sellers by establishing unified data constructs and machine-readable frameworks that can be ingested directly into agency omnichannel planning tools.
• Workflow automation and agentic AI: Replicating the frictionless ease of digital media procurement by building a translation layer that prepares OOH for a future of machine-driven, automated buying and planning.
• Understanding reporting and attribution requirements: Establishing frameworks for data, reporting and attribution, including standardized attribution models that give advertisers the same transparency and analytics they expect from digital channels.
• Omnichannel and retail media: Expanding OOH's downstream market touchpoints by strategically positioning the channel alongside accelerating formats like retail media networks and connected TV to amplify full-funnel brand storytelling.

Benefits of making DOOH purchasing easier

Making DOOH easier to buy, and integrate, is a boon to buyers and sellers but those aren't the only benefits to be gained.

"The demand [for OOH] is there," said Dolan, as OOH offers brands something increasingly valuable: real world reach, high-impact creative and the ability to connect with consumers in the physical environments.

The easier OOH is to integrate into a broader media ecosystem, the easier it becomes for advertisers to make it a bigger part of their media plans

"And as digital OOH has grown, the medium has become more flexible, targeted and responsive. Now the goal is to make accessing that value as seamless as possible," he said.

The center of excellence initiative, which is just about two months old, is already making progress on several fronts.

"The OAAA and Geopath have aligned around a shared vision for next-generation audience measurement, with Ipsos selected to support a pilot designed to bring greater precision, transparency and interoperability to OOH measurement," said Dolan.

The center is building on that broader momentum by tackling the workflows, standards and technology integration needed to make OOH easier to transact at scale, he added.

The value of data definition, taxonomies

The initiative is focused on establishing data definitions, taxonomies and more consistent reporting and attribution guidance.

Each is tied to making it easier for advertisers to buy OOH, measure it and invest more in the medium.

"When buyers, sellers and technology partners are using the same definitions and speaking the same language, it creates greater consistency, clarity and confidence across the buying process," Dolan said.

Advertisers want to understand what the campaigns delivered, how performance was measured and the role OOH played alongside their other media.

"The more consistent we can make that, the easier it is for buyers to evaluate what worked and make decisions about where to invest next," he said.

"Ultimately, these efforts are about making OOH simpler to buy, easier to evaluate and more competitive for advertising investment."