What Does DOOH Mean?

Digital out-of-home media, or DOOH media, is a term used to describe digital forms of media and advertising that appear in places that are accessible to the public, like shopping malls or beside major roadways.

What Does DOOH Mean?

Whether you’re fascinated by marketing and trends in the advertising industry or, more realistically, you have a product or service that you’d like to sell, you’ve probably heard the acronym “DOOH” thrown around in meetings, emails, and articles and you might be asking yourself, “What does DOOH mean?”

If advertising your business is part of your plan for 2020, it’s time to get familiar with DOOH media.

The acronym DOOH stands for “digital out-of-home” and is primarily used to refer to different types of media and advertising.

DOOH media offers a unique opportunity for advertisers to combine traditional types of advertising with a modern twist, helping to reach more potential customers and engage audiences.

What is DOOH Media?

Digital out-of-home media, or DOOH media, is a term used to describe digital forms of media and advertising that appear in places that are accessible to the public, like shopping malls or beside major roadways.

DOOH media is perhaps best thought of as the natural evolution of out-of-home media, or OOH media, which defined the traditional outdoor advertising space for decades.

OOH media refers to any type of advertising that consumers are exposed to in a public space outside of their homes and offline, and it was one of the most common types of advertising for many years.

OOH advertising types include:

  • Billboards: most commonly displayed next to freeways, interstates, highways, and other heavily traveled areas where consumers can see them from passing cars or trains.
  • Street furniture: Street furniture like bus stops, newsstands and kiosks, transit shelters, bus shelters, phone kiosks, and more are effective placements for advertising because they place advertisements at eye-level with potential customers. Commuters, pedestrians, and motorists are common targets.
  • Wallscapes: Wallscapes are advertisements that typically are placed on the side of buildings, parking garages, construction sites, and other structures. The attractive graphics tend to lend themselves to the urban beautification process and are viewed by consumers as an enhancement rather than as an annoyance, which helps place the product in a positive light.
  • Wildpostings: You know those flyers that you see attached to telephone poles, crosswalks, and street lights? Those are wildpostings, and they’re a popular and low-cost way to get the word out about things like events, album releases, and appearances in urban areas.
  • Transit advertising: The advertising wraps placed on the sides of busses, trains, subway rail cars, and taxis are forms of transit advertising. These advertisements target not only users of public transportation but also people traveling in the vicinity of the vehicles. Because they’re not stationary, transit advertisements may be able to reach more people than other forms of media.

Nearly any type of OOH advertising can be converted into DOOH advertising, creating an advertisement that features the advantages of both types of media.

What is Programmatic DOOH advertising?

Programmatic DOOH advertising, or pDOOH advertising, is defined as the automation of buying and selling digital places for ads using computer programs like AdQuick.

While purchasing billboard space used to be challenging and require seemingly endless communication, today, billboard space can be found online, negotiated, and implemented quickly.

The use of pDOOH has dramatically changed the outdoor advertising space by making it much simpler for brands to find DOOH space, negotiate, and advertise, particularly where billboards are concerned.

What Are the Benefits of DOOH Media?

DOOH media represents a kind of evolution of traditional OOH media and offers many benefits.

When considering whether or not to use digital marketing, consider these benefits.

Unavoidable

Everyone is targeted by advertisers throughout the day, often in the form of annoying pop-up ads while browsing social media on your mobile devices, videos that automatically play on a website, or commercials during the middle of your favorite show.

It’s easy enough to close out of the ads, change the channel, or fast forward through commercials, which is part of the problem with in-home advertising and online advertising.

Unlike in-home advertising, DOOH media is unavoidable, because you can’t simply turn it off or walk past it without seeing it.

However, it also has the added bonus of grabbing your attention as you walk by and notice the ad changing or the text or images moving.

Because DOOH media is unavoidable, your targeted audience is guaranteed to get the message each and every time.

Durable

Outdoor advertising is exposed to the elements no matter what form it comes in, which means that advertisements can sometimes become worn, weathered, or torn over time.

Not only does this make it more difficult for consumers to get your message, but it also reflects poorly on your brand.

DOOH media is displayed on weatherproof digital displays that are capable of playing your content year-round, no matter what the weather.

This ensures that your message gets delivered no matter what time of year it is and that your company looks good in the process.

Content variation

With traditional OOH media, you’re limited to one advertisement or piece of content, so you’d better make it good, right? That one billboard is going to stay up for months, which means that your message has to be carefully crafted.

With traditional OOH media, people who pass by the same advertisement each day may begin to ignore the ad over time, but this is not the case with DOOH advertising.

Display advertising on OOH media can change every 15 seconds or at whatever frequency you desire, which helps to engage more viewers and increase viewability.

As you’ve undoubtedly experienced personally, the changing image on the screen tends to capture people’s attention quickly, increasing the likelihood that they will see the advertisement.

Reduced management costs

With traditional forms of OOH media, management and product costs can be high.

Each time a billboard needs to be changed or new flyers need to be printed, new printing and installation costs are incurred as part of the ad inventory.

Digital media can be changed automatically in a fraction of the time it takes to produce a new copy for traditional OOH media without the installation costs.

It does cost more to set up the digital screen, to begin with, but if you stick with DOOH media for advertising your business, you’ll quickly recoup the costs.

Increased responsiveness

Have you ever experienced a major world event that impacted your business in an unexpected way, or had some other surprisingly quick change occur that affected your sales?

Given the recent COVID-19 pandemic, we’re willing to bet that you have, and digital OOH advertising and media buying gives companies a leg up in responding to the crisis quickly with appropriate advertising and messaging.

While traditional billboards or wraps could take weeks or longer to replace, a digital ad campaign can quickly be created and uploaded, keeping you one step ahead of your competitors.

Increased campaign targeting

DOOH media and digital advertising are pretty impressive on their own, but pairing it with other technology can take your campaign’s targeting and reach to the next level.

For example, using a DOOH display and facial recognition technology allows you to practice audience targeting to tailor your content to the demographics of the people viewing the display.

Adding weather location data will tailor your campaigns to the type of weather that day and change them depending on whether it’s sunny, cloudy, or raining.

There are many different types of sensors and software that can be integrated with your programmatic advertising meaning the only limit to your campaign is your creativity.

Improved demographic information

It can sometimes be difficult to know exactly how many people are reached with traditional OOH media; metrics might include the number of cars that drive on a highway or freeway each day, or the average number of people who ride the subway each day.

DOOH campaigns can provide powerful viewership reports that provide information about the number of people who have viewed the ads, their genders, their age, and the time of day when the ad was most frequently viewed.

This information allows companies to tailor their advertisements accordingly to reach their target audience, and also helps network owners price their displays appropriately.

Detailed reporting

Unlike a billboard, which stays up rain or shine, DOOH media can sometimes have difficulty playing.

On the plus side, the displays are capable of generating reports that show the number of times per day each ad ran, any incidents that may have occurred, and scheduling.

This type of information helps advertisers to feel more at ease knowing that their ads are reaching their target audiences while providing valuable information to network operators.

Conclusion

DOOH media represents an exciting new trend in advertising as we give traditional forms of outdoor media a fresh face for the digital age.

Digital signage is consistently visible, cannot be avoided, is durable, and provides enhanced opportunities for real-time targeting, responsiveness, campaign reporting, and content variation.

With approximately three out of every four people or 75 percent reporting seeing a digital billboard in the past month and approximately 60 percent reporting seeing one in the last week, DOOH advertising is clearly on the rise.

Approximately 9,600 digital billboards are currently installed in the United States, and the number has been steadily climbing since 2016.

When will your organization join the trend?