DPAA Summit 2020: ‘DOOH adds more heavy lifting into campaigns than mainline channels do’

The DPAA’s Video Everywhere Summit 2020 was kickstarted yesterday with DOOH and pDOOH panel discussions, featuring bigwigs from the advertising business. Relevant topics from marketing and media ecosystem formed the crux of these discussions led by brand experts from Mastercard, LVMH, Kroger, WW, Hyundai, WWE and Ally. The Agencies that were a part of the first day of the DPAA Summit were GroupM, Canvas Worldwide, UWG, Mediacom and DDB.  

Topics ranged from Marketing in COVID, Audiences back out, Programmatic, Omnichannel, DOOH and how to keep brands relevant during this time. 

Starting off the Video Everywhere Summit, Barry Frey, President, CEO, DPAA shared that this is a time to come together, to connect, to learn, to empower our personal and professional lives and these speakers on this summit will help us do that.” 

The first session was with Raja Rajamannar, CMO & President, Healthcare, Mastercard who spoke on the topic ‘Meaningful Engagement with Today’s Consumer’. Rajamannar speaking about the pandemic and its role in the market said, “Even though we didn't expect this crisis, having a crisis preparedness plan means that you're ready for whatever crisis is thrown your way.” 

Rajamannar sharing the importance of the OOH medium remarked, “OOH is an important component in the marketing mix, more than just a reminder or announcement medium. It is a perfect fit as an overall medium in the marketing plan.” 

Speaking about how the brand has been managing in these dire times, Rajamannar shared, “It’s been tough because at the end of the day we pivoted a lot to experiences. When we curate experiences they are typically at the events that we sponsor be it music concerts or sporting events. So we did a couple of things, we Pivoted to digital experiences using those same properties we have been associated with before. We started curating these kinds of events at scale and in an economical fashion. We have discovered that experiential marketing holds its importance but learnt that digital experiences are very effective too.” 

Rajamannar speaking about the potency of DOOOH and how it has given depth to the brands marketing and communication plans said, “In comparison with the static outdoor sites, DOOH works more effectively as the campaigns can be rolled out without wasting time, creatives can be changed seamlessly and the campaign can be modified depending upon the KPI signals and consumers’ response received through digital networks.” 

Rajamannar explained that DOOH adds value to travel and lifestyle-related product announcements. “DOOH adds heavy lifting into the campaign even more than other mainline advertising channels”, he said. 

Talking about the evolution taking place in this space, Rajamannar stated, “It is fascinating to see the development of new technologies in the DOOH”. 

The first-panel discussion shed light on the topic: ‘The Great Global Transformation of Programmatic DOOH’. Andreas Soupliotis, Founder & CEO, Hivestack was the moderator of the discussion and the other panellist were Maroun Ishac, Dir, Business Development, Retail, Banking, Hospitality & Education Division, Intel, Ichiro T. Jinnai, President & CEO and LiveBoard and Dennis Kuperus, Global Head of Innovation, Kinetic. 

Kuperus sharing how pDOOH has had explosive growth even during a pandemic said, “From a buyer perspective, we learnt from our Kinetic performance platform that certain specific audience was out in and about in specific environments. Although media owners ordered flexible there were still brands that needed a lot of flexibility of being able to adapt to new circumstances. There was a need for contextual messages. Based on that this trend has continued and we drive in markets where there are 50% more pDOOH clients and campaigns now with this pandemic learnings.” 

Ishac sharing Intel’s view on pDOOH remarked, “The investment the OOH Industry has made in the area of technologies and attribution is paying off. With pDOOH, the medium is not one to many but one to an audience which has led towards better media planning with attributions.  DOOH is the only medium to give audience movement to help brands activate their fast pace campaigns.” 

Ishac also highlighted 3 ‘A’ features which are Accessibility, Adjustable and Attributable. Ishac says that with more inventory availability, measurability and modifications, the DOOH media is growing to meet the needs of advertisers and will be able to mark the level of multimedia channels. 

Talking about the pDOOH market Jinnai said, “Japan is the 3rd biggest DOOH market with a fragmented audience. However, the pDOOH is a key reason that advertisers are getting wider access to DOOH medium because of flexibility. Hence the luxury brands planning global to local campaigns sitting in their headquarters.” 

The second-panel discussion spoke about ‘How Programmatic DOOH is Driving Performance Results for Omnichannel Marketers’ with Jonathan Gudai, CEO, Adomni as the moderator and panellist Fletcher Whitwell, Chief Media & Publishing Officer, R&R Partners and Kris Cichoski, Corporate Director of Content Publishing Strategy, R&R Partners. 

Whitwell, highlighting the accountability factor and learning of this year, remarked, “pDOOH can bring the outdoor medium onto a level playing field with other channels through accountability given by programmatic platforms.” 

Cichoski in the discussion pointed out that pDOOH activates all other media channels with its ability to turn off and on, pushing up digital performance-based marketing. He added, “Moreover, the data available in the programmatic channel allows to leverage this channel effectively.” 

Whitwell explained, “DOOH can be extended as a digital medium with the same nature of buying and creative usage. All the way more, DOOH is important for the omnichannel platform as it is available in transit formats targeting people on-the-go. With the expanding technology, DOOH can be targeted and retargeted with mobile device data.” 

The last session was Broadsign Spotlight on Greg MacDonald, VP, Marketplace Partnerships, Verizon Media who spoke about the importance of driving transparency and accountability. 

The second day of the DPAA Video Everywhere Summit will have sessions on ‘How the Auto Industry Utilizes Today’s Media Options’ by Angela Zepeda, Chief Marketing Officer, Hyundai, and Paul Woolmington, CEO, Canvas. It will also have a DOOH session on: ‘Speed, Agility, and the Power of DOOH’ by Michael Provenzano, CEO, Vistar and Chris Jeyes, Sr. Media Specialist, Jaguar Land Rover and Creative Talks by DDB. It will also highlight the ‘New research on What Agencies and Brands Think about pDOOH’ by VIOOH. Brand experts from LVMH and UWG will also be sharing insights on Luxury consumer behaviour trends.