‘Focussing on quality, upgradation & technology key to OOH’s growth’

Every marketing medium is different with its inherent strengths and drawbacks. However, if one wants to drive growth, they have to present everywhere the consumers are. This is where DOOH comes into the industry picture as it is the bridge that connects the real and virtual world for the consumers. At the 5th edition of the e4m OOH Conference, industry leaders came together to discuss the world of DOOH and the Omnichannel Experience. 

The panel discussion includes participation by Mangesh Shinde, Co-Founder, OSMO Advertising, Dinesh Panjabi, Regional Director - West, Rapport India, Rajneesh Bahl- CEO at Zest Outdoor, Alok Gupta, Director, Graphisads Limited and Jahan Mehta, Chief Growth Officer, OAP mediatech private limited as the moderator.

Initiating the lively discussion, Jahan turned to Mangesh Shinde and asked him to define what omnichannel experience is and the role out-of-home marketing plays in it. 

Answering the question, Mangesh Shinde started by highlighting a few numbers that he discovered from data crunching in the past few months. He mentioned, “⅓ in-store shopping happens after visiting online first, ¼ purchases happen after visiting a store. So, the experience delivered by the online and offline channels needs to be the same.” 

In addition, Shinde shed some light on the precise meaning of the Omni channel. He explained, “It involves a continuous process of seamlessly integrating online and offline media channels that are spread across the top and bottom funnels of the media journey, ultimately resulting in a seamless unified experience for the end consumer.” He also emphasized that Data, Content, and Technology are the three drivers for shaping the omnichannel experience marketing.

Moving forward, Jahan asked Dinesh Panjabi about the ways to enhancing the omni-channel experience in the digital age, and how brand managers could contribute to this effort. To which Dinesh answered that he introduction of DOOH is a compliment to static OOH. It is a need of an hour in the modern world which is building up the benchmark of outdoor industry.

Talking about the pie, Panjabi mentioned that with the introduction of DOOH and a lot of introduction going on, he’s 100% sure the budget will come back to OOH and this medium is again going to get its weightage.

Elucidating what Dinesh Panjabi explained Rajneesh Bahl added that nowadays most of the brands give brief to the agencies that they only want digital support and not static media. In this respect, some clients have also started in outdoor digital media which is a great shift as outdoor has increased the entire pie by adding advertising expenses and digital for that. 

Adding more to the concept of outdoor budget, Alok Gupta added that outdoor budgets haven’t gone down as some clients might have left outdoors but some clients have come on board and increased the overall pie. The good thing about DOOH is that in the future we are looking at DOOH as a possible POS model for a lot of impulse categories. 

Taking the discussion forward, Jahan asked all the panelists to share their thoughts on what they think, as an industry, we should be doing to get the brand managers to effectively integrate our medium into the ad spends.

In this respect, Dinesh Panjabi talked about how with the Digital OOH coming in everyone is talking about lots of metrics and numbers. “It’s important that we along with brand managers make them understand a few quality points of DOOH in terms of what can be done, how it can be measured, what new ideas can be implemented, what technology can be coming into it, and how it can be utilized with static ones”, he added. 

Rajneesh mentioned the need to take brand managers on the ground if companies want to increase the overall pie. If they need to add more to outdoor digital planning, they need to go on the ground and see the effectiveness of digital outdoors.

After discussing the Digital OOH, Jahan shifted to discussing the other ‘D’ word with the panelists which has been discussed in the industry for about 20-30 years and that’s Data.

Alok Gupta mentioned that when it comes to audience metrics, they prefer using RoadStar and other platforms that offer audience measurement. While they have tried using measurement apps in the past, they found that the data was incorrect and therefore not reliable.

In this context, Mangesh added, “The democratization of data should happen. So, the accessibility and availability of data should be there for everyone, irrespective of the media owners and publishers.”

Concluding the discussion with how brand managers can take the industry from a 4% to 10% jump, Panjabi expressed, “The important parameter to achieve this growth is not to focus on the numbers but to focus on the quality, upgradation, technology and what exactly we can bring it out so it gets attracted and enhances the industry altogether at different levels. 

He mentioned that the OOH managers use a quote, 'Jo Dikhta hai wohi bikta hai'. So, we need to focus on visibility and the numbers will increase automatically.