2020 is full of opportunities. As I fly from LA to NYC for a quick one day turnaround I love seeing all of the great digital out of home advertising screens that I pass by.
What I see is opportunity for marketers large and small to reach audiences based on the places the go, the stores they shop at, and the places they work.
Digital out of home is estimated to be a $2B business in 2020. According to eMarketer the larger out of home market in the US is $8.87B in 2020. Digital ad buying is $151B.
I think digital, and programmatic, out of home will continue to grow because demand side platforms are making digital out of home advertising available to their large advertising agency clients. Platforms including MediaMath, Adelphic, and Adobe are making bring a variety of digital out of home screens to their large agency clients. According to the eMarketer podcast on digital out of home advertising largest advertisers on out of home in general are Apple, McDonald’s, and Geico. Each are spending about $60MM in out of home advertising in 2018.
These screens appear in a lot of places that are often the backdrop to our daily lives: malls, gyms, restaurants, bars, airports, Top Golf locations, bus stops, and the freeways we drive on.
What I like the most about this opportunity is that there are very few barriers to buy this ad space. Advertisers don’t need to spend a whopping $50,000 per board for just one spot in the city. These ads rotate in 8 to 15 second increments, and when there is an available spot any advertiser can run their ad there. The creative that is built is developed like a digital ad in a jpg, sent over, and then uploaded. These ads appear across a targetable selection of screens all across the city. The targeting parameters that are setup are based on the advertiser’s unique needs. Targeting is a whole other story, but suffice it to say you can think of digital out of home advertising targeting like you think of targeting ads on Facebook, or banners on your favorite site.
The foundation of digital out of home targeting is simple. With a little insight about your customer, where they go, what they want, and how your brand can help them, your digital out of home advertising appears in just the right places to reach your audience.
Finally, new case studies released by the IAB show just how valuable digital out of home advertising is to the effectiveness of marketing campaigns. Digital out of home advertising drives attributable website traffic, generates interest, and has been used to drive foot traffic.
So, I’m especially happy to move around different spaces in cities across the world because I get an opportunity to explore all of the great advertising inventory that is available on these screens that we buy for our clients.
