My Love / Hate Relationship with the Omni-Channel DSPs in DOOH

I spent the next several minutes calming her down and ultimately brought up Blue Kai during our upcoming sales team meeting I told the team that they were a good thing for us that they would help raise awareness of the power of consumer data within the industry which was our principle differentiator They would help educate clients on its importance They would help democratize and normalize behavioral targeting and its effectiveness in digital advertising While their data wasnamp8217t as advanced as ours nor was it exclusive like ours this evangelism would be highly valuable to the industry and us indirectly I knew we would compete with Blue Kai and all the platforms that utilized its data but we knew we had the better product and their entrance in the market could help grow the market Thus Blue Kai meant we could help more advertisers which was our entire segmentamp8217s ultimate goalFast forward to 2024 a somewhat similar phenomenon is taking place in the outofhome advertising market As we continue the quest to grow our share of media spend from the waytoolow 45 to simply amp8220more than thatamp8221 several in the industry hold the view that programmatic DOOH will be a prominent driver I wholeheartedly agree Itamp8217s the why pDOOH will help is where we disagree Most cling to the notion that the democratization of DOOH inventory will change our trajectory that if we can plug our industry into digitalamp8217s amp8216machineamp8217 we will win The thinking is that once brands can buy DOOH like online theyamp8217ll flock to the format sight unseen Enter the OmniChannel DSPs You canamp8217t read an article about DOOH without hearing about them how they will catalyze the growth of our format and be our knight in shining armor In fact I recall a few years back during the introduction at a DPAA summit the presenter referenced The Trade Desk and Googleamp8217s entry into the market as THE key in helping us transform our fortune Imagine that not brands nor agencies that represent them will be the key to our future success But a group of digital intermediaries a group that understands nothing about the outofhome industry are the skeleton keyAs we all wait for The Trade Desk and their ilk to take our industry to the promised land I say donamp8217t hold your breathLike Blue Kai in 2008 they have done a nice job raising awareness of DOOH among the broader marketing and media buying communities They have also introduced the format to new digital focused buyers There was also little bump in programmatic DOOH budgets But letamp8217s make one thing crystal clear omnichannel DSPs and other digital folks entered the OOH space to capture and control a new bucket of money in this case OOHamp8217s modest bucket not to move digital dollars to OOH at scale Only the OOH industry can effectuate this changeIn order to truly maximize the potential of our format we need to showcase and highlight the uniqueness and power of the format That means both focusing on how we can make it easier to transact but also and more importantly maintaining our differentiation This requires an emphasis on how our format is ultimately different not the same as onlineWhen most talk about programmatic DOOH they focus almost exclusively about execution in delivering the media We should spend most of the time talking about the performance this beautiful format can drive when itamp8217s executed well Programmatic works seamlessly online because every unit can be measured similarly so itamp8217s logical to deliver every unit similarly This is not the case with our medium Forget about the fact that we donamp8217t face the myriad issues that digital has related to fraudviewabilityad blockers but we havenamp8217t even scratched the surface of how powerful our format is in their terms in terms of real tangible business results You know those things that CMOs are and should be actually judged on When weamp8217ve worked with our OOH friends to execute and measure pDOOH campaigns properly weamp8217ve seen astronomical results that move businesses forward and weamp8217re just getting started So as we start to learn more about the power of our format in absolute terms we shouldnamp8217t have to commoditize ourselves just to get to the adult tableThis is the great challenge and opportunity for our industry To truly demonstrate to agencies and brands that our medium drives results we need to think differently We need to show that our results can compete with and often times exceed that of other channels We need to show how ads in bars with captive audiences on OTT devices shown to dozens of people is more powerful than 12 of the same CTV ads shown to 12 people in their living room We need to prove that we have the ability to move our advertising partnersamp8217 businesses forward What we donamp8217t need to do is marginalize and commoditize DOOH so it can be purchased like a 300x250 display ad on an obscure website nobody has ever heard of next to 6 other cluttered ads Or pretend weamp8217re CTV Or say we only work if weamp8217re connected to digital retargeting That doesnamp8217t exactly scream progressRemember the motive here Our collective goal is to grow OOH share and we canamp8217t do that without proving our worth amp8211 and we canamp8217t do that without digital AND static winning The larger digital companiesamp8217 goal is to capture digital budget volume whether OOH is 4 or 1 as long as itamp8217s their percent They have no interest in proving out the effectiveness of OOH nor will they innovate on its behalf You donamp8217t think that the OOH budget they piped into their platform goes right into CTV or video or pure online if there is the slightest client pushback rather than learning about the response branding benefits of the marketing in the physical worldWe can increase our 4 share to say 10 by showing that we deserve 10 on the back of our format working to help brands win amp8211 then we can and should jam ourselves into every omnichannel buying platform in the world amp8211 because then and only then will we be valued correctly and authoritatively Remember consumers spend 70 of their waking hours outside the home amp8211 Iamp8217m no math major but 70 of our time creates a lot more media consumption share than the 4 of budget share we currently commandAccess to new data and technology has afforded us the unique opportunity to showcase and highlight the uniqueness and power of our format Or we can use it marginalize ourselves and turn our greatest strengths into weaknesses Itamp8217s up to usamp8230Posted at MediaVillage through the Thought Leadership selfpublishing platformClick the social buttons to share this story with colleagues and friendsThe opinions expressed here are the author39s views and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillageorgMyersBizNet

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My Love / Hate Relationship with the Omni-Channel DSPs in DOOH

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Craig Benner

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My Love / Hate Relationship with the Omni-Channel DSPs in DOOH

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