It was all about integrating the dynamics of digital and mobile world in the OOH landscape, in the session, ‘Beyond 20% growth potential- Connecting (D)OOH and Mobile!’, held as part of the World Out of Home Organization (WOO) European Forum meeting on May 18.
Christian Schmalzl, Co-CEO, Stroer SE &CO. KGaA, and Andy Sriuabas, Chief Commercial Officer, OUTFRONT Media, took the audience through the fundamentals of making DOOH and mobile advertising an inherent part of OOH.
Christian began the session by sharing some of the key learnings his company gathered while establishing themselves as a major DOOH player in the German market.
Sharing his journey he said, “Ten years ago we started with installing screens across 130 train stations, public transportation systems and 120 shopping malls across major cities in the country, with 5,000 premium LCD full motion screens in combination as a network, reaching 40% of the total population. Our journey started small. But quite early on in this journey we stopped calling it DOOH network and branded it ‘Public Video’ or ‘Video Everywhere’”.
He then went on to share some key learnings as a DOOH player which serve as tips to other industry players:
Pitching with the right language: As Christian pointed out, most of the ad spends allocated were for TV broadcasting or later online videos, so as DOOH players they simply had to call their offerings ‘video advertising in public space or public video’ so as to fit into the scheme of things. This also meant location based advertising as against site selling and using words that digital marketers use: impressions and audience. “Demsystify the clunky digital marketing language, find the analogy with OOH and simply transfer it to the digital world - steal with pride,” as Christian pointed out.
Simplify wherever possible: Christian also warned against over complicating as simple solutions work, especially when they “emphasise the key strengths of OOH medium”, as he said. “We highlight local targeting opportunities in public videos with very simple targeting features like weather based updates, etc.