Programmatic DOOH is the secret weapon in capturing on-the-go consumers
Opinion
The convergence of retail and programmatic DOOH offers a powerful combination of precision-targeting, dynamic engagement and the ability to capture attention effectively.
We’ve all been there: You’re doing your weekly food shop and, as you head to pay, you spot your favourite chocolate bar conveniently positioned at the till. And look — a special offer is being advertised. Into the basket it goes.
Retail media is booming. It’s currently the advertising industry’s fastest-growing sector. Worldwide retail media adspend is forecast to reach a staggering $153.3bn in 2024 and in the US alone it makes up 16% of total digital ad revenue.
Retailers are innovation leaders for in-store retail media, often powered by extensive digital OOH (DOOH) screen networks.
Instead of seeing an offer at the till, what if you saw an ad on a screen outside the store for that chocolate bar before you entered, sparking your desire, and then again in store when you were shopping? Furthermore, what if the ad you saw was displaying a special offer exclusive to that store based on its real-time stock levels?
Adaptable in real time, programmatic DOOH, known as prDOOH, is a measurable media channel that complements the retail environment. Location-focused? Tick. Engaging mass audiences, unskippable, visually appealing, found on impactful screens? Tick. The ability to deliver contextualised, targeted campaigns utilising data directly from the source itself? Tick, tick, tick.
The halo effect
Programmatic DOOH is an effective driver to retail locations — so much so that it even drives results through a halo effect of exposure alone.
For example, Viooh worked with Gucci to boost foot traffic to its Cosmos exhibition at 180 Studios, while also seeing whether the campaign could increase visits to Gucci stores across affluent areas of London. The campaign ran in two phases: phase one delivered in high-income residential areas, while phase two targeted major rail stations.
While the aim of the campaign was ostensibly to drive footfall to the exhibition, results showed a clear correlation between the campaign duration and an uplift in footfall to Gucci store locations across London.
A simple return on advertising spend calculation suggests that if just 1% of the exposed visitors to the 11 Gucci locations measured spent £1,000 in store (the average offline spend in the luxury category), Gucci would have a potential sales uplift of £81,980.
Meeting people where they are, at the right time, in the right place, is another benefit for programmatic DOOH, ensuring messages land with impact. For the launch of its flagship store on London’s Regent Street, running brand On deployed a programmatic DOOH campaign targeting audiences centred on this location.
On the store’s opening night, a run from Hyde Park to the location was organised, with runners tracked and creatives deployed to prime DOOH screens on Oxford Street en route at the precise moment they passed. Dynamic elements on the poster urged runners in the right direction. This campaign was visible to the public in an extremely high-impact, high-traffic shopping area and helped On double its expected footfall benchmark for the first night.
Flying high with prDOOH
Airports, another high-footfall retail location, typically see affluent audiences with high spending power and longer dwell times. They present an ideal environment for a retail-focused advertiser.
Media Frankfurt, which owns the DOOH advertising network at Frankfurt Airport, Germany’s largest business-travel hub, is experimenting with the integration of in-store data from duty-free shops into programmatic DOOH campaigns running on its network.
This represents an opportunity for advertising to tap into desirable audiences in the airport environment, encompassing relevant advertising verticals for higher-ticket items such as luxury, alcohol and technology.
Programmatic technology can be used to tailor the ads to specific times of day for even more relevance. Media Frankfurt will also investigate further advancements, such as ingesting flight data to predict the type of retail deals that will appeal to audiences depending on their destination.
Sandra Müller, team lead, business development, at Media Frankfurt, is thrilled about “the prospect of accessing precise audience and retail data, allowing campaigns to be more targeted and effective”. Programmatic is enabling the channel to be looked at with a wider lens in terms of the data integration and advanced targeting for the specific audiences nearby — in this case, the airport retail environment.
Programmatic DOOH is data-led at its heart and this has a transformative effect in the retail environment by making it possible to deliver real-time messaging against bricks-and-mortar stores. There are almost limitless creative possibilities provided by the integration of first- and third-party data, and programmatic DOOH is able to integrate these data sources easily for high-impact campaigns, reaching potential customers on the go.
The convergence of retail and programmatic DOOH represents an exciting opportunity in the advertising landscape, offering a powerful combination of precision-targeting, dynamic engagement and the ability to capture attention and engage audiences meaningfully and effectively.
In a world where people are on the go and attention spans are shorter than ever, ads that tap into mindsets and behaviours are valuable. The effect of priming on the way to and beyond the traditional customer journey should not be underestimated by advertisers.
Diu Hoang is senior marketing manager, EMEA, at Viooh