How can APAC brands better leverage DOOH as part of their marketing mix?

With the rapid digitalisation in recent years, it is getting increasingly common for marketers to utilise digital out-of-home (DOOH) as the go-to advertising platform and the APAC region has seen an explosive growth in DOOH. In fact, research group IMARC saw the region’s DOOH market reach USD$8 billion in 2022 and expects the market to hit USD$18 billion by 2028.

Adtech company Hivestack’s figures also showed spending on outdoor advertising in APAC is projected to reach US$22.8bn by 2024, a 33% increase YOY since 2021. The APAC inventory made available via the Hivestack platform doubled the past year, with over one million screens across 80 media owners delivering over 118 billion monthly impressions.

What this stems from is that DOOH is now not just a part of, but a big contributor to the omnichannel marketing mix, said Ben Baker, managing director, APAC, Vistar Media. “The uptake of DOOH innovations such as data-driven creatives, mobile extensions and smart measurement has provided engagement and data for marketers in an industry that, in the past, has suffered from a lack of measurable results,” he added.

Reasons behind the rise of DOOH 

The increase in adspend on DOOH does not come out of the blue. Ranga Somanathan, co-founder at RSquared Global Ventures and former CEO of Omnicom Media Group said with the infusion of technology, marketers are able to layer the media buying with sharper planning strategies, such as time of day, day of week, targeting the consumers on their journey from home to office or mall and the other way around.

Agreeing with Somanathan was David Chan, Dentsu Hong Kong's head of trading and partnership, who said DOOH can be used very effectively to engage consumers at relevant times during a purchase cycle. "For example, when consumer is in a market ready to buy; when an advertiser wants to build attention and drive consideration at the point of purchase. Dynamic creative allows flexibility to hit different metrics or outcomes as things change," he added. 

Furthermore, Chan also said DOOH allows greater efficiency when buying. "Using sales data and heat mapping, clients can use budgets more effectively, which therefore allows marketing spends to deliver stronger outcomes."

He added:

In addition, instead of full domination, DOOH can be purchased by different levels of SOV (share of voice) and this lower down the entry costs and allow some smaller budget campaigns to have some OOH elements which would not be possible in the past.

Apart from precise targeting and campaign delivery which allows brands to engage with audiences in the right place at the right time, Sally Ng, VP of sales, HK and Taiwan, Hivestack, said the flexibility of programmatic pricing models is also key. “It give brands the power to adjust campaign parameters, increase or decrease ad spend, or even pause campaigns altogether in response to external changes, all in real-time,” she said.

Proving ROI in the current economic climate is critical. Ng also said that programmatic DOOH now comes with the added benefit of unprecedented audience measurement capabilities including brand lift studies and footfall measurement, allowing brands the ability to understand the impact on several key KPIs.

How can marketers better leverage DOOH in campaigns in APAC? 

With the industry showing no sign of slowing down, industry players MARKETING-INTERACTIVE spoke to believed that marketers need to understand how DOOH should be the go-to advertising medium when looking to increase exposure at the top of the funnel. Furthermore, with increasing competition and rising costs of living, brands need to deliver greater campaign flexibility and efficiency if they are to continue to cut through the noise.

As DOOH continues to evolve across APAC, Vistar’s Baker said brands must prioritise it across their marketing campaigns.

With people out and about now more than ever,  DOOH is an effective vehicle to amplify a relevant, personalised message and build brand awareness by strategically placing advertisements at key moments throughout a consumer’s day.

Brands can also better leverage the channel’s data-driven capabilities, such as dynamic creative, to build and activate ads that consumers are most receptive to, Baker added. “Finally, marketers can effectively measure their campaigns to better understand the impact on full funnel KPIs through precise measurement studies such as brand lift, foot traffic and online conversions,” he said.

With the development of technology, some of the flat screens and two screens with an angle can show 3D creatives. Dentsu HK's Chan said advertisers should prepare the most suitable and interesting creatives to best utilise the digital screens.

Advertisers should focus on the creativity of the advertisement and what is the strategic advantages of the OOH sites and to maximise the location advantage with the creativities.

RSquared’s Somanathan suggested marketers to revisit their planning guidelines to include DOOH as a key reach builder. “Looking at DOOH as a platform that can integrate with their digital campaigns and working with DOOH tech partners to build test and learn campaigns to start-with and scale their investments backed by learnings are a few things that marketers can do to unlock the potential of DOOH,” he added.

Agreeing with Somanathan was Hivestack’s Ng, who said by leveraging DOOH, marketers can analyse performance metrics while the campaign is running and make adjustments to optimise overall campaign performance , mirroring the benefits of other digital channels. 

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