New DOOH mall network has dwell time to die for

Shopping malls are a really interesting environment to put in an ad-based screen network, and the one that’s starting to spark up in the Middle East is intriguing for a couple of reasons.

As DailyDOOH notes, the Al Barq Digital network is actually owned by the Abu Dhabi government and therefore poses little risk for mall operators who sign – unlike start-up media firms.

But more to the point, the average mall visit in the Emirates region is something like three hours. My ideal mall visit is more like three minutes, but I don’t live in a blast furnace. Malls over there are, I assume, part consumerism but also part escape from the heat.

The net result is you have people in or around screens for much or all of that time, and the Al Barq people (Brit ex-pat GM Andrew Wood was a colleague at EnQii in my dark past) seem to have done a good job of coverage (there are 64 screens positioned around the mall) and presence (the screens are 65 inch LCDs).

So what you end up with is a pretty strong set of reach and frequency numbers for screens big enough and prevalent enough that people will notice. You still, of course, have to get the brands on board to buy time – but starting with a solid formula certainly helps.

The company – AD Media DOOH – plans to install in malls around the Middle East and North Africa region.