Global DOOH: New DOOH Insights Blog Looking At Middle East Sector

January 9, 2011 by Dave Haynes

A new blog looking at the Digital Out Of Home industry in the Middle East has been started by one of that region’s high-flying new companies, Al Barq Digital.

The firm – which launched this past summer and has started rolling out in shopping malls – is owned and operated by Abu Dhabi Media Digital Out Of Home, which is in turn a subsidiary of the Abu Dhabi Media Company multimedia conglomerate in that region. (Disclosure: AD Media DOOH is a pressDOOH client)

To Al Barq’s credit, DOOH Insights is not a self-serving, barren wasteland of a corporate blog. Way too many companies start blogs and have nothing to say and rarely update it. This one has started with a lot of solid material and Al Barq says it is intended as a platform for ongoing dialogue among the MENA region’s outdoor media professionals.

While the DOOH sector is starting to come into its own regionally, there are very few resources dedicated to this medium. There are technology blogs, but hardly any voices discussing emerging trends, market news, information and good industry practice.

DOOH Insights looks to fill this gap, whilst complementing the advocacy initiatives announced recently by Al Barq, which include setting new robust standards in the sector, commissioning an industry outlook report, establishing a regulatory body and ultimately driving a culture of knowledge sharing and innovation, building reputation for digital Out of Home as an independent and recognised medium within the media landscape.

“DOOH Insights strengthens Al Barq’s commitment to revolutionising the DOOH industry and it presents a great opportunity for us all to share, communicate and collaborate on DOOH topics, and interact more directly with our peers so that we can better understand and address the issues we are facing today”, said Andrew Wood, General Manager of Al Barq Digital.

DOOH Insights features news, commentary, regional and international updates, insights, a calendar of events, a library of white papers and more. It will also include contributions from regional spokespeople and highly regarded international industry leaders.

“DOOH Insights is not a self-serving blog for our network, but, as the name implies, an outlet for thoughts, experiences, news and ideas about the industry as a whole. DOOH Insights is also not intended to be a one-way conversation and we hope that readers use the blog to share their news, interact with the wider community through commentary and debate. The blog also offers a great opportunity to showcase the excellent work and initiatives from around the region”, explained Wood.

If you’re passionate about DOOH, really interested in the MENA media landscape and want to be part of one of the fastest growing media in the region and help push the industry forward, please get in touch with Natasha.Hatherall [at] albarqdigital.com, as we’d love for you to be part of the DOOH Insights team.

I will be doing posts here and there for the blog, and am pleased the Al Barq team recognized the importance of making the effort about the industry, not about them, and truly committing to keeping it refreshed. The company takes a back-seat and it takes some digging, in fact, to establish who is behind the blog.

There are scores of blogs by DOOH companies that started and quickly stalled because the bosses just wanted to talk about themselves, and didn’t have a lot to say. Any new blog coming into this sector now needs to determine whether what its writers have to say is new, interesting and unique in some way. There’s a good chance it’s just more noise and will have no following.

But in the case of DOOH Insights, the sector is just emerging in the region, and the focus is on education. That will resonate.

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