Adcentricity releases latest DOOH outlooks and market reviews

February 17, 2011 by Dave Haynes

There is a pile of good information and insights in the latest Adcentricity resource guides released today and available to anyone interested. It’s smart marketing and also speaks to the unselfish notion of helping raise the industry through sharing and distributing information.

The company, which positions itself now as a location based digital ad network and planning platform, has released both its 2011 Digital Out of Home Media Outlook & Planning Guide and Q4 2010 Digital Out of Home Market Review, the latter a compilation of market data and insight intended for agencies and marketers who want to better understand this Digital OOH thing.

In the 2010 Q4 Review:

– 2011 is the year the technology, which powers DOOH grows to a more pervasive level of sophistication. Creative messaging and consumers can be targeted down to the venue level, zip code, or channel, and made incredibly dynamic. New sophistications allow incredibly complex data-driven opportunities: Imagine a wireless carrier marketing a new phone or plan by audience segmentation, and then tagging messages on screen with the closest retail store location alongside geographically driven twitter feeds. What sounds incredibly complex to execute will become the norm in DOOH

– Retail will be hot. CPG giants are shifting major percentages of their marketing budgets to shopper marketing strategies. That shift owes much to changing consumer behaviors and media consumption patterns that once again reinforce how important it is to get messages in front of shoppers when they are making buying decisions or when they are in a buying mentality, not only when they’re at home on the couch.

– DOOH will stand alone. Much of the media attention, measurement, revenue reporting and creative focus lumps DOOH into a broad category with the likes of cinema advertising and the big Digital Outdoor boards that line major city squares and major roadways. While these forms of media are great at supporting certain efforts, they are not DOOH, which includes place-based (e.g., doctor offices) and retail locations. DOOH will being to emerge on its own this year and get out from under many of the one off, Times Square oriented promotions to become more of a sustainable, community targeted medium that delivers on its promise.

From the 2011 Outlook:

ADCENTRICITY maintains and nurtures a transparent working relationship with scores of DOOH network operators across the US and Canada. Screen capacity has grown to over 204,000, up 22% year over year. Venues have increased 28% to over 56,000 (and growing) with a significant increase in capacity trending towards 14 to 23% in the first two quarters of 2011. But the real story is in audience. Total ADCENTRICITY audience impressions have increased 28% over the last year, now exceeding 550 million per month. To put in context, American Idol has an average of 20 million viewers of part or all of the show with advertising rates for a regularly scheduled prime-time network series, selling at over $700,000 for a 30-second slot.

In DOOH, much like all significant media where scale is extremely important – although the quality of the network, audience, location, market ranking, systems capabilities, processes and content are ultimately what matters when engaging consumers. Screens are now everywhere, and network growth is on a steep curve up. It’s no longer enough – if it ever was enough – to tout the novelty and apparent cleverness of getting TV-like advertising in front of people when they’re not sitting on sofas with their remotes in hand. The space needs to tout its scope, impact and value.

Respected measurement is the start, but networks need to bolster that with specific, credible research showing the impact of campaigns. Part of the story is showing the cause and effect of targeted advertising resulting in increased sales. But getting on plans also involves talking about addressing needs beyond the checkout counter. Did the advertising shift brand perceptions? Were those who recall the advertising more likely to recommend the brand? Did the campaign get them into a store? Although important, there’s much more to it than percentage sales upticks alone in the value of DOOH media’s capabilities.

You will find a lot of great information about top markets and where the money is going. The guides are both a great resource and pretty much required reading for anyone looking seriously at playing in this space as an operator, vendor or investor.

The guides are free downloads on the company’s site.