Why Campaigns Don’t Include DOOH
Gail Chiasson, North American Editor
Media planners don’t think that there’s any bad media, but digital out-of-home has a lot of obstacles to its growth to overcome, Danick Archambault, media group director, Cossette, Montreal, told the audience at the first Montreal CODACAN breakfast meeting last week.
As in the U.S., the DOOH industry in Canada is making efforts to educate and build awareness among media planners and buyers so as to grow and be considered more prominently in media plans on a regular basis.
Taking a clue from the Out-of-Home Video Advertising Bureau (OVAB)’s successful efforts in the U.S., CODACAN is also trying to attract more agency media planners and buyers to its meetings, in its awareness-building efforts, and had some success in Montreal with close to half of the 65 registered attendants from that sector.
However, if Archambault’s views are typical of the perceptions of media planners, DOOH networks and their advertising sales representatives have a fairly steep hill to climb – and quickly – if the industry is not to fall behind in Canada.
“I’m speaking mainly of Quebec media planners’ perceptions,” said Archambault. “We do put DOOH in campaigns where appropriate. But media planners have to see all the consumer touch points, all the variables, when planning a campaign. We look at reach, target, activity. environment, time of day, the simplicity of the message, consumer behavior and more. There’s so much media fragmentation now that we have to take innovative routes and have a more diversified media mix.”
“We’re aware that 16 % of people (35% of the 18-34 age group) learn of news on screens in public places, and screens do take a lot of attention. One advantage that DOOH has is that creative that is developed for TV can often be used for DOOH screens.”
Archambault sees numerous obstacles to growth of DOOH, though:
- the lack of demonstration of ROI;
- the need for better communication and education in agencies;
- research metrics so all will be on the one page;
- quality content;
- the need for measurement tools of all types including for attitudes and brands…and more.
“DOOH sales people will often say to check out various points, but they don’t have the data to prove what they’re saying,” says Archambault. “Media vendors have to put together research. If recall was better, give us numbers to prove it. For ROI, you need numbers. We want to know the length of time of the visit. “
“We want to see precise targeting with optimal inventory, in terms of place, time and frequency. Give us CPMs, CPEs.”
Archambault says that, in an ideal world, CODACAN should make sure that everybody is heading in the same direction – and have more events.
“It’s not that DOOH companies have bad intentions,” says Archambault. “But as media planners we need information, research, proof. Standard metrics are needed.”
Informed in an interview following the CODACAN event that Ca href=”http://www.captivate.com”>Captivate Network has recently done a Nielsen survey offering both U.S. and Canadian advertisers audience metrics that are consistent with OVAB guidelines, Archambault said that many agencies, especially in Quebec, may not even know about OVAB’s guidelines.
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