Article

Growth in digital out-of-home 'overwhelmingly retail'

May 3, 2010 by Christopher Hall — writer, self

DOOH aggregator and strategy firm ADCENTRICITY on Monday released its inaugural quarterly Digital Out-of-Home Market Review — what it calls "a compilation of market data and insight best leveraged as a reference guide for agencies and marketers seeking a better understanding of the DOOH advertising sector."
 
The report is intended to be the first of ongoing quarterly reports tracking ad spending in the DOOH space, and the initial survey of the field is encouraging, says ADCENTRICITY president Rob Gorrie.
 
"The thing that’s most encouraging from our side of things is that the industries that are starting to spend in the space — in terms of the big guys of automotive, telecommunications and financial services — we’re starting to see them mirror the exact spending patterns that happen in traditional media and online," Gorrie said. "So it’s starting to look like the medium is maturing…It’s really encouraging and bodes well for growth into the future."
 
In announcing the report, ADCENTRICITY noted some key findings:

• Networks operating in retail venues are dominating DOOH spending and following the same patterns as traditional media spending, with automotive, financial services and telecommunications by far the biggest categories.
• Packaged goods and entertainment brands are not yet moving as aggressively into the DOOH space, owing to traditional caution, demands for extensive testing, and with entertainment, a need for more education on how good creative will overcome cases where audio is not used.
• Retail locations (grocery, pharmacy, c-store, coffee shops) were the winners by actual spending through 2009. Of the 70 environment types available across 100 networks, the top six categories accounted for approximately 69 percent of all media dollars and they were overwhelmingly retail.
• While mainstream agencies have DOOH on their radar, and are allocating dollars, digital agencies haven’t yet adopted or fully understood this medium’s capabilities. Ironically, there’s a digital divide where there should be a natural fit.