TAKE AWAYS AND REFLECTIONS FROM WOO IN MILAN.
BE CURIOUS NOT JUDGEMENTAL!
In this Ocean Talks Anders Persson, Chief Intelligence Officer, Ocean Outdoor Nordics reflects on his visit to the World Out Of Home Organization’s first ever Europe Forum.
With a month’s perspective on the WOO Conference in Milan, the first impression was a city that presented itself in a slightly mysterious and foggy manner. But the conference presenters sure lit up the environment with many spot on analysis, with the OOH industry approached from many interesting angles.
This made think of the epic football coach Ted Lasso, in the series with the same name on Apple+, and all his colorful expressions and especially one of his borrowed quotes: Be curious and not judgmental!
But back to that in a minute, because what I want to do here is to share and elaborate on some of the reflections that came to mind, during two days of listening to all of the eminent WOO speakers.
The first reflection is that it’s hard to comprehend in this 42 Billion Dollar industry, that we are still struggling with the so called “5%-syndrome”, which has been an Achilles heel for the OOH industry for many years.
How is it possible that we as an industry only succeed to grab five bucks out of hundred, ie 5% of the total media spends.
So, what can possibly take the OOH industry pass that 5% marker?
Well, besides the digitalization that now has set the DOOH spending to 37% or almost 17 Billion Dollars a year (and growing), there a are a couple of factors that might send us to the moon and make the 5% syndrome a distant memory.
OOH is one of the oldest media channels which is truly honorable, but it also comes with traditions and standards that needs to be re-considered!
So, this where Ted Lasso’s (who wasn’t at the conference btw) borrowed quote – Be curious and not judgmental, comes into mind!
And there were several areas and takeaways that spotlights the need of curiosity as a healthy challenge on traditional patterns. Especially from a creative, tech and measurement perspective.
CREATIVITY
What can really multiply our advertising profitability? Creativity of course, and it can be measured!
Ocean’s Nordic CMO Jesper Albansson and world leading creative effectiveness expert Orlando Wood from System1 made an exciting and thought provoking presentation about advertising as entertainment -‘ why advertising is actually show business, requiring energy, confidence and chutzpah.’
They set out the importance of showmanship advertising for growth and profit and described how Out Of Home can serve as the stage. Spanning classic examples from DDB in the 1960s to modern state-of-the-art full-motion DOOH like DeepScreen®️, they discussed the creative principles needed for effective showmanship in OOH.
The always interesting Dino Burbridge presented the Leo Burnett +7 system of creativity. It’s a 10- grade scale that goes from Destructive (1) to Changing the World (10).
+7 on the scale means (an inspiring idea beautifully crafted), 8 (changes the way people think and feel), 9 (changes the way people live)
I’m quite sure that if we continue to highlight how pivotable creativity and strong creative ideas are, we can boost the OOH creativity level up to a +7 on the scale above.
This would drive both curiosity for and the perception of OOH as the environment to be creative in. And pushed boundaries within creative height, where the audience is really inspired and challenged in their way of thinking, will most certainly boost the ROI.
So, using OOH as the creative amplifier and primer for all other ingredients in the omni channel mix, will make OOH the must have as it is supposed to be!
MEASUREMENT
Another must have in order to create stability and credibility in all OOH markets is Audience Measurement and this is an area that definitely need a spoon full of curiosity!
Fixed structures and research models need to become much more dynamic, and static foot fall data in bulk needs to be exchanged to contemporary data collected from real time sources.
A very insightful session on the subject was led by Espen Elmoe from Allunite, with a special focus Data Fusion.
A key ingredient in audience measurement is the foot fall data. No single data source is perfect, so multiple contemporary (real time) sources as sensors, SDK’s, cameras and telco data working in collaboration, will create the best possibilities to make foot fall data as immune as possible to inaccuracies and anomalies.
So, by merging multiple contemporary sources, several old challenges can be unlocked and that will contribute to a new standard. This will push audience measurement forward, more markets can be added to the AM-map and more media owners can join industry projects, and that will also contribute to put the 5%-syndrome behind us all.
PROGRAMMATIC AND TECH
OOH has certainly entered a tech era and through the digital transformation our daily operations generate massive volumes of data. Not that we haven’t done that before, but the generated data from a DOOH operation is quite different in many ways.
So, when we create structures where data is converted to actionable insight, we are creating very interesting environment for ourselves. From here we can control, optimize, professionalize and not the least amplify our operations in a totally different manner than ever before.
While tech for online channels has been everyday food since birth, that hasn’t been the case for OOH. And when OOH becomes DOOH, tech becomes a part of our DNA. When we’re then creating new innovative and experiental solutions to our clients, tech is the cornerstone and “the supercharger” that will help us deliver WOW factors to our audiences on a weekly basis.
The programmatic era is also here, and it has really entered the DOOH market with a bang. New ways of trading often come with expectations but programmtic doesn’t mean success per say, but it certainly makes DOOH inventory more accessible for new buyers and new brands, many that haven’t been close to DOOH before.
Interesting referral by ChristianSchmalzl at Stroer in Germany, where 80% of the Stroer OOH growth comes from DOOH, and 60% of the DOOH growth comes from programmatic. The future will tell whether that’s a pattern that the overall DOOH market will adopt.
So many more interesting presentations were held, especially by fellow shipmates from Ocean Outdoor DaanKrijnen and Jesper Albansson. Well done!
Thank you, WOO and Milan, hope to see you soon again!
Barbecue sauce! (Epic Ted Lasso closing)