‘From Digital OOH to OOH Digital’: How a digital-first perspective can unlock the creative advantage of DOOH

Digital-out-of-home (DOOH) and the continual evolution of data and technology have changed so rapidly over the last five years, it is no surprise to learn that the level of education and understanding of the creative capabilities of the medium has struggled to keep pace. Education around what the technology can do seems to be well understood by most media agencies and advertisers, but not sufficiently by the ones actually producing the ideas – the creatives themselves.

So that old adage of ‘you don’t know what you don’t know’ highlights a current and significant flaw in the process. If creatives do not know what DOOH is or what it does, then how can they push the boundaries and create brilliant campaigns? Pushing boundaries is what creatives love to do, after all.

Without a contextual understanding of DOOH and how it could be used, it is hardly surprising that creatives are not initiating ideas or opportunities for using the medium as part of a creative solution. It also means that when the creative brief includes DOOH, they fall back to a more traditional view of what that OOH should look like.

So maybe we are approaching it all wrong?