#FDTOOH: Following the breadcrumbs

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OOH is moving from a static medium to one that targets the consumer based on their location, says MD Posterscope South Africa, Bruce Burgess. He was addressing delegates at Posterscope's Future Defining Themes of OOH Conference held at the Venue Green Park in Sandton.

Location is the common currency, adds Nic Halas, Head of Futures for Posterscope UK. “It is a key thread and has been called the marketing vital frontier by Forbes. By the end of 2019, nearly 50% of spend in all channels will have a location filter.”

“Previously understanding location and the physical geography was important, but we are not marketing to the environment, but to the people so we need to understand who these people are,” he says.

“With location data reaching critical mass, consumers are providing breadcrumbs of data and it's the role of the out of home agency to string the breadcrumbs together to be more relevant to clients and consumers,” says Burgess.

OOH can use this data to optimise the performance of OOH throughout the OOH conversation journey. “This allows us to predict where to place OOH campaigns, as well as to understand what is happening in selected locations, showing the profiles of consumers in that environment and then delivering an effective OOH campaign to that target audience.”

Halas says it is about reaching the consumer at the right place with the right content. Here the delivery of dynamic content is pivotal.

“Content delivery is evolving from simple to complex, to include integrating day parts, location-based messaging, weather triggered, social amplification, countdown mechanic, multiple sequential messaging, and sales data driven,” he says.

Integrated location planning is gaining momentum. “Defined as considering the whole marketing mix, it requires you to think differently on how OOH can integrate and converge with other mediums," he says.

Burgess says digitisation and technology are providing OOH with creative solutions, and this is changing how it can integrate with the other mediums. “The implications for clients is enormous as we can continually improve on the ROI of our clients’ communication spend, giving clients what they want – that is to deliver on their profit target.”

At the same time the OOH medium must deliver the creative executions consumers want. “Consumers vote with their wallets and if we give them creativity, they will give the client profits.”

What it all adds up to, he says, is increasing the medium's spend. “For the past three years OOH spend has remained unchanged at 11%. With this new world, we can change this figure, upwards.”

Read more: #FDTOOH: Making out of home work