Digital OOH

Post DOOH.2 in Manila: From the BING KIMPO Show!

1:52 PM





5 Years, 3 Conferences & Hours of Talk Later, My Takeaway: To Promote DOOH, Pitch Projects & Ideas - NOT the Medium.







A few days ago, I stood as the emcee at the 2nd Philippine Forum on Digital Out-Of-Home (DOOH) Media in Metro Manila.
It was a fascinating Friday forum. We saw a lot of amazing executions from around the world and some from the Philippines that seemed to have opened the eyes of most participants. Excellent presentations, Lloyd Tronco, Manolo Almagro, Bob Michaels, Ricky Baizas,Christian Besler, Brian Siy, Carol Sarthou and Myrel De Castro.
Zooming out, the refrain was coming to me loud and clear: if we plan to take this medium forward - as individual businesses and as an industry - we must stop thinking that it already is a veritable medium that is understood and appreciated the way TV, radio and print are; instead, we must allow DOOH to earn its merits a step at a time.
For now, we must pitch DOOH projects, campaigns and ideas - NOT the medium itself.We just can't afford to. Not yet, at least.
It seems that thinking of DOOH as a medium pre-supposes a few things: 1) that we know what we are selling; 2) that media-buyers and/or advertisers themselves know what they are buying; and 3) that there is an agreed-upon currency or valuation system that allows both parties to perceive that they are coming to a fair transaction.
Based on my experience, I'd say that these three conditions are not present at this time - on an industry-wide scale, that is.
Which leads us to the recommendation to pitch projects / campaigns. Why? Because the better ones have clearly defined objectives and - quite importantly - a set timefame for achieving them. Projects / Campaigns / Ideas do not necessarily rely on having industry measures such as Opportunity-To-See (OTS). Instead, they may have metrics that may be as simple as, say... a 30% increase in the number of surrenderees from para-military insurgents over the Christmas season, as one of the case studies / examples below will show.
Still on the subject of measurement, it was noteworthy that several resources recommended that DOOH be tied-in to its more accountable cousins - Web and mobile. These twin siblings will certainly be able to produce clicks and hits that can make the numeric case for DOOH.
Too much tech will kill you?
I've got a feeling that DOOH at this stage seems so enamored with technology, that we need to pull back and ask what all these new-found capabilities and facilities are really for.
At the end of the day, we may do well to take a cue from the learnings of mobile. It's no longer so much about the phone these days, but the apps.
Let's pitch an idea, then round up the DOOH tools to execute it. Advertising is about our first audience - the advertiser or media buyer listening to our pitch. Let's ask them what they need, come up with a plan, then harness DOOH tech to achieve that.
As Philip Kotler reminds us, "a carpenter isn't buying a drill, he's buying a hole."

Postscript:
Nestle Philippines Digital Executive Ricky Baizas came up with a left-field remark in singing the praises of DOOH: "Digital Out-Of-Home is the Michael Jackson of media, the fifth of the Jackson 5 who eventually slipped past his older siblings to be the biggest star of them all." I'm keeping my fingers crossed that you're right, Ricky.

Some of the amazing projects / campaigns that blew our minds that Friday morning:

Speaker Line-Up:
(L-R) Manolo Almagro, Bob Michaels, Ricky Baizas, Christian Besler, Lloyd Tronco, Bing Kimpo. Not in photo: Bryan Siy of TWBA\SMP. Thanks Guys!

Thanks to Margarita Pantaleon for the photo.




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