Calling the current climate an interesting time for marketers would be an understatement. Determining the right message to convey, via the right channels, at the right time – all while working with reduced budgets – is no easy undertaking.
The key to navigating all this? Agility.
Budget fluidity, the heart of an agile campaign
Budget fluidity is a framework many media buyers have been working into their client agreements since the rise of programmatic. The basic concept is that overall audience goals and brand messaging are at the core of the strategy and the total budget is free to flow as the campaign progresses.
What’s important here is that a budget isn’t locked into one publisher or even one channel, and gives buyers the flexibility to adjust campaign delivery based on current events, performance or even client-specific requests, right as they arise.
This flexibility enhances the omnichannel approach most media buyers know and love, by further breaking down the silos between channels. And as more channels move to programmatic, the agility budget fluidity ads to a campaign only grows.
Flexible digital out-of-home campaigns
Until recently, digital out-of-home (DOOH) wasn’t really part of the budget fluidity conversation, still being treated as a separate silo by digital media buyers and OOH specialists alike. Even adjusting campaigns quickly within the DOOH channel could be quite cumbersome, having to call and negotiate with all publishers individually.
However, programmatic digital out-of-home has gained significant traction in the past few years. Most of the largest DOOH publishers have made their inventory available via DSPs, opening up significant flexibility for media buyers across the globe.
The channel now has a strong, albeit still somewhat unknown, seat at the omnichannel table. And this couldn’t have come at a better time.
With the next chapter in the COVID saga somewhat unknown, and social movements creating an increasingly important need for brand safety, DOOH has a significant role to play in advertisers’ 2020 marketing strategy.
The importance of flexibility in your COVID strategy
Flexibility between channels is a must in your 2020 media strategy, as being locked into any particular campaign is likely not the best approach in these uncertain times. We may be unsure what the future holds for economies, both local and global, but there will certainly be an ebb and flow in consumer habits. This is where DOOH plays an important role.
In the past few months, many of us experienced some form of “media overload”, with reports even showing that social media usage had a significant impact on mental health during the crisis. More than ever, people are eager to put down their personal devices and head into the real-world.
What does that mean for all your current digital campaigns? DOOH allows you to follow your audience outdoors. With buying workflows similar to online, mobile and social channels, and potentially even the ability to use the same creatives, the transition can be very smooth.
Actually, many omnichannel DSPs now offer DOOH inventory, and as different cities and environments open up, budgets can simply be moved from one channel to the other within the same interface.
Yet as we know, people might be a bit too eager to head outside, and a second wave is possible. If that happens and restrictions are put back in place, programmatic DOOH is entirely flexible, and you can easily transition your budget back to social and web advertising.
For more on this topic, be sure to check out our on-demand webinar: Why programmatic DOOH is a must in your crisis recovery marketing strategy.
Manoeuvering budgets in the brand safety era
Brand safety has always been a concern for digital marketers yet in the current times, being involved, whether directly or by proxy, in any mishap has a fairly significant punch.
Take the current Facebook boycott. Whether you and your clients chose to move away from advertising on this channel or not, one thing is clear: it’s an extremely interesting case study on how brands are protecting themselves. If a channel is deemed unsafe, the budgets are removed.
It’s more important than ever to have a few tricks up your sleeve, not relying on one particular channel to carry your marketing strategy. And while there are of course many brand-safe channels, DOOH scores particularly well in this area.
For one, there is no user-generated content accompanying your ads. All media is controlled directly by the publisher. Each piece of content is approved by their team, which leaves you in good hands – brand safety is also extremely important to publishers, as inappropriate content aired in public spaces can be very damaging to their reputation.
DOOH tech companies also add additional layers of brand safety to their platform. For example, our SSP, Broadsign Reach, has algorithms in place to prevent ads from the same industry playing back-to-back and also prevents certain brand-types from playing on particular screens, just to name a few.
So if you’re looking for an alternative channel to invest your campaign budget in, DOOH is a great choice. As a matter of fact, integrating OOH can increase campaign reach by up to 303% when used alongside mobile and web, and make it 46 percent more likely for consumers to engage with a brand on their mobile device.
Is your budget truly fluid?
Working fluidity into budgets opens up significant flexibility and is an important element to your omnichannel strategy, but if you aren’t quite there yet, not to worry, there’s no time like the present to get started.
For a look into how easy it is to include DOOH in your omnichannel campaigns, book a demo to get started.
