Beyond the billboard: The impact of DOOH during big cultural moments

Here, members of IAB UK’s DOOH Group share innovative strategies and success stories that highlight how DOOH can elevate advertising efforts during significant cultural moments.

Standing out during major cultural events can be challenging, but Digital Out-of-Home (DOOH) advertising offers a unique solution: combining real-time adaptability with high-impact visibility. By integrating creative content with the excitement of live events, marketers can enhance engagement, boost brand awareness, and drive campaign effectiveness, according to IAB Compass.

With the Paris Olympics just around the corner, it's a timely moment to ask - how can marketers take advantage of these opportunities? Here, members of IAB UK’s DOOH Group share innovative strategies and success stories that highlight how DOOH can elevate advertising efforts during significant cultural moments.

How can marketers leverage DOOH to reach consumers during big cultural events?

Data feeds can enhance creativity

Julia Connaughton (strategy director, DAX outdoor, Global): “Marketers can utilize Programmatic out-of-home (PrOOH) during big cultural events in several clever and creative ways. The most noteworthy is combining relevant data sources. For example, we can access customer and location data through Route, Transport for London and TGI. Using this rich data, we can identify high-footfall screens near big venues where we know target audiences are. Advertisers can then generate creative ads related to those events, in near real-time. To summarize, programmatic buying allows contextual messaging that aligns with an event. Data feeds can enhance creativity and relevance. It allows clever ad placement to help marketers enhance attention, engagement, brand awareness and campaign effectiveness, all whilst being embedded amongst historical, memorable moments.”

Agility is key to capitalizing on pivotal moments

Lee Cutter (VP, sales, UK, Nordics & MENA, Hivestack by Perion): "Big cultural events offer marketers unparalleled opportunities to connect with massive, diverse audiences. With the sports market expected to grow 9.66% annually, reaching US $4.18bn by 2027, integrating programmatic DOOH in marketing strategies is crucial. This technology enables real-time, contextually relevant creative delivery aligning with event excitement. Marketers can create dynamic experiences that resonate with audiences everywhere. Dynamic Creative Optimization (DCO) allows for agile responses to game-changing moments, keeping brands relevant. By incorporating DOOH into omnichannel strategies, marketers can amplify messages beyond the event itself easily and efficiently. In today's fragmented media landscape, programmatic DOOH is a powerful tool for significant impact during global cultural moments."

When ads become a part of the event itself

Oliver Goodge (head of programmatic, i-media): “Cultural events like festivals, the Euros and Taylor Swift’s Era's Tour are life's highlights - moments of pure emotion and shared experience. These present a unique opportunity for marketers in a world increasingly suffering ad fatigue. By combining the captive audience of cultural events with DOOH's real-time adaptability, marketers can create a powerful synergy. It's no longer just an ad you see; it’s an interactive element of the event. Imagine walking by a D6 on a busy street and seeing an ad featuring not only the live score but the player who scored the equalizer. DOOH shines in the real world by capitalizing on fleeting moments.”

What’s one of your favorite examples of how a brand has leveraged DOOH during a big cultural event?

EE's support for women's football

Guy Thurlow (co-founder & commercial director, Next-Gen Media): “Watching the Euros live in Germany this summer, I was reminded of the Lionesses’ success when they won the Euros and reached the World Cup final. Their performances made women’s football a huge cultural event for the first time and brands played a big part in that. EE encouraged a new generation of girls and women to participate in football with long-term benefits. DOOH was used to promote EE Playmaker, a free, online football coaching course for young volunteers from any background. The creative featured current players alongside the next generation – an audience close to my heart.”

A DOOH masterclass from IHG

Steven McHenry (managing director UK, Yahoo): “DOOH has its greatest impact at big cultural events when people are on the ground immersed in the experience and engaging with relevant band activations around them. During the Rugby World Cup in 2023, the InterContinentalHotels Group (IHG) gave a masterclass on utilizing DOOH to cut through to their future customers. The results of their campaign included a significant uplift in prompted awareness of +14%, and an increased favorability among rugby fans (+12%) and those who had not used their services before (+9%). By targeting rugby fans at an event close to their hearts, IHG channeled their sporting elation into booking intent - the ultimate goal of any marketing campaign.”

Scottish Widows’ International Women’s Day campaign

Adam Jinks (OOH business director, Zenith): "For nearly 200 years, Scottish Widows has supported women. So International Women’s Day has always been a key calendar moment for the brand to continue to raise awareness of the true extent of the gender pension gap and drive change. The trust OOH delivers for consumers alongside 20 years of data and insight from Scottish Widows means DOOH has been an integral part of our long-term strategy, including a takeover of Westminster Tube station highlighting the issue and demanding pension reform. Our strategy paid off when our campaign was mentioned in Prime Minister’s Questions, challenging the government to tackle the issue head-on.”