One message when it’s rainy, another when the sun shines, and yet another when the local team wins the league. Joy Hines of Broadsign explains the endless possibilities of DCO.
How can advertisers capture attention in an increasingly fragmented landscape?
Dynamic creative optimization (DCO) may be an out-of-home (OOH) buzzword, but it’s often underutilized. Though its definitions vary across contexts, DCO is essentially the practice of optimizing OOH creative for real-world contexts and environments. With it, real-time triggers – such as weather, live sports scores, and financial market performance – are often employed to deliver more personalized, engaging creative. But these only scratch the surface of what’s possible.
Agencies and brands can similarly leverage other first-party data signals, such as lottery odds, contest prize winners, and commute times, to customize creative. Layering in day and time targeting on the creative itself, or tailoring the creative messaging to the actual physical location of the screens and their proximity to major attractions, can also enhance the dynamic nature of a campaign.
For all the opportunities DCO presents, many agencies and brands have yet to harness its full potential, which is a missed opportunity. Memorable OOH campaigns can go viral and win awards, extending the life of a campaign and the ROI of OOH buys. While messaging and creative ultimately play a role in that success, context is key, which is where DCO shines.
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Advertising isn’t just about purchasing inventory; it’s also about capturing your target audience’s attention in an increasingly fragmented landscape. Yes, you may be securing a TV slot, mobile interstitial, or billboard space, but you’re actually buying an opportunity to convey your message and drive engagement with your target audience. OOH provides an incredible canvas for brands to explore creativity in a contextually relevant environment, and DCO can drive the personalization and relevance to capture that extra attention.
Naturally, the more personalized and relevant an OOH ad is, the more attention it’s likely to drive. A Harris Poll found that dynamic ad content featuring product deals tailored to current weather conditions or time-specific discounts helped catch the consumer’s eye and inspire action. 86% of respondents rated ads with special deals on groceries as helpful, 84% said the same of ads featuring special promos at restaurants, and 81% found ads with product offers related to current weather conditions relevant and valuable.
DCO is already being deployed in various forms worldwide. One multinational quick-service restaurant (QSR) brand recently used it to amplify an annual contest. Leveraging real-time prize winner updates, it displayed creative that featured each winner and their prizes on inventory in areas within a set proximity of where winners were located. Not only did this help the winners feel special, but it also inspired others to participate in the contest as well, in hopes of winning.
Food and beverage companies are also tapping into OOH DCO, relying on weather conditions to trigger creative. For instance, any time the temperature tops 20°C, they might set up the creative messaging in a campaign to suggest consumers cool down with their ice-cold beverage or treat.
The actual physical location of the inventory and its environment are also useful for DCO. More brands are preparing different creative for the same campaign tailored for audience environments (such as cinemas, restaurants, and sports venues). A popular rideshare brand is using DCO across multiple markets to capture the attention of business patrons and offer an update on how quickly it can get users home compared to alternative transit options.
For buyers who haven’t experimented with DCO, it’s easy to brush it off as too complicated or expensive. Setting aside these preconceived notions, however, is essential to unlocking new possibilities to maximize the impact of your OOH campaigns. DCO doesn’t have to be complex or costly; a simple conversation with your ad tech provider can reveal a more straightforward path to achieving your goals on time and within budget.
The most successful DCO campaign executions not only start with a clear creative vision and well-defined objectives; they’re also developed in partnership with your ad tech provider. Your demand-side platform (DSP) team can provide invaluable insights into the best ways to test, learn, and measure impact, such as brand lift. Leaning into their expertise will ultimately allow you to better understand and improve performance to scale your execution.
The bottom line: there’s no better way to break through the digital noise today and capture an audience’s attention than through the contextually relevant OOH experiences DCO enables. The more brands collaborate with their ad tech partners to tap into DCO, the better the campaign results they’ll start to see. Don’t let DCO become the blind spot in your OOH strategy. Now is the time to start exploring what’s possible.
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Broadsign
Broadsign empowers media owners, media buyers, and retailers to harness the power and reach of out-of-home to connect with audiences in ways unlike any other advertising...
