In Part One of our Q&A with Remi du Preez, Managing Director at Polygon, du Preez  spoke about why marketers still underestimate DOOH. Part Two gets into what happens once you try to run a campaign through it — because access to screens is one thing, but knowing which screens and understanding how the numbers were calculated, is another. 

Du Preez picks up where he left off, explaining how aggregation influences the buying process, why independent verification is becoming non-negotiable, and how brands lose out when they treat DOOH creative as an afterthought to their digital campaigns. 

 

From a marketer's perspective, what does aggregation change about the way a campaign can be planned or optimised? 

The biggest thing aggregation changes is complexity. There is a growing number of platforms through which marketers can buy programmatic DOOH, but not every platform is connected to every supply source. So, simply having access to a buying platform doesn't necessarily mean you have access to all the inventory you might want. 

From there, marketers traditionally have a choice. They can buy what is readily available through a platform, often at a premium, or they can establish direct relationships with multiple media owners. The latter can mean requesting rate cards, negotiating rates, comparing different inventory, making commitments and then managing multiple suppliers throughout the campaign.

 

Aggregation removes a lot of that fragmentation. Instead of building a campaign around which networks are easiest to access, you can start with the brief: who are we trying to reach, where are they likely to be, and which combination of inventory gives us the best opportunity to reach them?


That's how we approach it at Polygon. We have the majority of available digital screens in South Africa connected through one point of access, and we aren't incentivised to favour one media owner over another. Our job is to find the combination that makes the most sense for the campaign. 

Tech also makes that planning process considerably faster — we use AI-enabled tools to help interrogate a brief and build a detailed programmatic DOOH proposal very quickly, rather than marketers having to piece that plan together network by network.

The benefit continues once the campaign is live. If a particular part of the campaign isn't performing as expected, or there is an issue with a screen or network, there is one point of contact rather than multiple suppliers to chase. Reporting can also be consolidated rather than arriving in different formats from different media owners. 

Aggregation also creates a cost benefit. Because we have established relationships and a consistent pricing structure across our media partners, marketers can access inventory without having to negotiate network by network or pay the premiums that can come with buying inventory independently through an open platform.

 

Why would you say measurement, such as independent verification in programmatic DOOH, has become an important concern for the medium, and what should brands be asking their media partners to prove? 

Programmatic DOOH is still a relatively young medium and it has evolved incredibly quickly. In some respects, the technology has moved faster than the industry-wide standards and governance around it.

 

I think there are two areas where greater consistency and transparency are particularly important: verifying that an ad actually played and understanding how audience exposure is calculated.

 

Independent verification gives marketers an additional layer of confidence around campaign delivery. Through direct data integrations with ad-serving systems, for example, campaign information can be independently captured and reported, giving advertisers an objective view of what was delivered, where and when.

That matters because most marketers are never going to stand in front of every screen in a campaign to check whether their ad appeared.

It's similar to digital advertising: just because you personally didn't see an ad on your phone doesn't mean it wasn't served. What matters is having credible data that verifies that the campaign ran as planned.

The more complex area is audience measurement. The industry has made important progress in developing audience data and measurement frameworks, but there is still work to do in creating greater consistency in how that data is translated into programmatic impressions and audience exposure. Different methodologies can produce different results, even when looking at inventory in similar environments.

For brands, the important question therefore isn't simply, "How many impressions did I buy?" It should also be, "How did you calculate those impressions?". Ask where the underlying audience data comes from, what methodology is being applied, how an exposure is defined and whether campaign delivery can be independently verified.

At Polygon, we believe transparency is the best way to build confidence in the medium. We've published our audience and impressions methodology in a detailed white paper specifically so that marketers, agencies and the broader industry can interrogate how our numbers are calculated. We welcome that scrutiny.

Ultimately, this isn't about suggesting that one part of the industry is getting measurement right and another is getting it wrong. It's about a fast-evolving medium moving towards greater transparency and accountability. The more clearly we can show marketers what they bought, what was delivered and how audience exposure was calculated, the more confidence they can have in investing in programmatic DOOH.

 

You've been expressive about DOOH working as part of an omnichannel journey. What does a genuinely integrated DOOH-and-digital campaign look like in practice, and what are brands getting wrong when they simply repurpose the same creative across every channel? 

A genuinely integrated campaign starts by understanding the role each channel plays in the consumer journey, rather than simply putting the same campaign everywhere.

For DOOH, that means getting the fundamentals right first: choose inventory that makes sense for your target audience, understand when they are likely to be there and activate the campaign when the message is most relevant. Digital can then complement that exposure as the consumer moves through their day.

Think about someone seeing your brand repeatedly on their commute in the morning and afternoon. DOOH is building familiarity in the background without asking them to stop what they are doing. 

Later, when they are at home or in the office and have more opportunity to act, digital can take over and drive them further down the funnel. When that person encounters an online ad for a brand they already recognise from the physical world, there is already a degree of familiarity there, which can make them more receptive to the digital message.

Frequency also works differently across the two environments. Digital advertising can become intrusive when the same person is repeatedly served an ad while they are trying to read, watch or do something else, which is why frequency caps matter. DOOH is less interruptive. It exists within the environment people are already moving through, so repeated exposure can build familiarity without necessarily creating the same sense of advertising fatigue.

Then there is creative, and this is where brands often get it wrong. Omnichannel does not mean identical creative across every channel. 

A digital-first campaign can absolutely translate into DOOH, but the creative needs to be adapted for how people actually encounter it. On a roadside screen, you may have only a few seconds to communicate. That means a strong image, a short headline and clear branding — not paragraphs of copy or a QR code somebody is expected to scan while driving past. 

In a pedestrian environment such as a mall, gym or petrol station, dwell time is longer, so you have more room to tell the story and potentially introduce an interactive element.

 

You have to design for the behaviour of the person in front of the screen. 



The strongest omnichannel campaigns are sequencing the channels across a campaign: DOOH can build awareness, familiarity and trust in the physical world; digital can pick up that recognition later and give the consumer somewhere to engage, learn more, or act.

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Missed Part One of this Q&A? Read Rethinking DOOH: A Q&A With Remi de Preez — Part One.

*Image courtesy of contributor and Canva