Once more, ALOOH did a virtual meeting of the OOH industry in the region, with the aim of continuing to share opinions and experiences around the new global paradigm. Gabriel Cedrone, President of ALOOH, was in charge of introducing and translating the invited speakers.
First, Kym Frank, President of Geopath, the New York-based expert audience measurement firm, talk about the context of the industry in the US. According to Frank, both the city of NY and the large cities of the country were strongly affected and the companies had to “solve the problem of the lack of traffic in the cities”. For this reason, representatives of the entire US OOH industry began to have daily meetings where they discussed alternatives to get out of the crisis and this way they managed to create real-time measurements with mobile data, something that until today did not exist, providing information about traffic and impacts for each device. She then concluded that the COVID-19 pandemic left learning about the future of OOH in the US: “By measuring impressions, audience measurements are being improved”.
Then, Sheldon Silverman, CEO of the US StandBomb Media Group, spoke about the current situation and the challenges that DOOH companies are going through in his country, showing that all the potential that the Industry had built in these times declined in a few weeks and shared Industry survey statistics made by the WFA (World Federation Advertisers). Silverman explained that this is an opportunity to “create, collectively, a DOOH and OOH business ecosystem, educate brands, create awareness campaigns and embrace new technologies”. This way, he referred to the “SendingLove” campaign, in which the link between Mobile, digital screens and users was deepened. Finally, to exemplify the importance of new technologies, he presented an absolute novelty created in Los Angeles: it’s Space Factory Tone, which consists of the installation of ultrasound tone emitters (imperceptible to the human ear) with ranges of 15 meters: once the tone is detected by a mobile device, it shoots programmed and personalized content to generate interaction with the brands.
Lastly, Antonio Vincenti, founder and CEO of Pikasso, a leading OOH company based in Beirut and operating in more than 10 countries of North Africa, West Africa and the Caucasus, spoke about the difficulties of carrying out and expanding the OOH Industry in these areas. “To expand OOH, we have the experiences and lessons from what is happening in other regions. We improve what others do and adapt it to our needs”. Vincenti emphasized the inconveniences that COVID-19 has brought to the business, since “it has caused panic in all the media, which left consumer situations and became paralyzed”. He also indicated that they expect a slow and arduous recovery, since in these latitudes they don’t have the support of governments.
Finally, Adriana Arauz Diazgranados (ALOOH Communication Management) presented the four Working Commissions for Members of the Association and their objectives, which will hold various meetings in the coming days. Of course, the next meeting of the ALOOH Cycle of Webinars was announced, which will take place next Wednesday, June 17, and will refer to the importance of strategic alliances in financing for the revival of the industry. This Webinar will be free for the entire industry and will be presented by Liang Zhu, COO & Founder at Led & Go.
