Predicting the Future at ROI Festival in Shanghai

Hivestack invited representatives from all sides of the DOOH ecosystem to discuss the future of digital out of home (DOOH) from the perspectives of advertisers, media owners, data analysis, measurement, industry organizations and local trade media.

Earlier this year, we announced our entry into the Chinese market and since then, have built a strong local team in China that has allowed for us to complete the onboarding of several key outdoor media owners covering major cities across the country. We’ve also localized our product suite within our platform, which was built behind the great firewall, along with the integration of domestic data providers. An incredible amount of work went into the development of our Chinese platform and we are proud that it has passed the national level 3 protection qualification certification.

All of these milestones have paved the way for significant growth of programmatic DOOH in China, providing opportunities for both domestic and foreign global advertisers and media owners to leverage this innovative channel to reach audiences out of the home.

In addition, we’ve activated several successful programmatic digital out of home campaigns in top tier cities in China which drove real world business outcomes. These success stories show that a data-driven, audience-targeted, measurable and data-combined approach to digital out of home have greatly encouraged the confidence and determination of the advertising ecosystem in China. 

Whether we look at the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic that has led to the accelerated digitalization of OOH advertising, or the need for brand owners to incorporate digital out of home into their omnichannel marketing mix, this period of change has been instrumental in the period of growth in our industry. 

Although the concept of programmatic isn’t new in China, the development of technology and the increased usage of 5G, cloud computing, big data, artificial intelligence, and other technologies, has thrust DOOH to the forefront of advertising. The outdoor digital advertising spending in China will reach $4.121 billion in 2022 and $4.574 billion in 2023, with an annual growth rate of about 10%. Source: Statista, 2021

The demand side of programmatic DOOH

During the luncheon, our agency partners discussed "The importance of programmatic DOOH in the omnichannel marketing mix". As it stands, the demand side of programmatic DOOH is still in its infancy in China, but has generated many success stories globally. As brands continue to be focused on tangible results, CMO’s have begun taking an interest in the consumer experience in an offline context. 

However, traditional OOH has many challenges, such as fragmented measurement and targeting capabilities. Lisa Guo, Programming Director at Cognac China, said it best "programmatic DOOH is a good solution to these problems compared to traditional ones, since it offers a one to many approach on a global scale. The ability to automate and optimize in this way has fast-tracked its popularity.”

The supply side of programmatic DOOH

At the supply side roundtable, we were pleased to share that more and more media owners are integrating with Hivestack's SSP. Although the COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted many industries over the past two years, it has not slowed down the adoption of programmatic DOOH from leading brands and agencies. In turn, this advertising budget has inspired media owners to get onboard in order to take advantage of this shift in spending. In addition, we’ve recently launched our header bidding technology, which opened up our Ad Server to work with multiple SSP/Exchanges with the introduction of a new, unified auction framework that optimizes publisher yield across various sources. This technology is the first of its kind in the market and will become more widely available for our global partners in November.

Excitingly, the media owners that we are communicating with have shown great interest and expressed their willingness to accelerate their integration with our SSP. To quote Huang Tao, editor-in-chief of Outdoor Asia: "Hivestack has decided to create the missing piece of the puzzle in our industry. It’s incredibly impressive to see their drive and commitment to leading the trend of digital innovation."

Data service providers are key

In terms of data, we’ve begun partnership talks with third-party data service providers, including TalkingData and Wayzone. In compliance with data privacy regulations, our data-driven ad delivery and measurement capabilities have already been implemented, including screen selection, exposure monitoring, and ad effectiveness based on audience exposure. Ms. YiGuan Ma, Director of Business Development at TalkingData, shared, "I'm very happy to see that programmatic DOOH has achieved accurate delivery through a data-driven approach, which demonstrates the value of a partnership with Hivestack." 

In terms of ad fraud monitoring, we will continue to cooperate with ad fraud monitoring agencies, including Seconds and RTBAsia, so that all programmatic DOOH campaigns are attributable. In terms of advertising effectiveness measurement, we’ve partnered with data insights and consulting agencies, such as Kantar and Quick Decision, to also determine that these campaigns are not only measurable, but also addressable and accountable. All of this can be done on Hivestack's one-stop platform, which greatly improves placement efficiency.

Ultimately, Hivestack’s goal is to continue promoting the rapid growth of the programmatic DOOH ecosystem in China and the future is bright. "Our vision is to become the largest, one-stop marketplace for programmatic DOOH both domestically and abroad. Our mission is to plan, activate, deliver, analyse and measure the digital out of home campaigns programmatically and keep innovating towards the future,” said Ms. Shiyi Gu (Aileen Ku), General Manager of Hivestack China.