One LED board can run the advertisement of not one, but even ten or twenty advertisers. One LED board can thus replace up to twenty classic paper billboards and thus contribute to the reduction of visual smog in towns and villages - says František Farenzena, director of Lurity for the Czech Republic and Slovakia, in an interview for Slovak Strategie magazine.

How do you perceive the OOH/DOOH market at the moment? Is there an upward trend in the interest of advertisers in this kind of advertising?

Lurity has been in the DOOH (digital out-of-home) advertising segment for six years. The growing trend in the Slovak and other markets where we operate is clear and is in favour of DOOH. The number of carriers is growing, as well as the number of clients and the number of campaigns. Currently, for example, in the segment of digital space in shopping centres alone, we cover 50 shopping centres in three markets and several hundred other spaces, whether outdoors or indoors. In terms of distribution by market, the majority is allocated to the Slovak and Czech markets, with a smaller part in Bosnia and Herzegovina. 

So we have a lot to offer to the contracting authorities. According to our experience from foreign markets, we expect that interest in this type of media space will continue to grow. 

"Surveys say that $1 invested in OOH advertising earns the advertiser nearly $6. That kind of return won't leave any forward-thinking marketer indifferent."

What kind of OOH/DOOH does your company offer and where do you see the most potential?

The first advertising carriers were installed in the Bory Mall shopping centre in Bratislava. Later other shopping centres were added all over Slovakia. In cooperation with another innovative company, TapGest, other types of locations followed, such as fitness centres, hospitals and polyclinics. A novelty of the last weeks is the involvement of almost 100 screens at the branches of the Slovak Post and Coop Jednota. The portal developed by Lurity includes the digital screens of various partners, owners of digital screens. We provide them with an opportunity for more efficient control and monetization of existing digital screens. For sponsors, our portal is a simple tool for online planning and management and real-time control of their campaigns. 

What are the current trends in the OOH segment and what predictions do you have that this market could develop?

The OOH segment, which mainly represents static advertising in the form of billboards, cityboards, ads on bus stops, etc., is gradually giving way to digital forms of OOH (DOOH). The pressure from residents and city officials to suppress visual smog in cities and towns has moved from the theoretical to the actual removal of traditional paper billboards. This trend is visible not only in large cities such as Bratislava, but also in smaller towns and villages. The number of external areas where it is possible to place advertising is gradually shrinking, or less interesting places remain in the game. However, the interest of advertisers, especially in times of economic growth, is not decreasing. On the contrary. These facts are clearly in favour of digitalisation. A single LED board can run the advertising of not one, but ten or twenty advertisers. One LED board can thus replace up to twenty conventional paper billboards and thus contribute to reducing the visual smog in towns and cities. 

Many companies are now adjusting advertising prices due to the current situation (inflation, energy price rises, etc.). Do you also plan to adjust the prices of advertising in DOOH? 

The economic situation has forced many advertising space providers to make price adjustments. This is due to rising inflation, input and energy prices. We have so far successfully resisted price increases on our space. We are doing this by managing the media space on our sites more efficiently, which means that we are covering the increased input prices. Advertisers are looking for the most efficient placement of their resources and our spaces allow them to do this. Pricing in the Lurity portal is absolutely transparent. 

How does the current situation (inflation, energy growth, etc.) actually affect the segment in which you do business? 

The DOOH segment has seen a significant upward trend in recent years. So far, it is particularly visible in Western European countries and in the United States, where the share of digital advertising in OOH is expected to reach 30% soon. We anticipate that our market will develop in the same direction and that the share of digital in the out-of-home segment will increase. This will not be negatively affected by the current situation, as it is assumed that this is a short-term trend and the economy will grow again. 

Apparently outdoor digital advertising is quite an expensive affair? Are there enough advertisers interested in this kind of advertising?

Out-of-home media is already perceived in Slovakia as an essential part of the media mix because it has been proven to work: such well-placed advertising works as an accelerator of consumer buying behaviour. All this moves digital OOH advertising to the level of a highly effective medium. Efficiency of resources spent is what our clients demand, and DOOH meets that demand.

OAAA Nielsen's August 2020 survey shows that customers who capture a message via DOOH are highly likely to visit the point of sale, and as many as 80% are likely to make a purchase. 

On TV they measure the impact of advertising by viewership, online by page views, in print by sales and readership; how do you evaluate the impact of advertising?

Legislation addressing the GDPR has affected how we can measure the impact of advertising and has not only affected us, but also other advertising providers, for example online. Currently, we only work with data from shopping centres and space managers where our advertising space is located. 

However, this does not detract from the innovation of our platform, as our clients have proven to appreciate the other business and user benefits of the medium. The main benefits they perceive are the quick selection and purchase of digital advertising space through our portal, transparent pricing policy and also real-time tracking of the campaign progress with the possibility of easy replacement of campaign visuals. At the same time, they know that the very placement of our spaces in shopping malls and other locations guarantees a massive concentration of customers, regardless of the size of the agglomeration in which they are located. 

In general, up-to-date and accurate advertising reach data is the Achilles heel of the entire OOH segment. DOOH could provide a solution, which is something we are working on intensively at Lurity and several promising solutions are currently in the testing and fine-tuning stage.

OAAA Nielsen research shows that customers who capture a message through DOOH are highly likely to visit the point of sale, and as many as 80 percent of them will even make a purchase.

Is some type of advertising more for static advertising space and some other more for moving advertising space, such as means of transport, etc.?

In this respect, it is not so important which advertisement is suitable for a static and which for a moving advertising surface, but the parameters and technical limits of individual advertising media. 

The DOOH segment is the only one that currently provides the opportunity to use creative motion control, for example. Thanks to augmented reality, touch and motion control of surfaces, our customers have new possibilities and opportunities to creatively present their products. Marketers have the opportunity to work on a more interesting and attractive presentation of campaigns, which they can offer to their clients thanks to the innovations we have developed.

We'd be interested in statistics - for example, the average length of an ad rental on OOH?

Within DOOH, I would divide client requirements into two groups. The first are tenants of shopping centres, where we encounter two ways of using space. On the one hand, with year-round point-of-sale support, and on the other hand, with short-term leases focused on promotional offers. For nationwide campaigns, these replicate the length of campaigns in the other media included in the campaign media mix. 

A large group of clients take advantage of the ease of changing visuals and the possibility of alternating visuals within a single campaign. They consider this variability to be a significant advantage of digital media compared to traditional paper media.

more info: hello@lurity.com or just click on the campaign on portal.lurity.com