Having been lucky to spend time in tech, media owner and agency businesses, always with the ambition to provide brands with a platform to explore emerging digital solutions, my recent move to QMS allows me to focus on one of the next growth drivers in our industry by adding versatility to a medium already bursting with impact.

In an increasingly artificial world, physical presence helps to legitimise brands in the minds of the consumer. Engagement with prominent assets enhances memory structures to create salience for brands, and leveraging this impact has seen out-of-home (OOH) investment increase in 2024 with a further 8.4 per cent CAGR forecast through 2028 (PwC, The Australian Entertainment & Media Outlook), led by a surge in programmatic adoption. Supporting the out-of-home industry to highlight this superpower will evolve the narrative from static reach to attentive impact.

To fulfill on this promise, increased digital out-of-home (DOOH) demand requires advancements in trading practices, hence my focus on the technical capabilities that offer brands access via both programmatic and traditional means.

Programmatic trading adds selectivity to DOOH, which is an initial focus to help (a) existing partners and enterprise brands complement traditional activity with audience specificity, as well as (b) the SME market access DOOH in a considered and cohort specific manner.

1. Research shows building frequency amongst an in-market and/or high-value audience reinforces a message to complement the broad reach of a traditional buy. Once ‘reach sufficiency’ is achieved, enabling this audience specificity can influence ad-favourability and greater outcomes.
2. Self-serve platforms reduce the barriers to DOOH entry, allowing the SME market access to distinct physical assets across QMS’ Digital Large Format, City of Sydney, The Convenience Network, Canberra Airport, and Gold Coast SF formats.

Whilst this type of accessibility can render almost any surface a canvas for ad monetisation, subsequently commoditising reach, QMS is acutely focused on attentive reach and the impact that elicits. Together with Dr Karen Nelson-Field from Amplified Intelligence, we have just revealed the results of our global first research on human attention in DOOH, designed to help brands better identify the role DOOH formats play.

Understanding how users engage with DOOH formats allows application of the full range of attention aperture in planning from active attention to ignite curiosity, through to passive attention serving to reinforce existing knowledge.

Qualitative data such as attention helps to avoid some of our industry’s past pitfalls, where a sole focus on efficiency led to pockets of bad actors and empty reach. As a pioneer in programmatic out-of-home, QMS navigates these pitfalls via incremental demand generation at the heart of our thinking. To bring this to life, powerful content and data partnerships elevate attention and audience relevance, while defined measurement empowers brands to make more informed and synergistic channel planning decisions that unlock growth.

Future gazing to ensure QMS remains at the forefront, the underlying technology that enables programmatic trading can also add dynamic elements to traditional DOOH, in readiness for Move 2.0 where site-level value can be planned with greater granularity. This type of dynamic marketplace allows brands, agencies and media owners to invest in innovation that will continue to progress the industry forward.

Our view is that this “Advanced Trading” will help instil the accountability clients are increasingly seeking with simple to use but more sophisticated planning, targeting and measurement, powered by leading screen technology to ensure efficacy for brands.

My role in Advanced Trading is to harness these advanced features to create a marketplace that benefits all parties – only one month in, it’s rewarding to see brands already take advantage!