How Oriental Sunrise pushes the envelope with giant digital displays
One of the best qualities of out-of-home media is its unmatched ability to catch attention. Large format billboards and digital displays draw the eye in a way that online and mobile advertising can’t, and offer an amazing canvas on which creative work can be shared with the world.
And that’s just in general. The largest displays take the concept even further, offering true spectacle for all to enjoy. Oriental Sunrise Media Group, which operates a network that includes one of these ultra-large screens, sees them as a special opportunity for connecting with large sections of the population through outdoor media.
sky-high dooh ambitions
Formed in 2011, Oriental Sunrise set its sights on becoming an influential player in the fast-expanding digital out-of-home space in China. Pursuing large-format displays, audience interactivity, and prominent public locations for its screens, Oriental Sunrise has succeeded in achieving high audience traffic near its screens and attracting top brands to display advertising on its network, including names like Audi, Lancôme, Dyson, and Samsung.
asia’s largest outdoor digital display
The jewel of Oriental Sunrise’s network is found in Chongqing, a city in China’s south. Its display there is an enormous two-sided, 3,788 square metre screen wrapped around the side of the Chongqing Guanyin Bridge Carnival Building. It’s about the size of nine basketball courts put together, and typically plays host to stunning video content delivered by its advertisers.
Its prominent location, facing Guanyinqiao Square, Jialing Park, and the entrance to an underground pedestrian passage, drives a fair bit of foot traffic by its screens every day, with about 500,000 pedestrians walking by daily. It also faces the city’s busiest main road, with about 350,000 vehicles passing by each day.
eyes forward to the future of dooh
As Oriental Sunrise focuses on building its network further, it continues to make premium real estate in bustling business sectors, as well as high levels of local visibility, key requirements for locations where it deploys new screens. Soon to come are new experiments to push the network with new kinds of integrations. This includes projects like synchronizing campaign playback with the performance of nearby fountains and LED lighting, connecting the screens to mobile devices, and other projects that increase the already considerable impact of the screens.
oriental sunrise media group & broadsign
Screens as prominent as Oriental Sunrise Media Group’s largest can’t afford to go down, and what’s more, they come with specific technical challenges that not every software platform is equipped to manage. Synchronizing media across the panels of the screen must be completed flawlessly every time in order to create truly stunning visuals. Meanwhile, integrating outside data feeds, as is required for complex campaigns involving synchronization with fountains and lighting, demands a platform that is able to reliably connect with those services.
To accomplish these tasks, Oriental Sunrise has adopted Broadsign. The Broadsign platform’s unmatched reliability and extensibility make it the perfect solution for managing huge displays and the exciting campaigns that run on them. The open nature of the platform, meanwhile, places practically no limits on the creativity of Oriental Sunrise and its advertisers, allowing the owners to focus on growing their network and delivering the innovative DOOH experience that will build their profile all across China. It’s an ideal pairing, and one likely to lead to exciting things for the Chinese DOOH market.
Ready to kick off your own large-scale DOOH project? Contact us today to learn how Broadsign can help!
Product News | October 11, 2021
Understanding (D)OOH metrics: How to measure the success of out-of-home advertising
Understanding the right metrics can make or break your strategy when managing any advertising campaign—and digital out-of-home (DOOH) is no different. Thanks to evolving out-of-home (OOH) measurement and attribution capabilities, successful DOOH advertising now goes beyond displaying an ad on a digital billboard; it’s about reaching the right audience at the right moment with measurable impact. In today’s advertising landscape, where every dollar must show results, relying on outdated methods to track impressions and reach won’t cut it.
In this blog, we’ll break down the key metrics that define DOOH advertising and explain how they stand apart from other forms of digital advertising. Whether you’re a seasoned marketer or new to out-of-home advertising, understanding these metrics is crucial to leveraging DOOH effectively in your marketing strategy.
How digital technology transformed out-of-home ad measurement
Tracking OOH impressions used to be tricky due to its broad, one-to-many nature. For example, measuring how many people pass a billboard is more complex than tracking views on an online ad. But with digital OOH, that’s changing.
Unlike static OOH, which relied on broad reach estimates, DOOH uses technology like in-screen sensors, mobile tracking, and geolocation to provide more accurate audience insights. Advertisers can now track who’s viewing ads, when, and even actions like visiting a store or website. Programmatic DOOH (pDOOH) has further transformed the space, allowing automated ad buying and detailed performance reports. This level of tracking and attribution brings DOOH closer to the precision of online advertising, making it a key part of today’s marketing strategy.
DOOH metrics can be researched and tracked in a number of different ways
DOOH advertising performance metrics
Like any form of advertising, digital OOH has certain quantifiable data points — metrics —that advertisers and media buyers rely on to assess the performance of their campaigns. These metrics help determine whether an ad is reaching its target audience, whether it’s generating the right amount of exposure, and how well it’s driving engagement or conversions.
Some of the most common metrics used to measure DOOH performance include:
Impressions
Definition: The total number of times an ad has potentially been viewed.
How it’s calculated: Impressions are typically calculated using traffic data, sensor-based tracking, or audience measurement technologies (like GPS data or facial recognition software). For example, if 100,000 vehicles pass by a digital billboard each day, and each vehicle has an average of 1.5 occupants, then the number of impressions per day would be approximately 150,000.
The most important metric in digital out-of-home is the number of impressions that a screen gets over a given time period. Impressions help measure performance by estimating the number of times people view an advertisement, and they often determine how much an ad will cost. However, determining how many impressions a screen gets is a little tricky.
With online advertising, one appearance of an ad on one screen is likely to reach one person. But since out-of-home is a one-to-many medium, with several people likely to be looking at a screen at any given moment, media owners apply an impression multiplier to each ad play on every individual screen.
Determining these dynamic multipliers requires real-time (or relatively real-time) data collection. Different networks rely on different tools to gather this data. Cinemas, for instance, can use ticket sales to get a good idea of how many people see a given ad up on the screen. Other businesses might use cameras and sensors integrated with a DOOH analytics platform like Quividi or Linkett to collect view data on an ongoing basis. Still, others might use an independent third-party research firm like Geopath or Nielsen to conduct a statistical analysis of the likely views that a screen will get.
Reach & frequency
Definitions: Reach measures how many unique people are exposed to your ad, while frequency indicates how often those people see it over a given period.
How they’re calculated:
Reach estimates the unique viewers from total impressions by distinguishing repeat views from new ones. For example, if an ad location has 500,000 unique passersby in a week, the reach is 500,000.
Frequency is calculated by dividing total impressions by reach. For example, if an ad has 1,000,000 impressions and reaches 250,000 unique people, the frequency would be 4 (1,000,000 ÷ 250,000).
Reach and frequency, both based on impressions, capture different aspects of a campaign’s effectiveness. They help advertisers balance exposure: too few views risk low recall, while too many can lead to ad fatigue.
Engagement
Definition: The level of interaction or attention that the audience has with the ad, often measured by actions like QR code scans, taps on a touchscreen, or other measurable forms of interaction.
How it’s calculated: Engagement can be tracked using various tools like sensors, cameras, or interaction points (e.g., mobile apps or touch screens). For example, if 500 people scan a QR code from a digital display out of 50,000 impressions, the engagement rate would be 1% (500 ÷ 50,000).
DOOH can feature interactive elements like QR codes, touch screens, or mobile app integrations that invite viewers to engage with the content directly. This precise tracking gives a clear understanding of the ad’s ability to capture attention and drive meaningful engagement from the audience.
Definition: The percentage of individuals who take a desired action after viewing the ad, such as making a purchase, signing up for a service, or downloading an app.
How it’s calculated: Conversion rate is typically calculated by dividing the number of conversions (e.g., purchases or sign-ups) by the total number of interactions or impressions. For example, if 200 people make a purchase after seeing the ad out of 500,000 impressions, the conversion rate would be 0.4% (200 ÷ 50,000).
Today’s diverse data sources and analytics tools allow advertisers to precisely track post-exposure behaviors, accurately attribute conversions, and better assess campaign success.
Attribution strategies depend on campaign goals. For brand awareness, metrics like increased branded searches, social media followers, direct website traffic, or physical store visits can indicate success. For greater accuracy, device IDs can track actions: if someone searches for a brand shortly after passing a DOOH ad, that search can likely be attributed to the ad exposure.
Comparing sales before and after a campaign is a common method of determining DOOH campaign success
Leveraging pDOOH for successful campaign targeting
While impressions and conversion rates are key for assessing campaign success, programmatic DOOH offers advanced metrics that give deeper insights into audience behavior and real-time engagement. Here are some pDOOH-enabled metrics that elevate omnichannel campaign measurement:
Dynamic Creative Optimization (DCO) metrics
One key benefit of pDOOH is Dynamic Creative Optimization (DCO), which adjusts DOOH creatives in real-time based on factors like weather, time of day, audience profiles, or nearby events. DCO allows advertisers to customize ad elements (images, text, offers, CTAs) to match user preferences. For example, a QSR might display various menu items, adjusting in real-time based on demographics, browsing history, and environmental data such as location or weather.
Effective DCO requires ongoing measurement using metrics that track general DOOH performance (dwell time, impressions, interaction rate) and specific DCO impact. These metrics show how engagement or conversion rates change with factors like weather, local events, or foot traffic.
Key performance indicators for DCO in DOOH campaigns include:
Creative variants CTR: Measures interaction, like QR code responses, for different versions.
Engagement with creative elements: Tracks which elements resonate most (e.g., weather-based messaging).
Creative rotation effectiveness: Compares performance across different times or conditions.
Weather, time, and location relevance: Assesses engagement based on real-time factors.
Cross-channel conversion metrics
Advanced data analytics in pDOOH connect offline and online interactions, providing a complete view of the consumer journey. Using device ID matching and geo-fencing, advertisers track DOOH ad impact on website visits, app downloads, social media engagement, and store visits, measuring how exposure drives cross-channel actions.
Key metrics highlighting the cross-channel impact of DOOH include:
Walk-in rate: Measures the percentage of people who visit a location after seeing a DOOH ad, often tracked via mobile location data or GPS.
Online conversion rate: Calculates the percentage of website visitors who convert (e.g., sign up, purchase) after seeing a DOOH ad.
Cross-device conversions: Tracks conversions on other devices after DOOH exposure, using multi-device tracking.
Social media interaction rate: Measures increased social media activity (e.g., likes, shares, follows) from DOOH exposure, often tracked with geo-fencing.
Multi-touchpoint conversion attribution: Assigns conversion credit to DOOH within a larger multi-channel strategy, showing its role in cross-channel journeys.
