Product News | October 11, 2021

4 post-COVID-19 retail DOOH trends to watch

Illustrating a curbside pickup offering at a retail location

The world is opening back up, but it is not going back to the way things were. Changes made over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic are expected to stick around, including in the world of retail. New conveniences and preferences may be too appealing or important to let slip away.

This new dynamic in retail will carry a number of important implications for DOOH operators and their retail partners. To maximize success in the years ahead, a few changes may need to be made.

Curbside pickup is here to stay, and DOOH should be there too

Curbside pickup has been around for years. Originally, it was deployed as part of a push towards “buy-online, pickup in-store” (BOPIS) services by retailers looking to compete with the convenience of online-only shopping.

But it’s during the pandemic that curbside really took off. A McKinsey survey of Canadian consumer sentiment showed that 18% of respondents had tried curbside pickup for the first time during the pandemic, with a further 11% continuing prior use throughout.

It’s likely to continue. For one thing, it’s likely to take some time before we fully recover from life under COVID-19. For another, there are indications that consumers will continue to prioritize hygiene and cleanliness even after the pandemic’s end. Both suggest that options to shop hands-off will remain in demand for some time.

This will require some strategic rethinking of how to communicate with customers. Indoor point-of-purchase displays, after all, will not be suitable for providing messaging for an increasing cohort of customers who choose to remain in their cars. Depending on the manner in which curbside pickup is managed at a store, even the common approach of placing digital displays near the entrance to a retailer may not suffice.

Addressing this new reality could be a great opportunity. Curbside pickup, like other BOPIS offerings, is not faster than regular in-store shopping. Buyers who go this route, whatever their reasons for doing so, will be sitting in their vehicles, waiting. Deploying larger displays that are visible from a larger portion of the parking lot, or several smaller DOOH displays distributed throughout a parking lot, could be valuable for reaching this audience while they have nothing else to do.

Screens like this one employed by MMD Media’s gas stations could help reach customers in parking lots

And for better odds of capturing these people’s attention, media owners should ensure that their selected DOOH platform offers the ability to display dynamically changing content and messaging. This can allow advertisers to deliver different creative based on external triggers, like weather. It can also allow for advertising to display up-to-the-minute information of interest – traffic, weather, news, etc – alongside advertising.

Having these kinds of dynamic content playing around the pickup area will help the screens deliver messaging that better meet the needs and interests of consumers. This will maximize the value for the retailer, the consumer, and the advertiser all at once.

Shift to value-for-money bodes well for relevant DOOH messaging

As you might expect of the economic downturn caused by the pandemic, consumers are demonstrating increased value consciousness in their buying decisions.This will demand that brands change tactics in order to appeal to a different buying mindset, but it also presents an interesting opportunity for media owners with DOOH assets in and around retail environments.

Network owners can use DOOH installations positioned in and around shopping centres, malls, and other retail environments to promote sale items, special promotions, and other kinds of value-focused offerings related to nearby businesses. It’s an easy way to connect buyers with products they want at prices they like, and a good opportunity to leverage the contextual power of location-based DOOH.

**Example**: See how Starlite Media connects brands with buyers on location via shopping centre DOOH

Even better, the power of the sale-assisted impulse buy extends beyond just people walking into stores to start their shopping. A survey by Doddle (via Retail Dive) found that 85% of people who go to a store to pick up an online order will make additional purchases while there.

This means that displaying compelling sales content on displays positioned near the entrance to a location, just inside the entrance, or even in parking lots (to appeal to the aforementioned curbside crowd) could go a long way towards generating additional revenue from all kinds of shoppers. There’s stronger immediate appeal in seeing an ad for products purchasable on location, after all, than in seeing an ad for something you would need to purchase later on.

Touchscreens won’t go away, but the way they’re used needs to evolve

We’re big fans of interactive digital signage as a method of delivering ad-supported content and tools to audiences. Interactivity just drives more eye-catching experiences, which is exactly what media buyers and network owners alike want to achieve.

Touch, of course, is the primary type of interactivity deployed across many digital signage installations, and it had its share of detraction even before COVID. Cleanliness has long been a concern, especially after notable stories of harmful bacteria found to be prevalent on touchscreen kiosks. Thanks to COVID, there’s more attention than ever being paid to what we all touch, how clean those things are, and how we can improve hygiene in a bid to stop the spread of harmful bugs.

Because of COVID-19, touchscreen kiosks are under increased scrutiny

With all of this said, there’s nothing to suggest that touchscreen interactivity will disappear anytime soon. Now that virtually everyone on the planet has a touchscreen in their pockets at all times, touch has become our default method of interaction, and it’s something more people expect to be able to do with public displays. What’s more, the fact that viruses like COVID-19 tend to spread during interaction with others means that interacting with touchscreens can actually be preferable to many people who would rather avoid speaking to a stranger.

Early data from Perch Interactive seem to back this up, suggesting that engagement with public-facing touchscreens had already rebounded to better-than-pre-COVID levels by late June.

Since touch is unlikely to disappear, the priority becomes finding ways to make the touch experience safer or more palatable to the audience. Simple measures, like offering touchless access to hand sanitizer next to screens, or wipes to clean the display before use, can go a long way to increasing user confidence.

It’s also worth considering changing the manner in which users are expected to interact with a touchscreen. Providing a QR code to send on-screen information to a user’s mobile browser can help limit the amount of time users are expected to interact with a screen to get the info they need. This might draw more users to engage with the screen in the first place, and make a habit of turning to interactive displays for timely and relevant information they can take on the go.

There are many ways to improve on the touch experience, and media owners would do well to explore the various options and see which ones can be incorporated across their networks. It will likely prove a worthwhile use of time.

It will pay off to reconsider the ways people should engage with touchscreens

Additional forms of interactivity are maturing and can help reach more customers

Alternatives to touch interactivity have emerged as increasingly viable options in the past few years. While they may not serve as total replacements for touchscreens, they may be beneficial as options for retail establishments wanting to err on the side of caution, or as a tool for engaging with a cohort of customers who are now reluctant to engage with public touchscreens.

Hand tracking and mid-air haptics technology from companies like Ultraleap, or voice-controlled interaction (another technology seeing huge increases in popularity thanks to mobile) seem to be strong early contenders for touch alternatives in retail DOOH.

It’s important to note, of course, that these options are not perfect replacements. Mid-air gesture control just isn’t quite as mainstream as tapping on a screen. Voice control is notoriously imprecise in noisy environments, and can struggle particularly in correctly registering the words spoken by women, racial minorities, and people speaking with different accents or in different dialects. In other words, it’s a difficult thing to get right in a retail environment with diverse consumers.

Voice activation isn’t perfect in controlled environments, and will likely struggle in busy retail locations

Still, incremental improvements are to be expected with these technologies, and deploying one, two, or several different types of interactivity will likely help appeal to a wider range of customers and provide redundancies in instances where a given option is either unpalatable or non-viable.

For media owners with the means, offering multiple options for interaction may prove best in coming out a winner on the other side of the pandemic. In order to successfully take this approach, however, it will be necessary to carefully consider the digital signage platform underpinning the supported functionality. The right choice should help streamline content delivery, integrate easily with all the technologies you want to use, and allow you to leverage your solutions at whatever scale you need, now and in the future.

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Product News | October 11, 2021

Broadsign, StackAdapt, and Branded Cities Unlock Automated In-Advance DOOH Transactions in North America

Ledger Bennett executes first campaign to leverage the capability in the US and Canada for their client, reserving premium screens weeks ahead of activation

MONTREAL, November 12, 2025 – Out-of-home (OOH) adtech provider Broadsign announced a collaboration with marketing technology provider StackAdapt and OOH media owner Branded Cities that brings automated, in-advance digital OOH (DOOH) ad transactions to North American advertisers. The strategic alliance will enable StackAdapt buyers to reserve OOH inventory on the StackAdapt platform for omnichannel campaigns months in advance, starting with Branded Cities’ most popular large-format, high-impact displays. Global Marketing B2B Agency Ledger Bennett is StackAdapt’s first customer to leverage the deal type, having executed an automated, guaranteed campaign for one of its signature clients in July.

Through this collaboration, StackAdapt buyers can now easily reserve and book guaranteed Branded Cities inventory via programmatic pipes, eliminating the prolonged dialogue and manual setup typical of direct DOOH buys. Because the transactions happen within StackAdapt, buyers can apply the same advanced targeting tools and real-time triggers they use across other digital channels, and view unified DOOH analytics alongside the rest of their campaign reporting. The development builds on the European rollout of Broadsign In-Advance earlier this summer, expanding the Broadsign Supply-Side Platform’s (SSP) network of In-Advance demand and media owner partners.

“Booking our latest campaign in advance through StackAdapt made us realize how much more efficient we could be by cutting out the minutia we typically spend sourcing DOOH inventory directly,” explained Jenija Manandhar, Head of Media at Ledger Bennett. “We were able to easily find the Branded Cities inventory slots we wanted and secure them 4 weeks out in minutes versus days. At the end of the campaign, it was also easier to compare results across ad channels because all the reporting and analytics were available in one central platform; it’s the OOH technology we’ve been waiting for.”

“Broadsign In-Advance gives StackAdapt buyers the best of both direct and programmatic buying,” said Nick Ortega, Director, DOOH & Emerging Channels at StackAdapt. “They can secure premium inventory around global or local events and reach audiences when it matters most. Our integration ensures guaranteed access to high-impact screens with the streamlined workflows, transparency, and real-time reporting today’s advertisers expect.”

“We are delighted to be the first North American media owner to offer our DOOH inventory via Broadsign’s in-advance transactions,” said Roger Wood, Director of Digital Growth/Programmatic, Branded Cities. “Internally, we’ve already been able to improve operational efficiency, attract new buyers, and optimize yield. Looking outward, our accomplishments represent a massive leap forward for the industry, illustrating how we can leverage automation to ensure a more level playing field for OOH in the omnichannel world.”

“There are few ad channels today that can command an audience’s attention and drive real-world engagement like OOH. Yet accessing this powerhouse isn’t always easy for omnichannel buyers, because direct OOH and programmatic omnichannel have been largely siloed until now,” shared Drew Thachuk, Head of Channel Partnerships, Broadsign. “Broadsign In-Advance is bringing the capabilities of direct OOH booking to the programmatic platforms omnichannel buyers live and breathe, but without a drawn-out, manual negotiation process. Our collaboration with StackAdapt and Branded Cities represents huge progress on this front, and is one of many more to come, as we work with the industry to make OOH more accessible.”

Broadsign’s in-advance DOOH transaction capabilities are available to Broadsign SSP customers and demand partners for early adoption today. Connect with a Broadsign representative to learn more. Media buyers who want to try or leverage automated, in-advance DOOH transactions powered by Broadsign should consult with demand partners to confirm support.

About Broadsign

Broadsign empowers media owners, agencies, and brands to harness the power and reach of out-of-home to connect with audiences in ways unlike any other advertising channel. More than 1.5 million static and digital signs along roadways and in airports, shopping malls, retailers, health clinics, transit systems, electric vehicle charging stations, and more run on Broadsign, reaching audiences at multiple touchpoints throughout the consumer journey. The Broadsign Platform helps media owners such as Outfront, Pattison Outdoor, Global, and Intersection streamline business operations and maximize revenue opportunities while enabling marketers and agencies to more easily plan and execute dynamic OOH campaigns that resonate with audiences. Brands spanning AB InBev, Disney, FanDuel, H&M, Honda, HP, Johnson & Johnson, KLM, Uber Eats, Sea-Doo, Samsonite, and many more have run successful programmatic DOOH campaigns enabled by Broadsign technology. https://broadsign.com

Product News | October 11, 2021

In-advance DOOH transactions for buyers: Your questions answered

Automation is a huge part of the conversation in the out-of-home (OOH) advertising space right now. While automation in OOH is typically associated with programmatic buying, that’s really just one piece of the puzzle. The bigger picture is how automation can streamline the entire process, from the initial planning all the way to campaign delivery.

With the release of Broadsign’s new automated, in-advance digital OOH (DOOH) transaction capability, we sat down with John Dolan, Vice-President, Global Head of Media Sales at Broadsign, to discuss what this means for media buyers and how it can unlock a more seamless and modern buying experience.

Booking OOH should be as easy as booking a flight. How does Broadsign In-Advance help make that vision a reality?

When you look at how OOH campaigns are bought today, programmatic campaigns can arguably be booked as easily as a flight. You log into a DSP, set your targeting, pick the days, data, venue types, and geographics you wish to execute. But the reality is that programmatic represents only 5% of total OOH ad spend, meaning that 95% of all OOH transactions are still managed manually.

The real friction remains in direct out-of-home buys, which require a heavier lift due to the back-and-forth with media owners. If you’re managing a diverse campaign that needs to run on the inventory of six different media owners, that’s six different sales conversations, six negotiations, six separate contracts, six creative deliveries, and six reports you have to aggregate to track performance.

“Broadsign In-Advance helps bring this vision closer to reality by taking the speed and automation that everyone loves about programmatic and combining it with the guaranteed aspect of direct-booked DOOH campaigns.”
John Dolan, Vice President, Global Head of Media Sales at Broadsign

How does this save time for media planners and buyers? Can you walk us through a before-and-after scenario?

When you receive a campaign brief, you’re looking for media targeting and setups that best match the client’s objectives. In a direct OOH campaign, that means:

Reaching out to a media owner, or multiple depending on the geographic and campaign objectives, to start the brief by looking at flight dates and venue types.
Assuming the media owner has the inventory available for your desired dates, you begin negotiating on pricing, terms of the deal and the parameters for holding the inventory.
Once you’ve reached a consensus, additional paperwork needs to be pushed back and forth before the contract is signed.
Once the deal is secured, the agency then needs to provide the creatives directly to the media owner, and if you’re dealing with multiple media owners, that means meeting their respective aspect ratios.
Finally, proof-of-play procedures are different for each media owner. So, how fast you get the reporting, in what format, and how fast you’re able to audit the reports and consolidate them on your own becomes a heavily nuanced, time-consuming process.

With Broadsign In-Advance, you’re able to book direct OOH campaigns in a similar way you would a programmatic one:

Through Broadsign’s DSP OutMoove, or your DSP of choice, you identify the inventory that best fits your campaign objectives and request its availability. A response comes instantly from our ad server, providing a simple yes or no.
If it’s available, you’re presented with a price and a simple terms box to select that inventory. If approved, the inventory is officially booked – no holds, no negotiations needed on pricing or terms.
When it’s time to launch the campaign, you upload your creative directly into the DSP, just as you have done hundreds of times before.
While the campaign is in flight, you’ll have access to real-time proof-of-play reporting that’s standardized across all media owners in one centralized, auditable place.

“With Broadsign In-Advance, it’s a journey that you can take on your own. Of course, there will be collaboration with media owners on matters that add value to all parties, like what creative works best for what screen, but it does cut away the vast majority of the back-and-forth between media owners and buyers, allowing for a more seamless activation.”
John Dolan, Vice President, Global Head of Media Sales at Broadsign

Why would a media buyer choose to use Broadsign In-Advance if they’re already using programmatic DOOH?

Broadsign In-Advance wasn’t designed to replace programmatic DOOH, but rather to complement your existing buying strategy and address a critical gap between traditional direct deals and pure programmatic transactions. As more media buyers and owners adopt the solution, we’ll continue to find brilliant new use cases for it, but here are a few ways we see it being used:

Secure premium inventory during key seasonal periods

During the holiday season or key travel periods, retail-focused venues and other premium screens become limited, driving up competition and programmatic prices. We often hear from buyers that they avoid OOH altogether because it sells out during key trading periods. Broadsign In-Advance solves that problem by allowing you to reserve key inventory months ahead of time.

“Think about major, fixed events like the 2026 World Cup. Those tentpole opportunities are going to sell out fast. Broadsign In-Advance allows a buyer to secure those specific screens and guarantees playout, providing a frictionless activation that traditional programmatic can’t promise.”
John Dolan, Vice President, Global Head of Media Sales at Broadsign

Mix and match your OOH buys to maximize reach

Broadsign In-Advance can also be used to strategically support your usual OOH buys. For instance, you might have a traditional static or programmatic digital OOH buy, but need a digital portion that needs to run at a specific time on specific screens. You can book a direct digital placement through In-Advance, guaranteeing your ad will be visible when you need it to, while complementing your other placements.

Leveraging consistent planning data

With the ability to plan your direct OOH campaigns and access the inventory of multiple media owners through one platform, Broadsign In-Advance would allow you to leverage a consistent data set when building your campaign. Rather than relying on audience data provided individually by each media owner, you can use a widespread data application for your planning, making your multi-network buys more coherent and easier to audit.

“Ultimately, it’s about giving buyers a guaranteed, automated pathway to securing high-value inventory. For media owners, it also means maximizing revenue from both direct and programmatic sales by allowing buyers to lock in demand early. It’s a win for certainty and speed on both sides.”
John Dolan, Vice President, Global Head of Media Sales at Broadsign

When should a media buyer choose this capability over a traditional or programmatic open exchange buy or a programmatic guaranteed buy?

It’s important to look at this against all the different types of buys because we are not asking buyers to simply swap one method for another. Broadsign In-Advance is the tool you choose when you need the speed of digital buying paired with the certainty of a direct OOH deal.

Today, Programmatic Guaranteed (PG) is largely set up on a priority basis. That priority is based on a programmatic slot that a media owner has made available. Broadsign In-Advance takes this concept a step further by allowing buyers to reserve inventory that is being booked into a direct slot of the media owner’s inventory. It also gives buyers access to additional buy types for their DOOH campaigns, including Share of Voice (SOV), Budget or Play Goal, and Takeovers.

“With Broadsign In-Advance, your DOOH campaign isn’t privy to any sort of priority. It won’t be bumped. It gives buyers the confidence that the delivery of their goals for their customers won’t be interrupted, and I think that is what differentiates it from Programmatic Guaranteed buys.”
John Dolan, Vice President, Global Head of Media Sales at Broadsign

Can a buyer still leverage data and targeting with an in-advance transaction, similar to how they do with programmatic buys?

The short answer is absolutely. The advantage of Broadsign In-Advance is that it combines the data-rich planning experience of programmatic with the guaranteed delivery of a direct buy. As soon as media owners have selected the inventory they want to make available for in-advance transactions, that inventory is surfaced in the platform the same way that programmatic inventory is.

The data that exists there is still indexed against those screens. This means that all the various data partners available in your DSP can still be selected, utilized, and executed for planning. This gives you a consistent planning framework time and time again, ensuring you’re reaching the same audience with the same methodology across a myriad of place-based and outdoor media types.

Does this integrate with the DSPs I already use?

Yes. It is currently available through Broadsign’s DSP OutMoove, and we are actively working with a host of demand partners today to make this technology available through their platforms. It’s not our goal to guard this capability from the market. We hope it’s a framework that’s adopted across the ecosystem, and we’re happy to explore and have those conversations with our global partners – many of which we’re already integrated with from a supply perspective today.

What level of flexibility do in-advance transactions offer? Can a campaign be adjusted or optimized after it has been booked?

In the vast majority of cases, when we think about flexibility, it typically involves cancellation periods or shifting budgets for optimization purposes. Any cancellation would have to fall under the existing contractual terms of the media owner with whom the transaction was agreed upon.

In an in-advance transaction, there shouldn’t be a need to adjust the campaign in-flight. If you’ve selected the correct allocation and the creatives have been uploaded properly, you can be assured that it will be delivered. Buyers do, however, have the ability to manage creatives dynamically. As long as the media owner approves the content, different creatives can be used for each play.

That being said, Broadsign In-Advance DOOH campaigns enjoy the same automated ad delivery optimizations as traditional direct DOOH campaigns. Since the inventory is booked as a direct slot in the media owner’s inventory, In-Advance campaigns benefit from our rebalancing tool, which automatically adjusts pacing to ensure that ad delivery stays on track throughout the campaign’s duration.

What’s next for Broadsign In-Advance?

The future for In-Advance is about two things: broadening its reach and deepening its utility. We’ve laid the foundation, and now we’re aggressively driving demand and developing new features that our partners need. The earliest enhancement will be to make static OOH available for in-advance transactions in 2026. Looking a bit further ahead, we’ll be focused on:

Driving global demand and adoption

We’re in constant discussions with agencies, media owners, and demand partners across the world to increase adoption. We see Broadsign In-Advance as a foundational buying framework for the entire ecosystem, and these discussions are critical to understanding how it fits into everyone’s workflows.

Evolving buying metrics

We’re focused on making sure the way you book In-Advance campaigns aligns with the way OOH is traditionally measured and planned. This means actively having discussions around different buying frameworks:

Does it need to work on an impression framework?
Can we look at Share of Voice or Share of Time?
How do we ensure we’re providing the critical metrics that standard OOH buyers are looking for, whether that’s reliable reach and frequency or other established measurements?

Expanding availability to the full ecosystem

It would be naive to think we can drive this fundamental change all on our own. So, we are currently building technology that allows media owners – regardless of their backend software or whether they are a full-stack Broadsign client – to be able to connect, activate, and execute in this manner. It’s about broadening our scope from a technology perspective and making this standard practice industry-wide.

“We are committed to being humble, listening to feedback, and taking direction to ensure media owners feel comfortable about this change and for buyers to truly understand where Broadsign In-Advance fits best into their overall media mix.”
John Dolan, Vice President, Global Head of Media Sales at Broadsign