As digital out-of-home continues to grow, there are a number of hurdles that programmatic technology vendors must overcome before adoption is seen as a necessity rather than an option. Misconceptions abound in the DOOH industry, particularly when it comes to the perception that some media owners have about programmatic. Here are the top four misconceptions that we wanted to address.
1. Programmatic will drive digital out-of-home prices to the bottom”The most common misconception programmatic exchanges must dispel is that they drive prices down. In theory, it could seem like programmatic was designed just to mimic the mobile and online worlds, where ad space is a dime a dozen. However, DOOH inventory is finite, so compared to online and mobile, programmatic digital out-of-home is far less likely to naturally drive down CPMs due to a limited supply that is in high demand. Further, Vistar Media gives our media owner partners full control over the minimum rates allowed. This means that no transactions ever occur through the Vistar exchange at a rate with which the media owner is not comfortable.
2. “Programmatic digital out-of-home isn’t really programmatic”
Over the past year or so, we’ve heard the term “program-manual” floating around DOOH industry circles. The idea that DOOH cannot be programmatic is simply false! While the technology that makes PDOOH possible must account for much more nuance than other programmatic buying mechanisms, Vistar has dedicated years towards building a system that is built for the complexities of OOH. Vistar’s suite of solutions not only accommodates the influx of digital buyers to the ecosystem, but allows for more involved advertising strategies like serving a campaign to an audience segment. Vistar also offers robust targeting and measurement solutions to complete our strategy suite.
3. “A programmatic exchange won’t treat every media owner fairly”
Through Vistar, media owners avoid the trappings that could prevent a true aggregation of scale. First and foremost, Vistar is not a media owner itself, nor are we owned or operated by any media owner network. In addition, Vistar is hardware and operating system agnostic, with integration solutions for a variety of CMS. Lastly, it’s important to note that our programmatic exchange and private marketplace are designed to be a perfect complement to the transactions made by media owners’ direct sales teams. By selling inventory on the Vistar exchange, media owners open themselves to a new set of buyers and virtually eliminate the concept of unsold inventory.
4. “Programmatic digital out-of-home is only available for 1:1 private deals"
There seems to be a misperception that programmatic DOOH is only available for pre-negotiated 1:1 deals, often called private marketplace deals. Contrary to this belief, Vistar offers non-guaranteed mechanisms to the benefit of both media owners and buyers. Through the open exchange, media owners can make their inventory available to the world’s largest digital buyers, and our Deals Discovery storefront allows buyers to browse packages created by media owners to generate proactive interest. Additionally, media owners are not required to dedicate a specific amount of inventory for Vistar’s exchange - as a network, you control exactly how much inventory you’d like to sell through the exchange.
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