DooH at Cannes Lions: Yes We Cannes!

Next week, Cannes will be the epicenter of the global media and advertising community – and the Out-of-Home industry will be right in the thick of it.

Network owners, technology platforms, agencies, and associations will join – or host – the parties. Not only to celebrate the creativity of the whole advertising industry, but also to represent the channel. The Cannes Lions awards are at the center of the attention, but all the events around it will also be important.

The Cannes Lions this year come at a time when Out-of-Home changes the gear: The global growth rate is very positive: Globally, OoH has grown a stable media share of over 5 percent, in countries like Germany OoH is at the brink of establishing a market share of 10 percent.

DooH as the driver

What drives this growth mainly is Digital-out-of-Home: According to WPP Media, DooH is forecast to grow 9 percent annually, representing 43.9 percent of global Out-of-Home revenue by 2030, reaching $31.4 billion. The recent WOO congress showed that OoH is positioned to bridge the gap between physical and digital worlds, if it manages to reach the next level in terms of data integration and accessibility – challenges that DooH is perfectly fitted for.

For the international association DPAA, Cannes is exactly the right place to promote these strengths. Because not only agencies and media companies flock to the French Riviera, but, much more important, their customers. “It all starts with the brands,” says Barry Frey, President and CEO of DPAA. “OoH is a medium that has one source of income – advertising. So it is vital for the industry to convince the brands of the power of the channel.”

The DPAA recipe for that, as Frey puts it: high-level networking events with marketing leaders from international companies, like the ones DPAA is hosting year round. “There is an undeniable and unique impact from sharing a room or a conversation with someone, networking with the right folks in person learning and dealmaking.”

This year for example the lineup for the DPAA’s Curated Experience will include marketing leaders from companies like Mastercard, Linkedin, Google, and Marriott. “Our industry needs to keep showing up where brands and agencies are” emphazises Frey.

At the intersection of creativity

Regarding the technology side, one firm to represent the digital part of Out-of-Home specifically is the Programmatic DooH company Displayce. Together with their majority shareholder JC Decaux, they will have a yacht with a daily program to offer networking events as well as workshops.

For Displayce, DooH fits right into the spirit of Cannes. “It sits at the intersection of creativity, technology and real-world impact”, says Stefan Benno Müller, Sales Director DACH at Displayce. As the advertising industry looks for more contextual, measurable and engaging ways to connect with audiences, he argues, DooH has become a key creative medium. “Cannes is the ideal place to demonstrate that.”

Also present at Cannes is the DooH platform Vistar Media, which is closely involved in the activities of its parent company, T-Mobile Advertising Solutions. Besides special networking events, one highlight will be the Vistar EMEA Roundtable, where Vistar will discuss the growth and future of programmatic DooH together with other industry experts.

Diederick Ubels, Managing Director EMEA at Vistar Media, sees the Cannes Lions as the ideal platform to demonstrate how data-driven targeting and programmatic technologies can amplify the impact of campaigns: “Today, creativity and technology are inextricably linked. Programmatic DooH combines both and makes it possible to showcase creative ideas dynamically and contextually in public spaces – for example, by automatically adapting advertising content to the weather, time of day, or a specific location.”

Taking advantage of the right place

A company that will exactly do this in Cannes is Adquick. The OoH technology platform will run a campaign throughout the city to convince decision makers of the power of the channel. For example, there will be an ad at Nice airport that says “This ad Cannes be measured”. Other sujets that will appear on DooH totems in the city read “An AI booked this ad.”

For Adquick CEO Chris Gadek, this the best form to use the power of OoH to promote itself: making the brands experience it themselves. “I used to believe the barrier to OoH was measurement”, he says . ”I’ve changed my mind. The barrier is imagination. The brands that have truly unlocked this channel have a different relationship to physical space.” Understanding the attention of someone who looks up and sees something vivid on the side of a building, that is something the OoH industry must get in the head of the decision-makers.

Connecting creativity and technology

In order to really shine at Cannes, Out-of-Home and especially DooH has to bring together creativity and technology without opposing each other. “That is exactly the challenge,” says Stefan Benno Müller. “Technology remains at the core, but acts as an enabler. Data, automation and contextual intelligence make it possible to move beyond a single static message and adapt a creative idea to different audiences, locations and real-world moments.” This is how Displayce wants to bring together the spirit of Cannes and the evolution of Programmatic DooH. “We want to turn creative concepts into intelligent, scalable and measurable experiences.”

Chris Gadek also sees window of opportunity wide-open at the Lions. “Right now, the most powerful people in technology are predicting that the personal screen disappears, that an agent reads your email, browses for you, filters your feed, watches the video and hands you the summary,” says Chris Gadek. If they would be even half right, every digital channel would get a new gatekeeper sitting between the brand and the human. “And the one thing an agent cannot do is close your eyes when you’re driving down the highway.”

More than brand awareness

So Out-of-Home would become the last channel “that reaches a person directly, unfiltered, in the physical world everyone actually shares”, Gadek points out. “The industry’s job is to make that surface as easy to plan, buy, and measure as paid social.”

Diederick Ubels sees a similar main objective: to reduce fragmentation and and simplify cross-channel booking processes. “We should also continue to move consistently toward uniform and transparent standards”, he says. “These not only make the planning and activation of DooH campaigns more efficient but also help better demonstrate the actual business results of Digital out-of-Home advertising.”

Beyond that, Ubels also sets the focus on the task of persuasion: “Outdoor advertising is still often perceived as a static and inflexible medium that primarily serves to increase brand awareness. Yet modern DooH solutions support dynamic and context-driven campaigns that go far beyond traditional awareness goals.”

Momentum favors DooH

In Cannes, it looks like the momentum is on the side of DooH – in terms of market shares, but also in terms of the mindset of the media community. Barry Frey emphazises the parallels between events like Cannes and the Out-of-Home-Channel. He explains that one of the DPAA members, Outfront, has been referring to itself as an IRL – in real life – media company. “The impact of IRL has never been more clear to us, and we all must lean into every opportunity to be together in person at Cannes and elsewhere.”

So, after Cannes, when the yachts are cleaned and all the Rosé is sipped, what will be left in the heads of the international audience are the Lions winners, witnessing outstanding creativity and media excellence when scrolling the awards lists. This will be a great moment for Out-of-Home. But there is also the work behind the scenes, to strengthen the position of Out-of-Home and DooH in the heads of the brands – and their media plans.