There are advertising and marketing trade publications that now and then have a story about the medium, that may or may not be useful or relevant.

There are plenty of blogs by individuals and by suppliers that relate the benefits of the medium, but the good advice is here and there amidst all kinds of material about software, and display panels and other bits that the average planner and brand manager could care less about. Then there’s the Digital OOH ad network blogs that, understandably, go on and on about the perfection of their medium.

There’s been no place to go, online, for people wanting to get familiar with this new medium, or wanting to have a specific say about its strengths and weakness.

So that’s why DigitalOOH.biz was developed and launched this month. I call it a content hub, because its meant to be a central location for people on both the buying and selling side of digital out of home media to get quality, pitch-free information and opinion.

The intention is to have this serve as a forum/soapbox for media planners and other agency people, creative people, researchers and all the other people on the buy side of the table. The site is also a home for people on the selling side, but there will be no chest-beating or inflated numbers allowed. This exists to educate, not sell. The buying will come when the people controlling those budgets have a better grip on why they should buy DOOH.

The aspiration is to help people on that buy side better understand the value, and the fit, through thoughtful pieces from people looking at this medium from all angles. I also hope to see a robust, noisy commenting community start to develop.

I already write a separate blog and that is more than enough to keep me busy. With DigitalOOH.biz, I hope to write very little and function almost entirely as an editor/gatekeeper. It’s my job to round up the writers and ensure the quality stays high and the content never strays into advertorial.

Starting out, there are some very solid contributors from the OOH agency giant Posterscope and the sharp digital guys at Razorfish, as well as posts from the Digital Place-based Advertising Association, Adcentricity, Indoor Direct, RMG Networks and Saddle Ranch Digital. Many other planned contributors are promising posts that should be up soon, and we’re looking for points of view from around the globe.

If you have solid thoughts about this sector, but no real home to post them, this is your spot. I know there are lots of people who would love to have a blog to convey their ideas, but they nowhere near the time needed to maintain a blog and keep it fresh. With DigitalOOH.biz, contributors get a focused audience eager for their ideas, without any need to steadily feed a blog beast with more posts.

The site is online at www.digitalooh.biz, and on Twitter, it’s @digitaloohbiz

For those who may not live or be familiar with the region, The Holy Month of Ramadan marks a time when those living in MENA typically spend a significant amount of time at home with their family and friends, on the phone to those living overseas, as well as outside of their homes. As such, their lifestyle during this period marks an attractive and highly effective time to advertise to consumers.

Whilst official figures are still to be released, initial data and industry & media commentators are pretty much in agreement that ad spend is well and truly down in this period, with many companies choosing to cut their marketing budgets this year.  Whilst positively spending levels on advertising during Ramadan are up against the rest of 2011 to date in the MENA countries, overall spending is expected to be lower than last year.

In recent months at DOOH Insights,  we’d shared with you research and figures already showing a decline in overall ad spend in the region in 2011 to date. The same reasons for the decline across the whole of 2011, as well as at Ramadan, are being given; the political unrest sweeping many parts of the region and continued economic struggles globally, including the credit downgrade in the US and debt crisis in Europe.

Shaharyar Umar, marketing director at the Pan Arab Research Centre (PARC), told Gulf News, that one of the primary reasons local ad revenue during this period suffered is because three of the biggest spenders in the region are multinational companies, Procter and Gamble, Unilever and PepsiCo. “Furthermore, this Ramadan coincides with the peak of the holiday period,” Umar continued.  August marks the peak summer break in the region, with nearly 4.7% of the population in the Gulf going on holiday in this period according to research.

So, what have we witnessed in the new and growing DOOH industry during this period?

Shopping malls and supermarkets have long provided some of the most premium DOOH environments, because of footfall volumes, long visit times and the perfect consumer mindset for advertisers.  The climate and culture of the MENA region, makes the many sprawling shopping malls across the countries busy on a normal week day, but increasingly so during Ramadan, when footfall figures can increase by up to a third. As such, they are a venue of choice for many advertisers in the region, providing a large audience with significant spending power.

In the UAE, some of the strongest DOOH networks are in malls, including those of Majid Al Futtaim Properties (MAF), the UAE’s most prominent property and shopping mall developer and owner of some of the largest mall advertising networks, including Mall of Emirates, Mirdiff City Centre and Deira City Centre; Abu Dhabi Media owned Al Barq Digital and Dubai Mall operated by Hypermedia.

DOOH Insights carries out a weekly screen campaign audit across DOOH networks the UAE and whilst we can’t comment on likely revenues secured by operators, we definitely did witness a busier period over Ramadan, with more paid for content going out across the mall networks.   As typically seen in this period, media companies and the TV networks were heavy advertisers, with Sharjah TV and ADTV both running long term campaigns.   Other key advertisers during this period included Landmark Group, Etisilat, Du and Ferrari World (who pretty much ran on every DOOH network for the past 2 months).

Away from the malls, JCDecaux’s screens in Dubai International airport were on the whole booked up and busy and many of the screen networks in office towers across the city were filled with store sales, bank ads and gym & diet plan campaigns.

We’re in the process of talking to a number of the key operators and industry spokespeople in the region to get their thoughts on the Ramadan just gone and how it was for them and we’ll be sharing their insights and commentary very soon.

Whilst the ad spend figures may be down across the region, the UAE and Saudi Arabia have been bucking the trend in recent analysis, so let’s hope it’s not all doom and gloom once the official figures are released. There are many who still feel Q4 could see a pick up across the board and we hear that whilst it may not be as quick as we’d like, DOOH is increasingly making it on to media plans and that at the end of the day is good to see.

We’ve been a little quiet here at DOOH Insights we know.  It wasn’t our intention, but Ramadan proved a very busy period for our team (all good stuff!) and we then enjoyed a much needed Eid break. We hope you did too.

We’re back at our desks and still very much here and look forward to sharing an eventful and interesting autumn time with you all.   Whilst we’ve been away, there has been some exciting news with a new DOOH entrant into the Middle East Market – Amscreen (more on that coming up soon). Some great Ramadan campaigns have graced screens across the region over the peak advertising period (pictures and write up also to follow), more ad forecasts and predictions have been shared and there are plenty of other moves and developments in the offing too. DOOH in MENA remains an exciting place to be.

As ever, if you have any DOOH news to share from around the region, be it of new entrants, new products, launching networks, success stories or ones we can learn from, or if you have anything to share with us at all, please get in touch.

Let us introduce the International Digital Signage Awards, or the DOOHDAS as they are are known.

In their own words… “The International Digital Signage Awards – Crossing borders, crossing old boundary lines, carving out an independent, international and impartial reputation for honouring – or should that be honoring? –  the finest digital signage, DOOH installations, networks and use across continents. Winners will be acclaimed by sector, by content, creativity and technical innovation, and by company, from ad agency to equipment manufacturer; and from owners and operators to distributors and installers.”

There are 14 sector categories, 6 content and creativity categories, and 6 company categories, as follows:

The date for entries to the 2012 Digital Signage Awards close on September 30th, so there is still plenty of time to choose projects and campaigns to enter. I know there is some great work being done here. So, let’s make sure the MENA region shines, as we know it can.

Full details and how to enter, as well as the opportunity to sign up to the regular newsletters, can be found here: www.doohdas.com

Overall revenues for the 6 months to the end of June 2011, showed a 5.3% increase to €1,170.0 million compared to the same period last year, with a net profit of €95.1 million.

The strong growth in the company’s digital activity is one of the cited reasons for this growth.  JCDecaux’s digital turnover, is estimated to be worth €50 million during this period.   The company had 7,300 screens globally at the end of June, compared to 6,000 six months ago.

Commenting on the 2011 first half results, Jean-François Decaux, Chairman of the Board and co-Chief Executive Officer, said:

“Our H1 2011 results reflect JCDecaux’s ability to generate sound revenue growth and meaningfully increase its profits despite the uncertain macro-economic environment. Organic revenue growth in H1 was principally driven by the strong performance of Asia-Pacific and the Rest of the World where we continued to strengthen our position. In Europe, the strong performance in certain markets such as Germany was partially offset by continued weaknesses in Southern Europe and some slowdown in the United Kingdom and France.

Although some concern remains regarding the short-term economic outlook, we are confident in our ability to deliver solid revenue growth from our well diversified geographical mix and the superior quality of our advertising networks. We currently anticipate that organic revenue growth for Q3 will be in a similar range to Q2.

We continue to believe that Outdoor advertising remains structurally well placed for the future and that JCDecaux is increasingly well positioned in this industry. We expect to continue to gain share from both other media, and within our own sector, driven by our international presence, our strong balance sheet, our diversified offer and the high quality of our teams across the world.

Another day and more ad spend figures, analysis and commentary is released.

Latest figures out from PARC (Pan Arab Research Centre), show advertising expenditure between January and June this year at $5.85 billion, consistent with other recent reports in showing a year-on-year decline in ad spend, thus resulting in a 4% downfall, mainly as a result of the protests in Egypt and unrest in many other parts of the region.

In summary;

• Ad spending in Egypt, the biggest advertising market in 2010, dropped by half, downgrading it to 4th position among the top spending markets.  The UAE regained its top spending spot, as it acted as the region’s “safe hub” and reported a growth of 1% in that period.
  
• A growth of 8% was reported in Saudi Arabia, the highest among any regional market.  Lebanon posted a 3% increase in spending, whilst Kuwait and Qatar reported a 3% drop each, with Bahrain plummeting 22% and Jordan 19%.
  
• The 3 top spending sectors were communications, toiletries and government sector, with all reporting year-on-year decreases of 3%, 8% and 12% respectively.   Real estate is also still struggling to recover, plunging a further 29%.  On the positive, the food sector was up by 16% and shopping malls and retail stores increased by 10%.
  
• The top 3 regional advertisers in order of spending are: P&G, Unilever and Pepsico.
• TV holds 57% of all media spend is down 4%, newspaper spending decreased 7% and magazines increased by 7%.
• The outdoor industry continues to show growth – 2%  this period, to a total spend of $256 million.  No split is given between traditional OOH and digital at this time.
  

Overall, the general outlook in the PARC report remains positive, and despite the economic crisis of 2009 that has slowed regional advertising, two major components of the economy in the region, oil and tourism, continue to drive the region forward.  The feeling is that further recovery will be seen in the next period of reporting.

To read the detailed analysis, with charts and tables, the full report can be downloaded here.

Note: PARC calculate spend on the published rate card and do not account for incentives or discounts that advertisers may secure from media owners.

Al Barq Digital have just released the second in their Little Book of DOOH series. This one is all about successful DOOH planning and talks about how to best use the DOOH medium to engage effectively with consumers.

The book has been made relevant to those running a network or considering buying an ad campaign on one, and it’s message is simple “success with DOOH comes down to a good plan”.

Since their launch in 2010, Al Barq Digital (owner and operator of DOOH Insights) have been committed to their DOOH sector advocacy strategy and mission to raise standards and champion measurability and accountability for the industry as a whole.   Educating the sector, with collateral such as The Little Book Series, forms part of this initiative.

So, if you’d like a copy of “The Little Book of Planning for success with DOOH“, or if you haven’t got your hands on the first “Little Book of DOOH“, get in touch at info@albarqdigital.com to request yours.

Not ones to hang around, the 3rd edition of the series is already in progress, due out at the end of the year….

Original forecasts set by the media agency, had predicted adspend for 2011 at a 0.1% growth. In April this year, the agency issued an update to this forecast, which showed significant declines in Egypt and Bahrain, due to the political unrest experienced in those countries.  However, a further more dramatic decline is now forecast across the region, with adspend set to drop by 12.1% this year.

The predicted decline is now set to affect Egypt, Bahrain and Oman the most, with forecasts for the UAE and Saudi Arabia also now having been decreased to show negative growth.

In April, ZenithOptimedia predicted that Egypt’s adspend would decrease by 20%, after the political unrest in the country.   This has now been further reduced to a decline of 40.6%. Similarly in Bahrain, the total adspend was expected to drop by 65.1% compared with the 19% forecast in April.

The UAE and Saudi Arabia, countries with some of the greatest adspend in the region, are also suffering.  Forecast to rise by 5.2% and 4.3% respectively in April, they are both now expected to post negative growth, being downgraded to falls of 14% and 4.5% respectively.  Pan- Arab spend, which was deemed to be robust, will also fall 10.4% from $2.25 billion to $2 billion. Qatar, Kuwait and Lebanon, are however predicted to show positive growth of 1.3%, 4.7% and 5.3% respectively.

“The political turmoil has spread further, and advertisers have continued to pull campaigns in the three relatively large ad markets that have been engulfed in this turmoil (Bahrain, Egypt and Oman), as well as cutting back their exposure in pan-regional media,” says ZenithOptimedia’s report.

“On the upside, we now predict an 8.9 % rebound in 2012 (compared to the 4.8 % we predicted in April), on the assumption that the political situation in the region stabilises,” the report added. The effect of these changes at a global level will be limited as the region accounts for only 1 % of global adspend.

Positively, the global advertising market is still expected to return to growth. ZenithOptimedia had previously predicted a 4.2% global growth, and this has only been reduced slightly to 4.1% and a total adspend of $471 billion.

So, what does this mean for  the newly emerging DOOH medium in the region?

We don’t have any precise figures (we’re still championing for better metrics in this area, with various research projects in progress), but we do know that DOOH spend has been affected, as have all mediums, and the growth we expected and hoped for, hasn’t been as strong as we would have liked.

To give you some flavour for what is happening with DOOH here in the region , let me summarise a few observations from my team at Al Barq Digital and from other DOOH companies we’ve spoken to in the region:

• New brands and advertisers are trying out DOOH - One of the biggest challenges we have faced, is getting advertisers to try out the medium.   As ever, people are cautious with anything new.   However, time and time again, we are finding that once brands test the medium, experience the benefit of animation and impactful creative and enjoy the fact they can alter their content according to time of day or as their offers change, that they do come back time and time again.  We have one client that dipped their toe in the DOOH waters at the end of last year, who have just booked their 5th campaign with us.
• In-mall ad networks across the region are definitely busier – Malls remain one of the most commonly used DOOH venues in the region at present, mainly due to the amount of time consumers spend in them.  We conduct regular audits of all activities across the digital screen networks in our region and we are definitely seeing inventory up.   There is still a way to go in terms of quality of content, with too many networks and advertisers happy to throw a static poster up on screen, rather than investing in quality animation and content designed to maximise the benefits of the medium, but it’s moving in the right direction.
• The automotive industry is making the move - Globally the automotive industry is one of the biggest spenders on DOOH media and have produced some fantastic creative work, to really make the most of the medium.  In the MENA region, automotive clients have been slow to adopt. However, in 2011, we have seen the likes of VW and Chevrolet start experimenting with in-mall advertising screens, and we expect others to follow.

• Advertisers/ brands still feel safer with static and traditional OOH mediums - Traditional OOH advertising is big business in the region, with many suppliers and options to choose from. The biggest challenge remains in getting advertisers to move over from the safer, tried and tested medium, and one that is very affordable, to something a little unknown.    It is happening, but it’s taking time and a lot of education, and DOOH is still very much an add on to a static campaign.
  
• New DOOH companies are launching – We’re regularly hearing news of new DOOH companies set to launch in the region. Companies are either expanding from more mature markets like the UK/ Western Europe,  traditional OOH companies are trialling new technologies and media companies are expanding their portfolio. We like to think they’ve done their research and have a business plan in place, so there must still be a good opportunity to be seized.
  

ZenithOptimedia’s report this week, may not have been the best news we were hoping for, but those of us on the ground, knew it was coming from what we have seen in recent months and the overall reluctance to spend, even by the biggest advertisers.   Not ones to remain down hearted, we remain confident that 2011 will witness a change in perception and willingness to consider the DOOH medium in the MENA region, which will help it go from strength to strength in 2012, when all being well, spending power will be on the rise again.

Certainly, we get asked how the Digital Out Of Home (DOOH) sector is doing and what we tend to say is that while growth is never as fast as you hope it will be, the sector here and elsewhere is certainly growing. We can say that from our own perspective in the region, but also in the generally strong signals we see and read from around the globe.

Generally, the healthiest growth seems to be coming from established Out Of Home outdoor media companies that have experienced advertising sales forces, deep ties with agencies and brands, and both the need and resources to convert their inventory from static to digital. In some respects, that’s not so much a new industry as a well-established one making a major technology adjustment.

In Australia, that country’s Outdoor Media Association says it has come off its sixth consecutive quarter of growth, with a five percent increase for Q2 and a year-to-date rise of 5.4 percent. Business was up 19 percent in 2010.

As reported in DailyDOOH, an Italian report from a group representing the majority of that country’s media companies said overall OOH business was flat in 2010 and actually expected to slip in 2011, but the DOOH sector was expected to grow by more than 100 per cent in 2011.

In North America, the Chicago-based Platt Retail Institute looks at the sentiments of the region’s digital signage sector and creates an index of business and industry activity. The latest PRI Index, released last week, suggests the current DS Index (for Q1 2011) was down sharply from the 3.82 percent increase of Q4 2010 and fell behind GDP growth for the first time since PRI started doing its Index.

That owes, says PRI, to the limp state of the US economy. But the organization says things appeared to be on the rebound in Q2.

So, how are we DOOH’ing?  Overall not too bad.

All the largest flat panel display manufacturers invest a lot of resources in this show, and the executives spoke about how video walls are by far the hottest sector in the DOOH and digital signage sectors. The orders are coming in regularly. Happily for the display firms, the time between first contact and closed contract is much shorter than with other types of deals.

There are a few reasons for this:

1.       The technology has improved substantially in terms of color reproduction and brightness, and particularly with respect to the seams between displays when they are clustered together to make  video walls. For many years, the bezels (or frames) that surround the plasma or LCD glass have been as thick as 20 mms or more, meaning bezels joined together across and down made for very thick grids. The net result was video walls that looked, if you were being polite, compromised. The less polite would say they just looked awful. Now seams are a matter of just a few mms, and the grid lines almost disappear on large walls. Many of the walls at InfoComm looked spectacular.

2.       The software and video processing hardware is also substantially better, meaning that a wall of displays with 10 monitors and more can offer many possibilities and hold uniform color, brightness and tone across all of them.

3.       Costs have dropped enormously at the same time, with panels a fraction of the cost from just a few years ago. These are still big ticket projects, but the numbers now work.

But video walls are also coming on as the go-to solution for media companies, corporations and facility operators for a much simpler reason. Visually, they work.

In large spaces, even a 60-inch or greater LCD or plasma display that would look enormous mounted on a wall at home can go largely unnoticed. Installing several screens around a space may counteract that, but only somewhat. If screens cannot get installed down at eye-level, in locations where they can’t help but be noticed, they will struggle for attention. The answer is to go big.

Video walls and other technologies that fill an area through projection or other means create the attention-getting and people-stopping power that deliver a return on both the investment and objectives. They still need good content and a solid plan, but these walls eliminate the biggest questions: Will people notice the screen?

You will see more and more such walls, and the other intriguing development coming from the show was the continued evolution of shape.

The minimized seams on LCD and plasma panels are allowing smart fabricators to develop new ideas on how such screens can be counted – in stacked vertical columns, gentle curves and intriguing geometric clusters.

New technologies are emerging, as well, that allow video to take on irregular shapes, Christie launched its MicroTiles display cubes 18 months ago, followed six months later by the very similar Prysm cubes. At this year’s show, the German firm eyevis debuted OmniShapes – cubes similar in many respects to the others, but designed as hexagonal and bevelled at the side to allow walls to be curved in different ways.

At Christie’s massive booth, it was showing an immersive wall that enable people to walk up and interact, as others elsewhere on the wall did their own thing. Other companies were showing similar concepts. This immersive element is the next evolution of these large walls.

The BIG concept is here to stay. It doesn’t replace all the small screens out there, and walls of this scale will be special projects – and not mass rollouts – for the foreseeable future. But one can’t ignore the obvious. These walls can’t be ignored. They’re too BIG.

For more information:

http://eyevis.de
http://prysm.com/
http://www.christiedigital.com/en-us/digital-signage/pages/default.aspx