Thinking Outside: Driving Brand Outcomes with Innovative, Data-Driven OOH 

OOH is reaching consumers throughout daily journeys — whether they’re driving, walking or commuting on mass transit. The expansion of digital OOH inventory is giving marketers more opportunities to capture consumer attention with full motion, digital video content across more screen formats than ever before.  

At Advertising Week New York, Talon US CEO, Jim Wilson led a discussion with industry experts Maria Colon, De’Longhi North America’s Vice President of Marketing and Customer Experience and Tamara Alesi, Mediaplus North America CEO for a lively conversation on how omnichannel brands and agencies are harnessing the power of out of home (OOH) to unlock brand reach and impact that drives both brand awareness and performance marketing goals. 

The session delved into the learnings and insights gained from De’Longhi North America’s impressive and highly impactful digital out of home (DOOH) campaign and the significance of OOH in engaging and converting consumers along their path to purchase. Additionally, the experts shared their views on the rise of retail media networks and why OOH is an essential medium for brands and agencies to establish real-world, human connections with their audiences to drive full-funnel outcomes. 

What we heard…

Insights from Industry Leaders on the Future of OOH Advertising

A Data-led Approach to OOH 

“Just as our business saw an amazing surge during the pandemic as more people sought great coffee in the comfort of their homes, OOH also saw a surge. This industry has always been designed to be bold and attention grabbing. Living in New York, we’re fortunate to witness the excitement of Times Square. But it’s not just about raising awareness. We’re able to capture intent and actual retail footfall. Taking a data-led approach to OOH allows us to win consumer mind share and their share of wallet.” – Mediaplus’ Tamara Alesi 

“Our retail partners have significant physical store presence that are looking to drive footfall traffic and they’re seeing the benefit of OOH. We leverage data insights from our partners, such as sales and customer interests, to design a campaign that makes sense for the brand. We’re not just putting up these beautiful images; the campaigns are really purposeful. We want to make sure that our retailers feel good about what we’re doing and that our consumers are excited about what we put out there to seize those moments.” – De’Longhi’s Maria Colon 

Reaching Consumers Throughout the Entire Customer Journey 

“We take a holistic approach — whether it’s from a PR perspective, customer reviews or event activations and content performance plays a crucial role. Having all these elements aligned with consistent messaging that feels authentic to the brand is key to our success. Our customers may be interacting with us across nine different touchpoints before converting, so it’s really important for us to be part of their full day.” – De’Longhi’s Maria Colon 

“While we’ve had great success with Brad Pitt as De’Longhi’s brand ambassador, our products are also visually gorgeous. We’re able to do really creative OOH placements with video to truly bring them to life. Through innovation, we’re capturing consumer intent in the morning and on the fringe, when people crave their caffeine fix. So it’s about having creative placements that matter for them in those moments.” – Mediaplus’ Tamara Alesi 

The Integration of OOH and Retail Media Networks 

“Retail media is super important in our business. We work with the biggest networks like Target, Best Buy, Amazon, Walmart, and Canadian Tire in Canada. Whether consumers buy from Delonghi.com or BestBuy.com, the key point is that they are purchasing a De’Longhi product. Across TV, OOH, digital, and social channels, we make sure to include our retail partners to enhance our overall retail spend. It’s an important component for our brand and we try not to separate.” – De’Longhi’s Maria Colon 

How Digital is Transforming OOH Creativity  

“Digital technology has transformed creativity in OOH because we don’t just need to put up a static 30-sheet billboard and leave it there for a month. We can be truly innovative and focus on what’s going to excite the consumer and get them to come to Delonghi.com and get their new favorite machine.” – Mediaplus’ Tamara Alesi 

Advancements in OOH Measurement  

 “We often talk about the importance of triangulating the truth. There’s a lot of data sources out there and no one data source can deliver what we need. In triangulating this truth, we incorporate traditional OOH metrics, such as footfall and traffic counts, but we also use AI to help us get smarter with programmatic OOH. We’ve gained insights from our on-air and digital buys to identify optimal day parts and consumer behavior patterns, especially for big purchases. By leveraging time-of-day and day-of-week triggers, we make our programmatic OOH campaigns and other media more effective and accountable.” – Mediaplus’ Tamara Alesi 

Learnings and the Future of OOH 

“From a brand standpoint, do not be afraid to test. We test a lot and that’s actually how we learn. When it comes to OOH, we identified two distinct roles: impact and frequency. One medium can serve multiple roles within a campaign, and this is all part of our testing and learning to understand what works. This applies from a creative, media, and channel standpoint — and you have to learn fast.” – De’Longhi’s Maria Colon 

“From a creative perspective, the emergence of 3D placements is bringing brands to life in exciting ways. In our campaign at the Oculus, we timed all 24 boards in a different way to create different brand moments and frequency plays. Everything was purposeful and told an engaging story. It was a truly immersive experience that allowed consumers to experience the brand without having to make the coffee themselves — and it got people talking about it.” – Mediaplus’ Tamara Alesi