Digital Out-Of-Home Media : The Education Should Continue

Lloyd Tronco, Convenor of the Philippine Forum on
Digital Out Of Home Media

Despite the growing acceptance of outdoor media as a mainstream medium, OOH still has a long way to go in terms of reaching a status of reverence.

Almost everyone in the circle of advertising and media are familiar with the blatant absence of regulation in the medium brings about a Wild,Wild West mentality among vendors.  By saying so, placements are not controlled in terms of position, size, and execution.  Take that further into Digital Out-Of-Home and everything gets even more confusing.

It is not just the rates and variety of packages that clients and planners need to contend with, it is also the understanding of the nuances of the medium which practically everyone in the industry, including creatives, need to come to grips with.

It was for that reason that in the early days of digital signage, the Philippine Center for Out-Of-Home Media Research and Science spearheaded the First Philippine Forum on Digital Out-Of-Home Media.  That took place in 2010 and a clear 5 months before there was even a Digital Signage World Asia in Singapore! 

At the First Philippine Forum on Digital Out-Of-Home Media, we were greatly elated to have DOOH guru Manolo Almagro to be with us.  At that time, he was still residing in the country doing his consulting for Jollibee and Globe.  Year after that, we had DOOH 2 which again was a big hit having Ricky Baizas of Nestle and no less than Bob Michaels of the Digital Screen Media Association.

DOOH.2 with Bob Michaels, Ricky Baizas, and Christian Besler

On the third year, it just got bigger.  Thanks to Willy Soong who was the newly appointed distributor of Daktronics, the DOOH 3 took place at the Jaguar Lifestyle Center in BGC.  Ron Graham flew in to Manila, as did the folk from Christie, Julianna Tong and the gents from Daktronics.  Research guru Jay Bautista also weighed in.

From there, we somehow slid back.  There was a DOOH 4 but it was not of the scale as DOOH 1, 2, and 3.  Zeno Martinez and myself know the reasons why the momentum tapered off, but it is not for us to discuss here.  Nevertheless, young as it is, there has to be a constant stream of "Learning Series" to feed and fuel the proper use of digital signage.

As it is, all we see are display ads which hardly maximize the full potential of the LED and LCD screens.  Yes, the images are moving, but that is all there is to it.

So the education must continue.  As usual, Bing Kimpo and I by default are the voices crying out in the wilderness trying our best to advocate good use of Digital OOH.

It is my hope that this year, 2016, the stakeholders of Digital Signage and DOOH will rally behind further educational events.  After all, once the clients/advertisers see that DS/DOOH works, anything invested towards the educational events will pay off.

Then DOOH ads will no longer be the mere moving displays of re-purposed TVC edits as we are so used to seeing.