Once upon a time, all digital OOH campaigns were ’linear’. No live data feeds, contextual content or interactive elements. Simply motion creative delivered as movie files to the media owner. Smarter, contextual and dynamic advertising is infiltrating the world of DOOH at a pace, evolving the medium beyond the simple creative efficiency it began with. However, linear campaigns aren’t going anywhere and as DOOH proceeds with its expansion across the world stage, linear creative will continue as the content that drives this growth.

Linear creativity has advanced over the years; it’s no longer an afterthought. DOOH adverts are no longer simply repurposed print or TV content… they are now filmed, designed and developed specifically for DOOH. And as more markets begin to adopt DOOH as a media standard, we’re starting to see brands deliver this bespoke DOOH content across multiple territories.

Digital OOH continues to bring ever-growing challenges to the creative table: a myriad of formats, shapes, sizes, durations and environments to consider. With the increase in demand & complexity for linear DOOH content, how can we remain effective as an industry where global rollouts are becoming a new standard?

Other media channels, such as online banner advertising, have already faced these obstacles within their own field and have developed tools to cope with the challenges. Toolkits containing master layouts, animation guides and designs to standardised sizes (MPUs, Leaderboards, Skyscrapers etc) are now commonplace, helping to define the creative for the wider rollout. In fact, HTML5 ads can now be built as responsive content using these master standardisation techniques.

Grand Visual has been at the forefront of international DOOH creative execution for several years: we currently deliver linear content to over 45 markets (across Europe and the US and as far afield as Kazakhstan and Guatemala). A wide range of localisations, formats, durations and creative options have become commonplace in our production process.

The constant growth that we have seen with this linear global rollout has mirrored the adoption and expansion of Digital OOH as a medium across the world. It has enabled smaller international markets to take advantage of what is being created for the larger ones and it has unified the production process so that campaigns retain the same creative quality across the world, regardless of format.

To meet the challenges of delivering market-specific, format-specific, environment-specific linear at volume, Grand Visual’s production process has taken a leaf out of other media channels and developed a DOOH toolkit. Once the creative masters are developed, we adapt these to a selection of standardised shapes: Portrait, Landscape, Super Landscape and Ultra Landscape. Multiple durations, subtle and full motion animation options are made available. There will always be bespoke formats to deal with, but these master files give the markets flexibility in their media booking, and give us the foundation to deliver across a multitude of territories under the pressure of tight timescales.

Additional supply of textless copies extends localisation options and gives added value as the supply of animated elements mean they can be used across other media such as online banners, social content and even broadcast. After all, it’s important that we bridge the gap between online and DOOH - there is an opportunity to unify certain assets, layouts and animations, especially as HTML5 signage becomes more prevalent.

Globally, DOOH offers a vast and amazing canvas to work with.  In order to capitalise on that opportunity we must look to establish new production processes to manage the massive format variations and copy volumes. Grand Visual’s experience at successfully fulfilling international campaigns has led us to pioneer an approach to master campaign rollouts across the world. DOOH toolkits have proven to be invaluable in facilitating delivery at scale for global digital out-of-home production whilst ensuring quality and value for our clients.