While most of the Ad Club events were cancelled, the impact of the COVID crisis on the OOH industry, really shouted out for attention. Dan Mak and myself decided a series would be the best approach. We were thrilled by the feedback and the interest in participating and the sponsors of course.
Part 1: 336 registrants : focused on OOH battling back as an industry. A few key pieces of research had been released. Specifically we really wanted to explore what Pattison had done with Pelmorex. Working together for the health of the industry and sharing their data was a big move. Particularly in the early months of COVID, it was so great to actually “see” traffic coming back. Conversation from Part I gave us a natural lead to Part II.
Part II: 416 Registrants: Programmatic the perfect platform. This was our biggest event! We had sponsorships from key programmatic players (Hivestack and Vistar) and KINETIC the biggest DOOH buying agency. Everyone was so thrilled to learn more about data and how the programmatic platforms give insights into where the audience is. This is definitely a topic we could develop more content around.
Part III: 388 Registrants: How companies are evolving in the face of COVID. We really wanted this to be the story about how companies were pivoting to survive. So the format gave sponsors more of a platform to talk about their business. It was also great to meet some new faces. Bill Macdonald (Branded Cities) is always a great moderator so we hope he will be back in 2021.
Conclusion: As an industry we are used to celebrating together. The series wasn’t perfect, but it did allow for a celebration of sorts. We are #inthistogether. We look forward to developing more events for 2021.
Date Published: December 12, 2020
Author: Leith Mason