The Changing Face of Big Screen Advertising in 2024

As we step into 2024, the landscape of big-screen advertising is poised for transformative changes. In this blog post, we'll dive into the exciting world of large-scale digital screens, exploring the trends and innovations that are set to redefine how brands engage with audiences. From the bustling streets lined with towering digital billboards on the dynamic Digital Out-of-Home (DOOH) realm to the immersive world of Connected TV (CTV) advertising, we're on the brink of a new era.

Join us as we unravel the ad tech predictions for 2024, where technology meets creativity, data-driven strategies gain momentum, and the boundaries of digital advertising are pushed to new heights. Get ready to discover how these colossal screens will not just display ads but tell stories, create experiences, and forge deeper connections with consumers in ways we've never seen before.

Current State of Big Screens Advertising

With cord-cutting on the rise, consumers have been leaning more toward CTV. Due to this, CTV ad spending is forecasted to surpass 42 billion dollars by 2028. Additionally, estimated global open programmatic CTV advertising spending eclipses $5.3 billion in Q3 2023. This figure underscores the rapidly growing significance of big screens in the advertising landscape. The ability to leverage data allows advertisers to deliver highly relevant ads to specific audience segments, improving engagement rates and return on investment.

The reduction of invalid CTV traffic, including ad fraud, to 15% marks a significant improvement. This decline reflects the successful implementation of more sophisticated fraud detection and prevention strategies, enhancing both the credibility and effectiveness of advertising on CTV platforms.

As technology keeps evolving, not only to make it safer for marketers to deliver messages but also to sync them across screens, let us take a moment to assess the status of other prominent displays like Digital Out-of-Home (DOOH). Consumers gradually returned to their pre-pandemic habits and resumed shopping in retail stores, generating a surge in DOOH advertising popularity. Although, in 2020, global retail sales fell by 2.9 percent as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, it bounced back in 2021 with a growth of 9.7 percent. Global retail sales were projected to amount to around 32.8 trillion U.S. dollars by 2026, up from approximately 26.4 trillion U.S. dollars in 2021. This resurgence highlighted the enduring appeal and effectiveness of large-screen advertising in public and retail spaces.

The intersection of DOOH (Digital Out-of-Home) advertising and TV viewership presents intriguing insights. 84% of people who have noticed DOOH roadside or on bus shelters in the past week are heavy to medium TV viewers. According to Statista, 76% of marketers plan to allocate more of their budgets to DOOH campaigns in 2023. This trend showcases the growing recognition of DOOH's effectiveness and its pivotal role in modern marketing landscapes. Insider Intelligence's forecast further bolsters the sector's potential, predicting DOOH to burgeon into a billion-dollar industry by the end of 2024. Furthermore, the projected doubling of programmatic DOOH (pDOOH) ad spending in the next two years signals a significant shift in advertising strategies, emphasizing the increasing importance and viability of DOOH advertising in the contemporary media landscape.

The Big Screens Revolution in 2024

The Big Screens Revolution is redefining the landscape of digital media and advertising. This era marks a significant shift towards larger, more immersive display technologies that are transforming how content is consumed and interacted with. From advanced Connected TV (CTV) platforms to expansive Digital Out-of-Home (DOOH) screens, the focus on larger displays is not just enhancing viewer experience but also opening new avenues for creative and impactful advertising. Let's take a look at some of the upcoming trends in 2024

1. The revolutionary force of Gen AI 

Gen AI is no longer a buzzword; it’s an essential ingredient for advertisers.  Built on the capabilities of Large Language Models (LLMs), this innovative approach is set to transform advertising strategies, heralding a new era in targeted and efficient advertising solutions. The implications of this are profound, extending beyond mere technological innovation; Gen AI is reshaping industries, enhancing creative processes, and redefining the boundaries of machine-assisted creativity and problem-solving. As with any new technology, there is an evolutionary path to realizing its full potential. Yet, what sets GenAI apart is the swift pace at which it is becoming accessible and affordable. A variety of models are already making their way into numerous industries, demonstrating the technology's versatility and appeal. This rapid dissemination is a clear indicator of the industry's momentum towards widespread adoption. 

For big screens, unlike traditional rule-based AI systems, Gen AI harnesses the power to autonomously create new content, text, images, and videos, by learning and replicating complex patterns. This capability is revolutionary, allowing it to generate highly realistic and contextually relevant outputs that were once thought impossible. 

But let's look at three key impact areas on big screens

a. Unstructured Language Processing: GenAI excels in understanding unstructured language-based information, such as TV show transcripts. This capability reduces dependency on predefined content categorization for campaign targeting, thus, enhancing efficiency.

b. Creative Ideation and Production: It enables more engaging and cost-effective creatives by enriching the ideation part of the creative process. While human involvement in the creative process remains crucial, GenAI tools facilitate the production of new video creatives and variations at significantly lower costs, fostering efficient A/B testing.

c. Campaign Data Interpretation: GenAI will have a substantial impact on interpreting campaign data and communicating value for brands. This is expected to allow campaign managers to focus more on improvement rather than reporting and streamlining the optimization process.

Furthermore, GenAI has revolutionized advertising by enabling highly personalized and efficient content creation, marking a substantial advancement in ad capabilities. It allows for dynamic creatives, such as custom-tailored ads for a sports apparel brand or contextually relevant advertising for diverse linguistic demographics, like in India. Additionally, GenAI enhances brand safety and ensures contextual placement of ads.  It adeptly identifies and preempts unsuitable content ensuring that ads are placed in brand-safe environments for specific audiences. For example,  automatically avoiding showing ads on content unsuitable for a brand's image, such as entertainment intended for kids or excessively violent shows. With mediasmart’s AI CTVsafe feature, advertisers can automatically filter out risk categories and place ads that are relevant to the content being viewed and brand safe.

GenAI stands as a groundbreaking tool in the realm of advertising, offering unprecedented personalization and efficiency while ensuring brand safety and contextual relevance. And this will significantly elevate the effectiveness and integrity of ad campaigns on big screens in 2024.

2. Surviving in a cookieless world

With Google’s latest update at the beginning of 2024, when a user hits the “reject all” button, advertisers will have less reliable data to conduct targeted advertising. The deprecation of cookies is not only an industry movement. The staggering 71% of countries having Data Protection and Privacy Legislation, according to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, makes switching to alternative cookieless solutions paramount for advertisers. With consumers being increasingly concerned about privacy, demanding transparency and respect for their preferences, we agree with AdExchanger’s statement:  the future of Ad Tech is about consent, not cookies. Marketers are pivoting towards privacy-compliant, consent-based strategies to navigate the shifting terrain of online advertising. The shift towards a cookieless world has led to the creation of alternate identification methods and the resurgence of contextual advertising, marking a return to strategies that focus on the relevance of ad content to the surrounding media environment. 

A key development in this space is the adoption of diverse identification methodologies. On one side, you can find 'Universal IDs', a term coined by the industry to describe a new generation of identifiers that align with stringent privacy regulations. These Universal IDs are rapidly replacing traditional 'legacy identifiers' or native IDs, marking a significant transition in the programmatic industry. This shift underscores a broader move towards a more transparent, consent-driven approach, where user privacy is paramount. By leveraging Universal IDs, marketers can ensure that their strategies are effective and ethically aligned with the evolving consumer privacy expectations. But Universal IDs were developed mainly with Mobile and Desktop traffic in mind. What happens on other screens? There are additional - privacy regulation-compliant - identification methods that have emerged. One of them is mediasmart’s ‘Household ID’ which allows advertisers to segment any connected device within a household, including Connected TVs, and enables cross-screen targeting. 

The alternate way to deliver personalized and relevant advertisements without relying on individual user data is Contextual advertising. By understanding the device, placement, content, and additional factors, advertisers can infer whether or not their ad is more likely to have a positive reception. 

There have been exciting developments in this area. To further the industry understanding of the context in Connected TV, ‘Content’ was recently included as a value in the OpenRTB protocol, on its 2.6 version. Knowing where ads are placed empowers more complex strategies. The ‘prime time anytime’ principle CTV embraces is enriched by context: content, genres, keywords, and user behaviors. It ensures ads are delivered at opportune moments, enhancing relevance and engagement. The addition of cross-screen targeting maximizes the exposure and establishes a more holistic marketing. 

In the Digital Out-of-Home space, programmatic advertising can utilize contextual signals like location, weather, and time of day to deliver targeted messages to audiences in specific physical locations. This approach not only respects user privacy but also enhances the effectiveness of advertising campaigns.   

Aligning campaigns with the immediate context of the consumer experience, contextual targeting both in CTV and DOOH advertising stands out as a robust method for engaging audiences without compromising on privacy concerns. As advertisers adapt to a cookieless future, consent-based advertising emerges as a vital and effective strategy for targeted and responsible marketing.

3. The world of synchronization

Today's consumers have evolved beyond engaging with content, seeking information, or making purchases through multiple screens or mediums. Their habits now involve fluidly transitioning between various devices and platforms, presenting a complex challenge for advertisers in tracking and understanding viewing behaviors and preferences. This multi-device, multi-platform landscape signifies a shift in consumer behavior, necessitating more nuanced and dynamic advertising strategies to effectively reach and engage with audiences. 

Synced advertising, which seamlessly integrates Connected TV (CTV), Mobile, and Digital Out-of-Home (DOOH) advertising, is enabling omnichannel campaigns to create a more cohesive user journey. This approach leverages the strengths of each medium to deliver a comprehensive and engaging advertising experience.

The core of synced advertising lies in its ability to target users across different screens and platforms. By syncing ads from CTV to mobile devices, advertisers can extend the reach of their messaging. Our household sync solution allows advertisers to reach a viewer watching a show on CTV to receive a related ad on their mobile device, reinforcing the message and increasing the likelihood of engagement.

Similarly, ads displayed on DOOH platforms can be synchronized with Mobile advertising. When a consumer encounters a DOOH advertisement, they can later receive a related ad on their mobile device, creating a cohesive brand story and enhancing recall. Finally, bridging the gap between CTV and DOOH allows for a broader, yet targeted reach. Using geolocation, an ad campaign starting on CTV can be extended to DOOH screens in public spaces, ensuring visibility and consistency of the messaging across different environments.

But how do you track your ad performance?

Understanding the effectiveness of omnichannel campaigns hinges crucially on cross-screen measurement and tracking. Being able to follow user engagement across various channels like Connected TV (CTV), Mobile, and Digital Out-of-Home (DOOH) is invaluable. It not only sheds light on consumer behavior but also paints a detailed picture of the user journey. In this context, advanced tools such as CTV Sync and DOOH Audience Sync emerge as vital for advertisers. These tools provide a real-time window into the performance of campaigns, offering rich attribution and insights. They capture a spectrum of conversions from app downloads and web events to more tangible outcomes like store visits, thereby enabling a holistic view of how digital strategies translate into real-world actions.

The Future of Advertising

As we look toward the future of advertising in 2024, it's clear that the industry is poised on the brink of a transformative era. Driven by advancements in technology and shifting consumer behaviors, advertising is becoming more integrated, personalized, and data-driven. 

Ready to join the big screen revolution? Contact us today!