Billboard Insider asked Barry Frey, President of the Digital Place Based Advertising Association to talk about how place-based is coming back from covid.

Barry, can you give us an update on how the place based out of home market is coming back from Covid?

We see all of Digital Out of Home coming back in most regions for our global membership.   As our members are run the gamut from static ads to so many employing innovative digital best practices, we are now experiencing a spring awakening as vaccinations are rolling out. Holding companies are all predicting powerful double-digit growth for our sector and we know out of home traditionally bounces back faster than other media categories.

What place based sectors are coming back fastest?

This depends on each region and vaccine rollout plans. For example, Gas Stations, Point of Care, Moving Vehicles, Supermarkets saw limited decline during Covid.  As restaurants and bars are opening or increase capacity, we’re seeing those sectors come back heartily. Cinema theater capacities are growing and we’re seeing big box office numbers.  “For example …Godzilla has roared back”! We’re seeing business come back into office buildings, gyms opening and mall traffic continually increasing.  People are coming out! We are very heartened to see all of this.

Most interestingly, during Covid, Digital Out of Home and especially our programmatic members demonstrated to the global advertising community that agencies and brands could pause, pull and push schedules dependent on where audiences were without major contractual negotiations, time inefficiencies and much human involvement.  During Covid our programmatic, trading desk, data companies and media owner members wasted no time in connecting the pipes needed to launch our industry forward now that consumers are coming out of the house.

What place based sectors face more challenges?

Public transport has its challenges still, but everyday ridership (in New York City for examples) increases.  We just saw big numbers this week in fact. As back to office plans are announced, even partial ones, expect to see this grow.

You were named to the board of the Lamar Partnering Corp.  How did that come about and what do you expect to contribute to the company?

I’ve known the Lamar team for many years via my work at DPAA and was approached given my prior experience and work in DOOH. I’m looking forward to seeing where this collaboration goes.

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