By Sam Mallikarjunan, CEO of OneScreen.ai
Out-of-home (OOH) advertising has never had more potential. The real-world medium is giving brands more options and more power to reach their audiences than ever before, at a time when many are burnt out on their go-to digital marketing tactics. Even with numerous recent advances in OOH, and despite being the only traditional ad medium that is still growing, the industry continues to operate below capacity with roughly 50% of all OOH inventory going unsold every month. How is this possible? Significant roadblocks are holding us all back from being the blockbuster industry we can be.
Even though most in the OOH industry would agree that working together benefits all, we tend to act completely contrary to that philosophy. A rising tide may lift all boats, but I want my boat to be bigger and to lift first and preferably at a greater height than the others, right? The problem with that thinking is the emphasis is on our individual businesses – one billboard company, one media agency, one vinyl provider, one OOH tech solution – rather than the common ground we all share: the customer.
When we compete against each other and carefully concoct and protect our sliver of the OOH pie, the result is a mismatched pastry that few want to eat. What would happen to the industry if we all worked together to deliver the best outcomes for anyone who wants to advertise, whether that means they use our company to deploy the campaign or not? What if we just want people to like pie and have a good and fulfilling experience eating it? The biggest competitor to a pie company is not a better pie, it’s a crappy pie because when people have a bad experience, they stop eating pie.
If a customer has a bad experience with a singular company during their OOH campaign, they likely won’t engage with the medium again, even with a different company. The loser in this scenario isn’t just the offending business; the loser is OOH. If we focus on what our customer truly needs – reaching beyond what we can individually offer – we’ll likely deliver a better, more successful experience. And good ad results plus a seamless experience keep them coming back for more.
If solving for the customer doesn’t get your fire burning, perhaps money will. Twenty years of the internet has taught us that companies that integrate with even direct competitors make more money. We should be integrating our tools – not trying to beat each other at our own game. It’s just a better way to make money. We can either continue competing over increasing our own slice of a small pie or we can increase the size of the pie much faster by working together – resulting in more business for everyone.
Plus, it’s not plausible for every company in OOH to build everything the industry needs. Why build all of the tools customers need to execute marketing campaigns in what’s already a rather complex medium? Why try to rebuild what somebody else has already done instead of simply integrating with their solution? A la film classic The Godfather, let’s have a Meeting of the Five Families and collaborate on who’s building what. Let’s share roadmaps. Let’s integrate the tools we have now to deliver the best possible solutions for all OOH advertisers.
Through countless open, honest conversations with OOH industry colleagues during OneScreen.ai’s first year of existence and beyond, we collectively decided that the best way to advance each of our businesses was to grow the OOH industry as a whole by working together. We’re committed to delivering what customers need to target audiences in the real world – in the best way possible.
When brands have a great experience with their OOH campaigns, we all win, because they’ll keep coming back. To grow the industry, let’s focus on working together to build a mutually beneficial ecosystem that this industry and everyone who interacts with this industry deserves – and then let’s celebrate; I’ll bring the pie.
Sam Mallikarjunan is CEO and co-founder of OneScreen.ai, the marketplace provider for buying and selling out-of-home (OOH) advertising. He was Chief Revenue Officer at Flock.com, Head of Growth at HubSpot Labs, and taught Advanced Digital Marketing, SaaS Economics, and Innovation Management at the Harvard Division of Continuing Education. He is co-author of the bestselling book, “Inbound Commerce – How to Sell Better than Amazon,” and is an avid podcast guest and industry speaker. Join his 40,000+ @Mallikarjunan followers on Twitter and 12,000+ on LinkedIn.
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