Insider caught up with Chris Cowlbeck, CVO IBOUSA and OOH Chairman of the Media Rating Council on what he sees impacting OOH from artificial intelligence.
In my role with the Media Rating Council, I’ve had the opportunity over the past five years to watch the evolution of industry practices, data integrity, privacy, etc. while I participated in other committee audit functions in the digital world of Amazon, Facebook, Google, Pinterest, etc. It’s stunning to see the amount of money spent in these areas compared to our OOH industry share, as well as how stunning the 9X fraud and waste at $72b is being realized by the brands. Why is this important to the AI narrative? Time will tell, but garbage in, garbage out is an old computer saying, and when the computers get junk, they spit out junk. And their money is being pushed in an easy way to the junk heap and wasted. Our OOH lead should be to steer the herd back to solid, trustworthy, believable options in gentle, steady and absorbable ways.
What I find fascinating is that it’s really a change that we must embrace. Change from the way we have sold and the way the buy has been made. There has been a lack of confidence in measuring or comparing roadside OOH with a digital click, and clicking is certainly faster than anything OOH. Even digital programmatic takes a hit with all the creative variants necessitated by our display sizes. But we can improve where we can with great standards, traffic metrics and data awareness.
It’s encouraging to know that “a higher percentage of agency respondents (91%) and larger advertisers (92%) cited the importance of MRC accreditation” as cited in this MediaPost article (thanks Kevin Stuart, MRC TV Chairman for sharing). This means that the brands are certainly engaged in better data, and completely encourages me to continue the ground game to improve our core elements that can be built upon to drive revenues. We need to shout this message out, as TALON suggests in this article and foreshadows where we might be headed. This sets the stage on why we need to focus on getting the best, most clean and accurate data possible, and to try to absorb what technology is doing, try to grab the galloping horse by the saddle horn as it races by, and try to hang on for dear life as the bits and bytes fly past.
I’ve attended some unique conferences this year like the Google NEXT AI (for developers and recordings are free access now – not for the faint of heart) and the World Science Festival (all things theoretical physics) where some really off the charts speakers, completely unrelated to OOH, have given me some insights to look in odd places for direction. Here’s a list of videos and articles that you might find helpful in understanding the current state of AI looking back at 2023. Hang on, 2024 will be a rocket ride!
Most Applicable to OOH – Mark Boidman How AI Could Impact the Advertising Landscape | Billboard Insider™
On Creative Piracy – Google Google Rolls Out AI-Generated Ad Watermarks
A Cosmic View – World Science Festival AI: Grappling with a New Kind of Intelligence
Best of TED – The must-watch TED Talks on AI from 2023
Cathie Wood: Why AI will spark exponential economic growth | TED Talk
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