The world of media and its technologies is constantly evolving. As we've all seen and read ad nauseum, we are living in an age of digital disruption. We've seen new channels emerge, such as wearables, VR, AR and Voice Search, but we've also seen the evolution of existing channels as well. This includes Connected TV, which we've written about in the past, and Digital Out-of-Home (DOOH), an increasingly growing media platform that is poised for a big 2019.

Surviving in the era of digital disruption requires brands to be data-led rather than data-driven. This means seeing where things are trending with things like Digital OOH and taking advantage of these innovative technologies early on. The industry is in its 19th consecutive quarter of growth and is expected to double its market value to $26 billion by 2023. Additionally, 60% of advertisers already include DOOH in their budgets.

It should come as no surprise that this shift has occurred. The proliferation of digital ads on mobile, laptops, desktops, tablets, and more have begun to overwhelm users. According to eMarketer Pro, 71% of consumers say ads are more intrusive now than they used to be, and with many of them seeing more than 10,000 ads per day, their frustration is justified.

So what are the benefits of DOOH? To start, it appears on huge screens that do not disrupt viewing experience. Billboards, transit walls, city wayfinders, and Ubers are all examples of where a digital OOH ad could be seen. These ads are unskippable, brand-safe by nature, and are not thrust on users in the same way other digital ads often are.

It also gives brands the ability to effectively reach just about everyone in a given market. Out-of-home ads can be found almost anywhere. Research shows that 91% of U.S. residents 16 or older recall seeing some form of OOH advertising in the last month, and 71% of those people believed that these ads stood out more than online ads.

Lastly, DOOH gives brands the ability to reach an increasingly on-the-go audience and drive activity on connected devices. Because viewers of these ads are usually on-the-go and already consuming content on their mobile phones, they can easily search the product after seeing an ad for it. This is backed up by Nielsen data, which showed that digital OOH drove 2.7x more online activity than the next-closest traditional medium.

So what does the future hold? Programmatic buying will likely be what pushes DOOH over-the-top. Provider networks are starting to give unified metrics and tech specifications in a manner similar to digital, which would solve the measurement challenge that is always one of the biggest roadblocks that nascent media channels face.

This will allow brands to target in a much more granular way. The IAB describes three types of behavior that are currently utilized - visitation-based, which targets audiences who have been to a specific store or place of interest, web-based, which targets audiences who have visited a website or category of website, and TV viewing-based, which targets audiences who have viewed a TV show or category of shows. This data is linked to mobile devices for measurement purposes and can track the effectiveness of the ad through both IP location data and cross-channel attribution.

There is also developing WiFi and camera technology that is making it possible to collect and analyze anonymous data relating to demographics, mood, audience quantity, and more for people who have walked by one of these digital OOH ads. This could help transition OOH from the one-to-many medium it is to a more targeted platform in a way similar to what has happened with traditional and addressable TV.

Regardless of when this happens, digital OOH has been growing for years, and it's only a matter of time before it completes its evolution from traditional and takes its place next to the other forms of digital that dominate the market today.